Okay. So we are recording now. It is Wednesday, May 27, 2020. This is the Amherst conservation committee meeting. So I'm just pulling up my agenda, which I had open before. But to start off, there's no comments for me. So Dave is not here yet. So we'll have to wait for him. So Aaron, do you have. Do you want to start going through your stuff? Sure. Let me just get it queued up here and then I'll share. And hear anything. Nothing happening here. My kids outside screaming. So, and I've got neighbors moving out right next door testing. Smoke detectors and whatnot. So. My toddler is screaming upstairs. Aaron, you're not alone. So I'll just give you guys a quick, some quick updates. The first is that. We just got the last today. We just got the last ID from Laura. To do the notarization of our E signatures for. We've got a document that needs a notarization for our E signatures. So now that we have that afforded to that kick town clerk, literally like 20 minutes ago. Then once that's recorded notarized, I can take it to have it recorded at the registry and then we'll be all set, but it was voted in. So I think we're okay to proceed with voting on things and that everything moving forward will. I think that's a good point. I think that's still a good point. But is that official process is still underway. Did they decide on how we're going to actually do the E signatures? Are we going to. Are they going to do docks? I know they're going to something else or to be determined. That's still to be determined. I think. From what I understand on the DEP end of things, A note to the effect of e signatures. And then what I might do is, um, uh, attach the notarized document that we are, um, authorizing e signatures for the commission, uh, for permits, but I'll, I'll speak to the registry and I'll also speak to Dave Zomek, um, and see what other boards and committees are doing. Okay. And just so you know, uh, Dave is on at this point. Oh, good. Okay. Actually, maybe, um, Dave, do you know what other boards and committees are doing as far as, um, e signatures on permits, um, if we're doing like a docusign or if we're just, um, putting a notation that things are being signed electronically or. Hi, Aaron. Can you hear me? Yes. Um, hi everybody. Um, I don't know. Honestly, um, since the last concom meeting, I really, um, I haven't, uh, haven't thought much about that, but we can easily reach out to, uh, Chris Breastrop and others.  So there's still a lot of, uh, just kind of the way we used to do it. Um, I don't know what's happening, but, uh, we're using social distancing. So let's find out from other departments what they're doing. I just don't know off the top of my head. Okay. Sounds good. So stay tuned for that. Probably at the June 10th meeting, we'll have, um, everything recorded and then a better idea of kind of what our procedure will be on permits that we issue for, for, um, notices of intent or orders of conditions. I'm not as concerned or even electronic permits like, um, and rads because those are already, already have an electronic signature process through EDEP, um, where they can be filed electronically and issued electronically. It's more like determinations of applicability that I would be concerned with exactly what we're going to do to manage those. Um, we got a request for emergency certification from ever sourced for, um, pine grove. Um, they're what they were having an issue with a transformer, um, and a conduit coming out of the transformer shorting out. And they were going to do the replacement as a maintenance project, but, um, I had encouraged them to file it as an emergency certification just so that we could have a little more control with regard to like, having a plan in hand of exactly what they were doing. Um, that we could put conditions for erosion controls and, um, uh, just have something on paper showing where the wetlands are located. So they did file that with us and, um, Erin, I'm sorry. Where is pine grove? It is, um, the little condominium complex that is, um, if you're, I believe it's off old farms road. If you're going into Amherst woods, you go past that gall pond and it's on the left back there. Bear with me. Just one moment. Sorry. I had all these queued up and of course the minute I get on here, um, they're not queued. Um, pine grove. So they issued us this letter, allows me to see it. And, um, I haven't actually gone out to do a site visit yet, but there are photos. Um, so here's the plan. They have actually since updated this plan with to include erosion controls. Um, there's also the, um, transformer is now shown with erosion controls around it. And then I also asked them to show the existing conduit that's being abandoned, which is, um, right along the edge of this, the wetland that's shown sort of in the center of the map. So they did provide that. I can show you an update. And then these are pictures of the location where the work is taking place. And so I did issue that today. They're planning on starting work tomorrow to do the, um, installation of the new line. And. Switching between two screens. So bear with me here. Just a minute. Um, and then the update was in presentations, I believe. Oh, you know what? It's actually on my PowerPoint presentation. There it is. So you can now see where they added in some details, um, to show, um, this is the line that's being abandoned here, the erosion controls that are being installed, and then the transformer, and then the erosion controls around the transformer. So, um, I went ahead and issued this for them to do the work right away because it's shorting out in these folks are losing power. Um, and. Yeah, I just would ask that the board consider ratifying that. Emergency certification. So do you want us to do that now? Sure. I mean, as long as, yeah, as long as we're there, we might as well. Yeah. Okay. So looking for a motion to certify this. Make a motion to certify the emergency certification for, uh, pine. Pine Grove. Second. So all in favor. I still need to go through each individual and say. Yes, we do. Unfortunately. Fletcher. Hi. Jen. Hi. Larry. Hi. Brett. Hi. So unanimously passed. Okay. Do you want to maybe jump to, um, to Dave and his report now because that's the next items on my report are the. Heat haskens and the ag license. If Dave's ready and wants to jump into that. That sounds good. And then, yeah, seven 30s, our first, um, schedule time. So. Does that work for you, Dave?  I have a few, um, very minor things, but, um, there's not a lot in terms of other business to share. We have four hearings. So it's kind of just hearing heavy meeting tonight. Okay. I can try to be quick. I did want to just before we jump into Keith askings and, um, ag licenses. I just wanted to give a couple of quick. Bulleted updates as Aaron did. Just to give you a sense of, excuse me, what's going on out there. Um, So, um, Just to give you all a few things to think about and happy to answer questions tonight or by email or phone. So, um, we are grappling at the town level a little bit with the status of the, as you know, with COVID-19, uh, the governor did, uh, issue some new guidance on beaches, both coastal. Coastal beaches as well as, uh, lakes and ponds. So our goal is to try to open buffers in some fashion. I think, um, I'm targeting not this coming weekend, but probably the next couple of weeks. Um, and we would try to do it in, in the safest way possible. I'm noticing in the background that I'm in my son's, uh, room and, and there was something on the wall there. It looks like an art exhibit, but it's just, it was covering something. We took something down and, and, uh, never painted behind it. But anyway, um, so we're trying to open buffers bond in some, some, some form. Uh, in all likelihood, it'll be something like they're doing in New York city, even central park with the circles. And then the circles are where you should park your family or your, your towel. And then those circles will be 12 feet apart. So we'll probably be doing something like with water, soluble paints, uh, something of that sort. And, and, uh, go for a month like that. Um, I think we're going to get help from, uh, the police department in terms of helping with parking enforcement. Clearly this will, uh, not allow the density, um, that we're used to have buffers bond in the summer. It might really be on the main beach. It might be 25 to 30 circles. And on the beach across the pond, it might be enough. 25. So it's not going to be, uh, it's not going to accommodate, you know, 300 people. Um, so you'll see more of that coming out. I think in the newspaper. In a week or so. Um, but, um, corresponding to that is the fact that COVID-19 has so struck our budgets. That I'm not really sure I'm going to be able to hire a summer staff.  So right now it's just Brad and Tyler. And I've made it clear to the town manager that, you know, we can't operate buffers pond and take care of buffers pond without summer staff. So we're talking about whether we could bring on, um, a smaller summer crew to work on trails and buffers and, and, um, you know, kind of routine, routine projects. I think that's the theme. Um, we've had a lot of storm damage lately, these flashy storms coming through. I've taken down a lot of trees. Um, and in, you know, kind of a little microburst. Um, so Brad and Tyler have been very busy clearing trails and making sure that, um, for instance, I was on the Kevin flood trail a week ago. And I usually don't get very, worked up about widow makers. I, I kind of think of them as kind of a part of hiking in the woods. A couple on the Kevin flood trail that actually had me very worried. So, uh, they got out there and took those down quite, quite promptly. So I think it'll be a summer of mostly maintenance on the trail because we're not going to have four or five extra bodies. Working out there in the field with Brad and Tyler. So I think it's going to be a good idea. I think we're going to have a lot of work on the trail because we're not going to have four or five extra bodies. Working out there in the field with Brad and Tyler. So, um, that'll be a theme. Um, lots of beaver activity. Beavers are doing very well during COVID-19. Um, uh, I was out hiking at Podic and Catherine call sanctuary last weekend and boy, um, we lost a major trail, the trail and Podic. Yeah. So we need waiters to get through there now. I think we're going to, we're going to need to, we might have to need, we might have to have a site visit out there. It might not be bad to schedule that Aaron is just to talk it through with you all. Yeah. In that trail. Um, at the very least we're going to have to breach some dams. It's. Oh yeah. I have, I have a potential idea on that. Um, just, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't want to throw this out there while we're on the subject. Reintroduction of wolves or mountain lions. Well, I was talking with, um, Melissa Green from BSC who she's the one who brought the, um, NOI application for, before us for the Podic substation. And they actually, um, ever source you may recall, um, had to put in a new poll behind the substation. And, um, as part of that, they actually have to install a permanent access road, um, because the temporary access isn't going to be suitable for them to be able to access the poll for maintenance. And so she's looking for something she can do by way of mitigation, um, for that project to support the town. And she mentioned specifically the beavers across the street, because I had reached out to ever source about taking the dams down and they said they weren't, they didn't really, they weren't interested in doing it so much, but as part of a mitigation for their project, that might be something we could ask ever source to do. So just putting that out there. Yeah. Well, maybe let's, can we add that to a site visit in two weeks or something? Um, Yep. It doesn't take, it'd be a quick site visit because really it's a five minute walk to the dams or a five minute walk to the trail that is, um, the dams are being blocked. So either way. Would you want ever source rep to attend with us or just us? No, I think it's just us. I mean, we have a proposal for ever source, but we'd have to decide what is the proposal? Is it just to pay for trapping? I mean, that's, Yep. You know, that's pretty straightforward. But again, it would, you know, trapping on conservation land is a little bit higher bar historically for the department and for the commission. So I think we'd have to talk that through. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. So, um, Still waiting on other COVID-19 impacts, clearly the budget for the town. I think the town manager has kind of message that. 2020, which takes us through the end of June, we should be okay, but 2000, excuse me, FY 21 is going to be a very difficult year for the town because of all the drops in revenue across the board. Um, other quick updates. Um, Brett had asked me to look out at Wentworth farm. So I spent quite a bit of time out there. Uh, been out there twice. Um, we actually have at least two pretty significant encroachments. One, which is, um, there may be three, but the two that are most glaring, um, are off of Kestrel lane, broadly off of Kestrel lane. Um, one is when you turn the corner of Kestrel lane, there's some folks who've been doing some clearing toward the wetland, um, on their property and perhaps a little bit on our property. And then, uh, Brett had called my attention to these folks who really expanded their backyard. Um, and really. There's no fence line anymore between our property and their property and there's no vegetation. They've basically mowed right out to the edge of our property. So, um, I'm in the, in the process of writing. I met with the folks on the corner of Kestrel lane. I have not yet met with the people, uh, the other encroachment, but I'll meet with them and then basically I'll be writing both of them a letter saying what, what it is they need to do to restore our, uh, property lines, if you will. At the very least they just need to stop mowing, stop clearing, um, all of that. And, and nature just need nature will fill those in pretty quickly. Um, so I will keep you posted on, on both of those situations. There may be a third one to the West that I'm looking into as well. Um, let's see. Yeah. But thank you. Um, let's see what else is on the list in terms of projects. I mentioned tree clearing trails, trail heads. Um, Brad and Tyler, we're doing some, uh, routine maintenance on the dam at Epstein. Uh, recall that we are required to keep dams cleared of vegetation. Uh, by DCR dam safety. So, um, they do this in the watershed. Uh, I must admit we are not as good. We are not as good at that maintenance as DPW is. And we need to get better. So, um, that's something that, um, you know, is typically something that the summer staff would do, and they would just come in and make sure that you don't get woody vegetation growing on the, the upstream or the downstream face of a dam or a dyke. Um, let's see. They also did a little clearing of invasives at the Richie conservation area. Uh, next time you go by Richie, which is on Bay Road on the south side of Bay Road, there was a tremendous tangle of, uh, autumn olive and, um, um, some Japanese knot weed and, um, multiflora rows. And so a lot of that was really, um, uh, mowed down. Uh, let's see finally, Hickory Ridge. Um, uh, we are proceeding with Hickory Ridge. We're continuing to move through the ridge despite COVID-19. We are proceeding. As if we will purchase that property. Um, there's still some hurdles that we have to move through with the owners, but, um, all indications are, that, um, that will proceed. Sometime this summer. So, um, that's going to be a big nut for all of us if we. I think it would be a kind of a master planning process that I think the commission would have to be kind of deeply involved with because a lot of it pivots off the core of that property, which would be permanently protected. So there would be some land that might be developed on the frontage as we discussed, but the remainder of the property for the most part would be, would be preserved. Just to recall the numbers, it's 150 acres total. I think it would be 26 acres of solar, about six or eight acres of developable frontage. And then the rest of it is all estimated in priority habitat for rare species. And I have gotten quite a few reports actually out there of people seeing lots of wood turtles. It's really a pretty incredible place for the, the wood turtle populations along the Fort River moving up and down the river. So. Who's responsible for that? Initiating the planning. Well, a lot of it's going to pivot off of me, but I think the commission has to be a key player. We would, I think it would be the commission. I think it'd be the commission. I think the affordable housing trust would want to be at the table. Yeah. I think those would be the major players. And then lots of community members want. Express their interests or their hopes or their dreams for what Hickory would look like. If you go by there, you will notice that the course has grown up a little bit. But probably not playable anymore, but they are hiring staff. They're going to have somebody maintain it for the future. staff, they're going to have somebody maintain it for the next couple of months. Not as golfable, at least so it doesn't grow up. People are playing it, but there's not a lot of dandelions. A lot of dandelions, good, good bee habitat, good pollinator habitat. So yeah, there's probably more dandelions that have been been there and more today than there have been in the last 50 years. So around town. What's going on? Thank commissioners have any questions for Dave at this point? So actually, I do have a quick question. Sorry, Dave, you actually reminded me the widowmaker. I was just riding my bike by who do I call? I guess it'd be DPW on Pine Street by the bus stop. A big oak has split. You couldn't see it unless you're really looking. And it's a big limb. And it's probably it's definitely going to fall on the road sidewalk road and possibly the power line. What do you call for that? Sure. Where about Susan Fletcher? If you go down northeast street and take a left on Pine Street, so go in west, past State Street on your right, there's that bus. There's a little new poll in for the bus stop. Right there, right past the bus stop. You look up, you'll see a huge oak and it just it's recently just split. Okay. And that big limb is coming. It's coming down. Yeah, I'll be I actually have another meeting to go on to in a few minutes. But while I'm with you all, I'll send a quick email to DPW. But just in the future, DPW on their website has a feature called C click fix. And any resident you can it's a free down app on your phone. And if you see anything out like a catch basin open or a clogged catch basin or a tree that's damaged, or whatever, you know, a dangerous pothole, you can actually just send them a message on C click fix from their website. And it goes into a system, it gets assigned to somebody and then you get an email back for a text back saying it's been resolved. We're actually thinking about getting on board with that with conservation. So you can do the same thing as report on a trail condition, a beaver problem or beaver flooding or a tree down or something like that. So C click fix. Yeah, it could be a lot of work. I don't want to be on the receiving end of that one of C click fix. Yeah. Well, it's a good idea. I hear you. They're ready to get a lot of two questions for you regarding Puffers. So one, once all of those spaces are allotted, nobody's gonna be allowed in. So that's the first question, I assume. And then are there going to be time allotments?  Or are people going to be requested to when it's full to only be an hour? I'm not sure what the right time is, but that's a great question, Brett. And boy, I don't know the answer. I've been looking around a little bit online. And there's all sorts of different, you know, from coastal beaches to ponds and lakes. There are some who don't have any limits, you know, you go to whatever beach on the Cape and you can park there all day, as long as you stay 12 feet away from your next closest neighbors.  You said you arrived at three. It's almost like chalking a tire in a town and say you've parked there too long. So I don't see how we can do that. The challenge is we're probably going to have a parking attendant. You may have noticed we dropped off Jersey barriers on State Street. We're probably gonna have somebody from the police department, parking enforcement, standing there saying, okay, there's 25 spaces available, let's say hypothetically. And there's three open right now. So the next three cars can come in. But the three after that, you're out of luck. You can't come because there's no room on the beach for you. So it's going to be a logistical challenge to manage this for I hope it's not going to be the whole summer. I hope I hope we're going to maybe some of this stuff will ease up in a month. So it might just be for the month of June, say through July 4. So it's not going to be perfect. And I think we're going to have a lot of unhappy people. Did you have another question, Brett? No, that was kind of a two part, but you answered both of them. So I'm good. Thank you, Dave. But it's it's a challenge. Do we want to move into sensitive to time here for you all? So wanted to talk a little bit about Keith Haskins. So on both Keith Haskins and the Ag licenses, I wanted to just talk through these tonight and then give you some time to think about it. I'm not looking for any signatures or votes tonight. Keith Haskins is the property and Aaron, I don't know if you can tee up the map. Was there a map with Keith Haskins? I think there was. Let's see if that. So Keith Haskins is the property we recently purchased from the Coles family. Yeah, my internet is freezing here a little bit. Aaron, do you want to grab that? If not, I think I have access to that as well. Yes, I'm pulling it up right now. Can you guys see my scale? So very quickly, everybody see that? So very quickly, this is the property we purchased from Coles. We got a land grant $400,000 land grant to help pay for the property. And we're in the process of putting the required conservation restriction on the property. This is something that is required by the state by state law if you use CPA funds and then and so we need a third party to hold the CR. That third party is the Castro trust. The document is a pretty standard document. The exception to this if you looked at it at all, is that the raw water line from Atkins Reservoir goes under or through, if you will, this property, the length of this property. So what we had to do was reserve the right or DPW to maintain that waterline and perpetuity. So the most unique thing about this conservation restriction is providing access and the ability of the town, if you will, through DPW to maintain the raw waterline, which takes water from Atkins Reservoir to the treatment plant and push men and then into our system to serve the residents of Amherst. Other than that, the conservation restriction, you know, it allows, it allows with permission, it allows management of the property trails. It allows timber management, if that's something the town wanted to do in the future. It prohibits all the things you would think from tennis courts to large structures, cell phone towers, etc. etc. So I don't think there's there's too many other moving parts to it. That's the main feature is that waterline going under the property. It's about a 10 inch waterline. So that's the Keith Haskins conservation restriction. What I'd like to do is see if the commission would take a vote on it in two weeks. Is that same reasonable? You're all kind of freezing on me. I don't know if it's my internet. I could certainly put it on the agenda. I do. I'm freezing up a little too. Yeah. So anyway, let's, if we can put that on the agenda for two weeks from now, and if anyone has your reading through that document, it's pretty standard, as I said, boilerplate the state. We use a state boilerplate, we make some adjustments, as I said, for things like the waterline. And then the rest of it is pretty, pretty straightforward. We want to protect the property and perpetuity. And the state wants to make sure the town doesn't do anything. So they have a third party, watch us and perpetuity. And in this case, it's the Kestrel Trust. So that's that. So moving along to my included two documents, I think that Aaron just forwarded to you today. I apologize. They got to you so late. But I don't know, Aaron, can you punch up the ag use policy? So let me tell you where we are. We've Stephanie Chickarello, while she's doing that, Stephanie Chickarello and I have had multiple conversations and site visits with Ryan Carb. He is all set to go on his two parcels that he is licensing from the town. One is Askins Meadow out on East Leavitt Road. And the other one is Amethyst Brook. He's been on, he's been using Askins Meadow for a number of years. But what I wanted to do is just give the commission, he's fine. He's in a good place, I think on all of this. And I'll tell you a little bit more about Amethyst Brook in a minute. But I just wanted the commission to see that the agricultural licenses are based on and linked back to this document you see before you this Amherst Conservation Land Use Policy and the recommendations for ag use. So anybody who licenses land from the town through you has to accept this policy. And this is kind of our guiding document. I think once we get through this with Ryan, which is pretty simple, straightforward. I think sometime during 2020, we should reopen this and have a fuller conversation to see where we are with with this policy, see if there are updates we might want to make. There are some interesting things in there that the conservation commission, this was adopted, I think back in 2011. It's been a while, nine years, nine, 10 years. But you may have some different input and different feelings about things like fencing, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, things of that sort. So I just wanted to put that in your back so you could see that's what we base the licensing on and anyone who licenses has to really accept that they're going to follow this policy. The license that's in your back, it is a pretty standard license. It was drawn up by Coleman and Page, our attorney, and it covers everything from liability to insurance. It's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty legalistic. But Ryan, really, we didn't make any significant changes. I provided you with a boiler plate. So again, at your next meeting, we'll have individual licenses for both one for one for Haskins Meadow and one for Amethyst Brook. Just specifically on Amethyst Brook, Ryan is is all set to go there. Stephanie Ciccarello from my office is working closely with him. We're going to have 10 plots at Amethyst Brook. They're going to be marketed first to the people who are already gardening at Amethyst Brook. You may recall that there's actually seven other gardeners at Amethyst Brook. So a couple of them are going to move over to these new plots. And Ryan is going to do some education and outreach to them. And he's going to mentor them as the season goes on. So we'll have 10 new plots at Amethyst Brook. And then we'll discontinue the other plots that are kind of in the way and have caused quite a bit of friction between dog owners and and gardeners at Amethyst Brook. So I think in terms of length of license, I think you voted, I think you wanted to give Ryan a one year trial at Amethyst Brook to start off. And then we could renew and extend that next year. And I'm recommending five years at Haskins Meadow. So I think why don't you take a look at the boilerplate? We'll we'll fill in all the blanks with Ryan, the location, any of the specifics between now and next meeting. And then, you know, we would take it to a vote at your next meeting. Practically speaking, he's on both pieces of property now and, you know, beginning farming operations. So that's kind of where we are with those two. Dave, would it be helpful to have Ryan attend our next meeting? Yeah, that'd be fine. We can invite him to participate in the Zoom. And then you all can ask questions. If you, yeah, but I think he's, we had a conversation with him a week, week and a half ago, and he seems to be in a very good place. Yeah. So why don't we invite him, Erin? You can remind me if you'll invite him. And that'll be the night to kind of notify everything. I'm losing, I'm not hearing what people are saying. Yeah, I mean, from what I've seen, it seems like things are going very well with you. Yeah, we're always a little slow on this end, but Ryan, practically speaking, is out there. Stephanie Ciccarello and Angela Mills in the town manager's office have been in contact with all the gardeners at Amethyst Brook, and they're going to work with Ryan on getting the plots rented, if you will, the 10, the 10 new spaces. There'll be 20, I think they're 20 by 20, if I'm not mistaken, which is pretty big, actually. Are we still on this? I'm losing you all. Okay, that sounds great, Dave.  So I'm just gonna maybe I'll turn mine off as well. Maybe that'll help. Yeah, sounds good. So I think, Erin, you can move back into your regular agenda. Okay, thank you, Dave. So are there any other questions for Dave before we move on? And I'll be, I'll be here for a while. Okay. Thank you, Dave. So at this point, why don't we move on to our 730 agenda item? And so I saw that Bucky is here. So Bucky, I will promote you to panelists. If there's anybody else from the public who is here, who is for our 730 Winston Court hearing, if you can just raise your hand in Zoom, and then we can promote you to panelists. Okay. Okay. So let me just formally open this. This meeting is being held as required by provisions of Chapter 131, Section 40 of the General Laws of the Commonwealth and Act relative the protections of wetlands as most recently amended the town of Amherst Protection by law.  Well, let me start with Erin first, Bucky. So Erin, how is this different than what we've seen before? And then I'll ask Bucky to give a short presentation. Sure. So you guys might recall a couple months ago, Bucky had come before us to basically get some guidance on whether it would be acceptable for him to file an RDA or if he should be filing an NOI, because he's basically repaving an existing footprint and not making any, you know, substantial, there's no, there's no change to impervious surface. So it's kind of a gray area as far as the Wetland Protection Act is concerned. So he had proposed filing it as an RDA, and he had come before the board to get our guidance on that. And the board was in favor of him filing it as an RDA. So that's what he has filed and submitted to us. And that's what he's presenting to us today. From what I understand, the scope of the project has actually been reduced quite a bit, particularly within the jurisdictional riverfront areas, because they decided not to pave the area, repave the area closest to the river. They're just sticking to the area that's more on the upland side of the of the condominium complex. So that's the back story. And I'll stop there. Thank you, Erin. So yeah, because I remember this came before us and I'm just trying to kind of get everything straight. And so, Bucky, I hope that Erin didn't steal too much of your thunder, but if you will introduce yourself and give a brief overview of the project, that'd be great. Sure. My name is Bucky Sparkle. It says so on the screen tonight. It's kind of nice. I have a name tag, I guess. And I was up in January to get a little guidance on this project. Erin did a wonderful job in summarizing that previous meeting and the discussion thereof for Winston Court. And since January, we finished the design. The owner made some tweaks in that they're reducing the amount of area that they're looking to rework. Everything's being done, basically replacing it in place. At the time of the RDA meeting, there were requests made for me to look at opportunities to either reduce the amount of storm water runoff from the site and or improve the quality of the runoff. The site was built in the late 60s, early 70s, so that's exactly zero BMPs in place. And the owner Hampshire property management group is really great to work with, my favorite clients, because they just want me to do the right thing every time and they often go above and beyond what's required. And here again, they said, yes, Bucky, do whatever you can. And I took a look at it. Unfortunately, the soil situation is it's thick, wet clay for the most part on this site. So we don't have a lot of opportunities to get water underground. And what I'm going to do is share my screen and bring up the plan so that you don't have to look in my office anymore. And we can start pointing at the things that are really important here. Bucky, click. So hopefully now you're able to see the plan for the site. I'm going to zoom in just a little bit here and focus on just the resource areas and what we're talking about. Hopefully you can follow along with the cursor. So on the very left side of the screen, there's a little bit of the Fort River that was flagged and located. Ward Smith did this location. He was picked up by our surveyors. And the 200-foot river front is this dotted blue line. The wide green line are wetland flags. As you can see, they're relatively close to the site. And the narrow green line is the 100-foot wetland buffer.  They were going to consider repaving rather just resurfacing the back portion of the site, but it's really not critical. So they're going to save some money and not worry about that. And really the area, the site that's subject, well, what we're doing is the area is in gray. We're repaving. So that is on the east side and on the south and west side is this area that we're repaving. And I did bother to highlight the spaghetti nest of sidewalks that are existing that are being removed and replaced. This area in the sort of pink bubble is the area subject to the Wetlands Protection Act, although we are considering the whole site as one project, of course. And in terms of what I've been able to do for BMPs, there are two existing catch basins that collect runoff from the pavement. They're the only catch basins in the road for this project. So one down here, one here. So my screen says my internet connection is unstable. Are you still hearing me? Can somebody confirm? Is this thing still on? I can still hear you. Oh, I got a thumbs up. Great. Yeah, I got a funny message and said I'm unstable. Oh, okay, okay, great. Just start waving if I really do fade out. So anyway, so the two catch basins, we are retroactively installing a product that involves a small catch, as well as filters that filter the runoff from the pavement in the parking area. And these filters themselves, they're fairly inexpensive. They're just 40 bucks a pop. They get replaced every year. And they're going to stop 80% of total suspended solids from going downstream, which is a really nice benefit to the environment. So we're making a market improvement to the water quality by installing these filters. Additionally, the best I can do for the volume is install a dry well in this location. There aren't a lot of places where we could do it, where we're not going to cut into clay and or the existing groundwater. So I have to keep it as high on the site as possible. And the front half of all of the buildings go to downspouts. The downspouts currently all drain into the pavement and then into these catch basins and then directly to the wetland. So what we're doing is we're collecting all of the roof water by these orange lines. This is the collection system and bringing it to a dry well. So smaller rain events. So we're talking like, you know, less than an inch of rain, but those are the most common events. Those are going to feed the dry well and actually we're not even going to be discharging roof water at least to the wetland in those cases. Of course, whatever runs off the pavement is still going to go that way, but it will be filtered. And for larger events a dry well will get filled up. It will overflow and then continue off to an existing drainage system, which of course connects downstream. So we are able to improve both the water quality for the runoff with the filters in the basins and reduce the volume of runoff by taking the roof area and installing it into a dry well before, you know, in large rain events it goes downstream. So those are the improvements that I've been able to fit on the site. Definitely, you know, and especially with the filters, it's a nice addition to what's heading downstream. Otherwise, we're just going to rip stuff up that was put in the 60s and put it back. I do show on this plan, the dash red line here, we are installing sediment logs on the downgradient side of all the work and creating a little flat area because any runoff that misses a catch basins that's below it ends up in this spot. So I'm making sure to catch that in a level area. This type of project, the disturbance of the pavement removing and replacing it, it's really just a few days worth of work within a week so the contractor shouldn't have heavy weather events to manage because they can predict the weather with a few days out. The sidewalk work, that's going to take a little more time. Only a little bit of it is within the jurisdiction, but all of that is protected from erosion by either, well, both running over a grass area for a little while and then eventually the sediment logs downstream. So that's the summary of the project as well as the BMP is in place and I'm opening it up to the commission to talk about it. Thank you, Bucky. Yeah, that's some really nice improvements and great to see all of that. So Erin, was there a site visit here today? Yes, there was. I am going to steal the screen share if that's okay at this point. Yep. Let me know when you guys can see it. Oh, we can see the Haskell property at this point, Erin. Just took a second. Can you see the photos now? Yes. Okay, so the area that Bucky referenced that where the parking area is in a portion of it's in riverfront and buffer zone. The first photo on the left is standing in that area and then looking back up toward, is that Harkness Road? Gatehouse. Gatehouse road, excuse me, up towards Gatehouse Road. And then the photos on the left or on the right rather are the locations where the dry well, approximate location where the dry well would be situated in front of the complex. And then this side is the other side of the pavement going down that's outside of jurisdiction but just to kind of show you guys what it visually looks like. Thank you. There wasn't any really substantial concerns from my perspective. They're not expanding impervious surface. So there's no trigger for needing a storm water management plan and they have what appeared to be adequate erosion controls in place. So I didn't really have any standout issues with it. Sounds good. So do any of the commissioners have any comments or questions? Quick question. Bucky, what's the deal with the filters? They have to be, you said they're like 40 bucks or something so they require a lot of maintenance. Or like annually. Just annually. Yeah, it's a pretty minor thing. I'm going to recommend to the manager that they do inspections quarterly for the first year. I think it's a small enough area that they probably won't even have to change the filters every year but I'm still going to recommend that as a minimum amount of time. If this were a shopping mall or grocery store I'd want them to swap them out more frequently but the reality is very few people park in this area. The residents all park in the back. It's just for the occasional guests but people do certainly drive through here. And I think the biggest pollutant right now is the asphalt itself as it deteriorates as you can see in Erin's photo that's getting washed downstream right now. So repaving in and of itself is actually going to be a benefit to the environment in this case but yes those filters I've started to rely upon them pretty heavily. I love them dearly. I'm going to hope I keep loving them in five years after I get feedback from my clients over the last few years that I've been recommending them. I think that they're a pretty especially in space limited areas. They're a great way to capture suspended solids. You can get even fancy ones just so you know that can do different limitations. So if you have TMLDs just not for this project you don't need but if you need to reduce one chemical or another they do make ones that are specific to different environmental pollutants. And Bucky is that captured on the plan or in some other documentation or should that be in order of conditions? It is on the plan. It's called out on the plan specifically on the structure schedule and there are details. If you'd like I could share the screen again. It may not be terribly informative but I'm happy to point that out. Nope as long as it's documented somewhere that works for me. So thank you. Anybody else have any questions before I open it up to the public? Okay so if there's people here from the public I haven't been on one of our Zoom meetings before. Now is your chance to ask questions. There is a little toggle switch where you can raise your hand and if you do so Aaron or I will hit the allow to talk button and you can ask your comments. So this is pretty straightforward one though I think. Okay so not hearing one. Not hearing anything else from the commission I think we're looking for a motion at this point and Aaron had the language for that one on one of her slides. So I'll make a motion for a positive determination on Winston Court repaving. Seconded. Can you hear that? So I just want to make sure it's positive under the local bylaw but negative under the Wetland Protection Act. Okay I was confused because I was just reading verbatim there and I was like okay yeah so positive determination of the local bylaw and a negative determination under chapter 131. Seconded. Thank you. So why don't we go ahead and we'll start the roll call vote. So Jen. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi. LaRoy. Brett. Hi. So we are good at this point Bucky. So thank you. Anything else that we need to do at this point Aaron? No I think that that is that's all set for for that project. We can move on to the next one. Thanks Bucky. I'm sure I'll see you again sometime. Thank you Bucky. You're welcome. Have a good night. Okay so I have 757 so we are good to move on to our 745. This is a notice of intent. Oops I have the wrong document open. Okay so this hearing is being held is required by provisions of chapter 131 section 40 the general laws of common of the Commonwealth enact relative to the protections of wetlands as most recently amended in town of Amherst bylaw. This is for a notice of intent for the common school that's also being presented by Berkshire design group for 521 South Pleasant Street. And so Michael Lu you are now a panelist is there anybody else here Michael or do you know if there's anybody else here who is for this or if there is somebody else here just raise your hand and we can make you a panelist as well. Okay so not seeing any Michael the floor is yours if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself. Can you hear me? Can you guys hear me? We are good. Yes okay great um so I will get started um I just have I'm only gonna put up two images to talk about the the site and give you an introduction to the project and then opening up for questions. I have the site plans available if you need to if you want to ask any detailed um questions about the design or so forth but um if um and I apologize this is my first virtual zoom me municipal meeting so bear with me but I've got the um if you I guess if I get control I can put the images up for you. You should go ahead share and also just Michael if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself. Oh um sure hold on a second. All right I'm Michael Lu with the Berkshire design group um I'm with the I'm working for the common school um to do a paving project as you might know some of the the driveway is paved from South Pleasant Street into the site there's a gravel turnaround and the proposal is to repave the driveway which is kind of in rough shape and then to pave the gravel turnaround as a result of doing this we're actually decreasing the impervious area on the site by taking away some of that gravel and excuse me the central area is going to be turned into a rain garden um to handle the the runoff from the paved turnaround. Okay hold on a sec. All right can you see that image? Yes. All right so this is just an this is just an aerial view of the site South Pleasant Street is um over on the left hand side as you're viewing it you come into the the site the driveway is paved to about the beginning of the turnaround here and then the rest of this is gravel and it's kind of as you might be aware it's kind of uncontrolled I think the users that come to the site know how to maneuver and where to park etc but the gravel you know it gets moved around and they do a pretty good job of maintaining it but there's like undefined parking spaces and this is actually going to clean you know clean that up for them. In case you need some more more orientation these are the two main buildings to the common school over here on the left this is a small garden area where there is a discharge from an existing catch basin that is in the gravel right about where the the hand is here there's a pipe that discharges out under this little gray rectangle is a deck a wood deck small wood deck with a shed roof and the the outflow from that catch basin actually discharges under this deck so it's hidden they they built this deck I don't even know when many many years ago um let's see if I can get the other all right so this uh rendered site plan um shows the proposal uh the the kind of blue area down here is south of the site are wetlands which extend at the base of the hill right here and then extend under the existing boardwalk to large hill and then there's wetland here south of the former Hitchcock center building there's a a wetland finger that extends up into the site um and then as you enter um from south pleasant street there are two isolated wetlands a small one to the north here that's basically a drainage swale that discharges through a pipe here at the property line into an existing catch basin at the street and then there's another isolated wetland to the south of the driveway here well below a couple feet below the driveway that probably goes over the property line into the lawn area of this um residential property the common school formerly owned this property and they sold it but they maintained this rectangular strip of land and combined it with the main parcel um because they still um use this barn for storage and so they wanted to maintain that barn structure um so as you come in basically we're proposing to pave the driveway in its exact location it wouldn't change um the width wouldn't change along the south side of the driveway from about the property line to just before the the shed there's a batuminous berm that controls the water currently runoff basically flows from north to south you know in this direction but the berm prevents the runoff from going over the edge of the pavement into the wetlands and it directs flow um out to south pleasant street where um it basically goes into the gutter line of south pleasant street and there's an existing catch basin down here about 60 or 70 feet to the south of the driveway we're we're not proposing to do anything there but repave the driveway maintain the berm that's the way it's been for the past 12 or 13 14 years or so um the berm is still in pretty good condition but the driveway as I mentioned has um you know taken a little beating there's potholes it's heaved a little bit etc so it needs a new paving job um and then we're going to continue the paving around the turnaround here it's still going to be maintained as a one-way loop but we're actually able to get some more green space in the center um by defining the edges of pavement and where cars can drive we're still maintaining the existing parking um configuration with with cars parked here along the east side and south side there's four handicap spaces proposed on the west side here that's currently how they function we're just defining you know where the parking is but as I mentioned this green space in the center is getting larger so we're turning that into a rain garden the pavement from about this point on um around the turnaround is all pitched inward toward the rain garden we're going to take that um existing catch basin which is right about here uh and it's going to become instead of being in the gravel it's going to be within the green space within the rain garden we're going to all uh adjust the frame of that up a little bit higher about four inches higher and that's going to function as an overflow for the rain garden which holds about an eight inch depth of water before it would overflow into the drain structure and then out the pipe so in this fashion we're actually going to we're actually going to decrease the amount of water that's flowing through the pipe because it's going to have a chance to get treated and infiltrate in the rain garden before it's discharged through the pipe here under the that deck we are proposing to get to pull up the boards of the deck and put some rip wrap stone at the outlet because right now water's flowing out in a kind of an uncontrolled manner it kind of leaks out and kind of flows to the southeast and then you know off the property and ultimately you know would end up in this wetland to the so as i mentioned we are decreasing impervious by about 550 plus square feet it's a nominal amount but it is a decrease and technically um because of the decrease in impervious we're not even required to do stormwater treatment but the administration really likes the idea of a rain garden we do have plants proposed in there a number of native trees and shrubs we have a recommended pollinator and perennial plant list that they're very excited to have the kids and the parents of the kids do those plantings so they want to they like having this the idea of having this feature and using it for educational purposes and it goes along with the you know the curriculum that they have at the common school dealing with you know nature and conservation etc so i think that's a you know that's a really great thing we always want to you know put these features in and we hope that they're used for education but in this particular instance i think that you know it will actually function that way um there's another piece that we're also adding i just wanted to mention that previously when we had looked at this site a couple of years ago um with a with a proposed new building the fire department did want a um to pave um an emergency drive that as far back as we could um we're and we're showing that pavement right there currently as you might know there's kind of like this gravel you know path that goes up the hill and then levels out at the top so we're proposing to basically formalize that with a with a paved driveway um and then we're also proposing to move the dumpsters here where a dump or a trash truck could drive in and pick it up you know and then back out currently the dumpsters are located right here as you come into the site there is a piece of wood fence that screens it but it's kind of like an unsightly place to have a dumpster and it also helps them out you know because they'll be bringing refuse or whatever to the dumpster they don't have to like walk all the way over here to the corner across you know across the the turnaround they can just get on this walk and get to the dumpster basically on the same side of the driveway or roadway if you will excuse me um i think that's about it um i'd like i said i i don't have i'm not going to show any of the detail plans the grading plans but we can look at them if you have any questions and i guess at this time i'd like to open it up to the commission for comments and questions yeah thank you michael um so i have a couple of comments or questions but um first erin do you have any pictures or else you want to share all right i was on mute steal the screen back can you guys see my screen all's i see is a zoom screen from a web browser okay does that look a little better it does now we see your powerpoint okay great um so some of my photos didn't make it and i apologize um these are these are the photos out by the road i i tried sending it to myself multiple times because the camera the conservation department camera lost batteries partway through so i used my personal phone but it wouldn't send them to me because they were too large this is the driveway coming in um and this is one of the catch basins at the end of the road uh at the end of the driveway rather on um 116 pleasant south pleasant street um as far as uh comments uh will with myself and loroy out on the site so i don't know if loroy has any comments but um basically my comment was that during construction that they would need to provide inlet protection for the catch basin that's in the center of the current gravel turnaround um to make sure that it's covered and that material doesn't get into it to damage it or block it up during construction and then um protection at the outlet as well during construction to make sure that no material makes it through into the catch basin and then out of the catch basin and into the wetlands but the locations of the erosion controls uh made a lot of sense based on the topography um so i don't think that there's going to be any problem with material getting beyond erosion controls during the paving process thank you erin so any commissioners have any comments or questions we're fine with adding we're we're fine with adding um protection inlet protection um that makes a lot of sense during construction uh we we are we do show um silt sock at the around three sides of that wood deck area so that'll be maintained during construction to control any sediment that might get into the pipe um you know and and flow out of that that outlet Dave you have your hand raised yeah thanks brad i had a couple of questions for mike um mike one question i had i was glad to hear that the center um rain garden will you know provide some infiltration so historically the catch basin that is near the the turnaround for the common school that pipe goes kind of due south and it ends up discharging i believe and correct me if i'm wrong i believe it ends up kind of discharging and then there's overland flow under the conservation boardwalk there for large hill is that right yes once once the discharge leaves that pipe it kind of it flows overland then under the existing wood boardwalk and then continues you know obviously south word to the to the larger wetland um beyond to the south yeah i guess this is more of a comment i am i'm hoping that the design will provide more infiltration on the common school's property because i know historically that's been a challenge of that runoff coming from the dirt or crushed stone right g turn around and you know there's been some volume coming under there i know we've had problems with water kind of either eroding or overtopping or impacting the the boardwalk there so i just wanted to raise that as a little bit of a cautionary flag that we need to keep an eye on that during construction post construction to make sure that there really is infiltration and that you know for some reason we don't get more runoff going to south um impacting that that boardwalk the other question i had for you is there is a conservation restriction on the common school's property has that been discussed as part of this project at all no it has not um not to mind well i haven't discussed that at all with the with the school or its consultant and by the way kevin kevin cambell um is an educational consultant who was supposed to be on tonight i don't know if he whatever had trouble connecting or anything um it wasn't intended that he'd make a presentation or anything but um he might be able to talk about that specific issue yeah you may want to ask him because there is a conservation restriction on the common school's property i i believe it limits the amount of impervious surface that can be on that parcel um i'm not exactly sure how the how the crushed stone turnaround or crushed gravel existing turnaround whether that's considered impervious or not well i guess from previous Campbell is here hi kevin or i see he's there um in Amherst the town considers um gravel as impervious just like pavement and we we mentioned i mentioned this out when at the site visit i mean it does have a slightly lower um runoff coefficient an asphalt but you know 0.9 versus 0.95 for asphalt so i mean water does run off that you know almost at the same rate if you will as asphalt so we've always when working in Amherst it's always considered impervious and we include that in the in the calculations you know for um a lot coverage etc that's what we're required to do in Amherst so reducing the amount of impervious area you know is going to be a benefit to the to the run us to the site you know we'll get we're going to get treatment in the rain garden get a little infiltration out of the rain garden so overall there's going to be an improvement and reduction and it should be a reduction or runoff from the site yeah no i i just raised the the issue just so your client is kind of aware that you know once the circle is paved and then you pay the the walkway in the back toward where you're going to put the dumpsters which i think are all improvements um that kind of uh memorializes a percentage of the whole lot being impervious so if there was an interest in the common school expanding in the future yeah right all of that where square footage which would decrease the amount that the common school could expand in the future but anyway i just put it out there that they may want to look at that restriction and just make sure they're you know they're they're on board with that and and any impacts and but again i'm not opposed to what's being proposed i think it's an improvement i think moving the dumpster out there is a great aesthetic improvement as well Dave can you hear me kevin campbell hear you kevin um Dave i only want to respond almost with a a quip that uh this project started in 1999 and so i'm not envisioning uh well at least not when you and i and all of us are sitting around them them looking for more expansion in the next and this is what we got but we will definitely make sure i appreciate the the um the awareness check that they know what they're buying thank you so one question i had for you michael was in regards to semi-pervious paving um so i assume that that i think i know the answer um but i assume that that's probably inappropriate for the primary parking area is there a role for that in that access in the fire access or not really um you know that that's a that's a good point bret um i don't i don't think it's inappropriate to use that kind of maybe pervious type pavement up there um it does have to be you know maintained in the winter obviously so you're going to get some plowing of that surface but um you know overall there's going to be i mean i mean there's going to be no traffic there you know the only thing that's going to be up there is is the a trash truck and god forbid if there's a a fire emergency and you know truck or ambulance or something has to get up there but the general public is not going to be driving on it um i guess that's a question i'd have to pose to the school though they one of the deals that one of the parents um at the school is donating the pavement so they're getting a really kind of good deal on obviously you know finishing you know giving the surface a hard the driving surface something hard to drive on so obviously the impervious you know even though it's a nominal amount it would still add some cost to the project um if it's something that you know you really want us to look into we can we can talk it over with the school and maybe you know give it some consideration yeah i'm not i mean through the history i'm not okay um okay so are there other commissioners who have questions or comments if not i'll open up to the general public okay so again if there's somebody here from the general public who would like to ask a question or make a comment if you just raise your hand and we will call on you okay so not hearing any um so anything else from the commissioners do we want more information um do we want i'm okay without the the semi-pervious piece um you know as long as you want to bring that back to them michael that's fine by me but all right i mean or yeah i think that could be a minor a minor amendment that is considered later if they decide they want to incorporate incorporate that that seems like it could be something easily modified that works for me thank you erin okay um so i'm not hearing anything um again this seems like it's pretty straightforward it feels like there is a reduction so that's great um the rain garden is a great thing um as what dave was saying yeah we do have to make sure it actually functions which i'm sure it will but you know appropriate monitoring i'm sure will happen are there any specific conditions besides the other ones that you mentioned erin that we need to have um let me just go back to my power point sorry um these were the ones that i had um that i had listed just to well i think we should include our standard boiler plate that we include for all of our um orders of conditions but then in addition to that recommend inlet protection for the catch basin and the gravel turnaround during construction um outlet protection um and then um the erosion controls are fine i think as proposed okay so i see people nodding and i'll assume that people i don't see are nodding as well okay so if that is the case we are looking for a motion for this one um and what would be the exact negative positive that sort of stuff um it would be to issue an order of conditions under the local bylaw and the wetlands protection act with the boiler plate conditions and reference special conditions i'll learn one of these days but until then thank you erin so boom okay okay thank you so uh roll call vote at this point then so fletcher hi ret hi maroy hi larry whoops i'm sorry larry yep hi thank you jim hi so okay so we are good erin anything else you need for a mouse on this one nope we're good we can move on okay so thank you michael and thank you kevin thank you very much thank you very much have a good evening you as well you man okay so they are going back down to attendees okay um so we have another notice of intent um and it's 8 24 so we're fine to begin this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 the general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protections of wetlands and as most recently amended and the town of amherst protections bylaw this is a notice of intent for um zero leveret road and so for those people who are here if you can raise your hand okay joe i see you oh yep okay one sec okay joe you are good net should be good okay and stephen okay um so we have a couple more people who are just promoted to panelists and so if you wouldn't mind introducing yourselves and then giving a brief overview of the project that would be most appreciated sure i'll um i'll take it over um my name is joe rogers i'm an environmental consultant from gza um with me is steven ribarty uh who's also environmental consultant and Nate rye who is uh engineer and um basically we're here tonight uh to represent a project for um tessa smith she's interested in developing a single-family home on a lot at zero leveret road which is about to get a number soon it's pretty close to the border with leveret um and i'll show you i can show you the location in a minute um the reason why we're before you is because part of the work extends into the outer buffer zone there are two areas of work and i can um highlight those on a a plan for you if you'd like that would be great okay share a screen all right are you able to see my screen we do see a plan joe yes great okay so here is um the the design plan for the the home there's a single-family home um the driveway coming in off of leveret road uh this is north to the right uh the home and the barn and the road are all outside of the buffer zone uh the work that we're here before you tonight is related to insulation of um the leaching field for the septic system part of the siting work we try to stay out of the buffer zone as much as possible um but because of the there's a slight slope and the way that the um the perking came out we needed to do some grading work so uh there's a dotted line right here um where my hand is and that is basically this little sliver of the outer um outer 50 to 100 um that infringes upon the buffer zone so that the idea would be to install the um the leaching field create a couple three foot um graded slope that it would extend and be revegetated after it's uh after it's created so in order to do that there would be some some scrub clearing there's a fence line that's existing in this area um that's shown here but excuse me that's our our silt silt fence line this is the fence line here so out in this portion there would be a little bit of clearing and then it would be um it would be seated when it was done um the second part of the project is up in the upper part here so i'll show you on a different plan um this this parcel was recently rejoined through an nr it was originally um seven parcels that uh came before the commission um years ago it was approved in let me check my numbers here 2006 for a seven a seven lot subdivision um so there was an order of conditions in 2006 and then it got uh recombined again to a four lot subdivision just a couple years ago um and now the current owners are basically combining have combined five of the lots and they just are proposing to do this one home in barn they're interested in having horses on the property and in order to have some pasture for the horses they want to do some tree clearing out in this area here um there's some uh areas that are also within the the outer 50 foot buffer of this isolated vegetated wetland and the weapons off off to the west of the site so the those are the two main areas of the project all all the work that's being proposed is in the outer outer 50 to 100 and um in this area it's conversion from forested to pasture and in this area it's just this this liver along the edge that would be um seeded after it's the work is done i just can't see a joke can you explain again the leach field it's in what part of the buffer sure yeah and um let me go back to that other figure that's a little bit closer yeah so right here um is the leaching feeler this um dotted line so the leach the the field itself is outside of the buffer zone it's only this little bit of grading right here yeah that is in is in the like 85 to 100 foot portion of the buffer zone so in order to support the elevation the proper elevation for the function of the leaching field yeah okay and so just be clear on that joe so it is all outside of the 50 yes it is yeah okay okay erin do you have pictures or anything else you want to show from today i do i'm gonna steal the screen really quickly joe absolutely do i have to stop i i don't think you have to okay i think i can just take it over okay can you guys see the photos yes okay so um um the front of the lot is has a row of trees across it and then there's a large meadow um so i'm sort of standing in the middle of the meadow here on the left looking out towards the road and so you can see that line of trees and you can see where our cars are parked right alongside the road and then if i turn around and face the other direction you can see that it is also a large meadow with kind of some sprinkling of um of some some uh pines and oaks in there and then uh this is looking over toward the one on the left is me looking over towards the right more so um where that tree line is when you're facing the back sort of in front of where joe is walking and then on this one the tree line can be seen all the way to the left sort of in the distance um that that fence line that joe was talking about that existing fence line kind of follows that tree line just to give you a sense of that and then this this picture in the middle um where this this larger tree is located uh they were planning on bringing the driveway in um my understanding is just on the other side of that tree so um i think that the just to sort of demonstrate that this is the area that's outside of uh 100 feet the buffer zone begins sort of along that tree line and um that's where some of the clearing and grading would be taking place is just just sort of starting to encroach on that tree line a little bit but just for the commission's knowledge there is forested it's it's forested in the area behind where the clearing is proposed so there's a large swath of forested area between where the clearing is taking place and where the wetland is located and then the area that joe had referenced which is um the area that's proposed for the horse pasture in the in the back of the lot um these this um the photos on the right and left are the area that would be cleared for that horse pasture so that kind of gives you a little bit of the visual of what that area looks like currently that they want to convert thank you i happen to have a picture of the existing path i'm assuming that would lead to that pasture is that right uh sure on the um on the site pant plan i can show you that or erin or anyone yeah i'll turn it back over to you joe um so this is where the the future barn would be located and in a pack and then there's a there's an existing road that comes through between the isolated wetland and the bbw and and so what they were thinking about doing um you can either stay within the fence line you can go to the right and use this area as the pasture right because i mean like realistically it'd be like a gravel road because i probably want to drive a tractor down there and walk their horses back and forth is what i'm assuming um i there was no real conversation about any any road improvements as far as project yeah because and then they need when clearing equipment to get back there and all that jazz so can i um and then i might have been the only one is this correct that i think i was around when this was when this was delineated that is there um is this priority habitat back here hey i'll i'll chime in for a second one so yeah um i maybe you were the one that presented on it yeah i did i i permitted this a couple times for a while for the original subdivision and then it was actually we permitted as a pastor in the in between the subdivisions too so it was used as a pastor for a couple years but yeah this was priority habitat and then the map revisions in 2017 the priority habitat got pulled back on the other side of the rail lines oh so it doesn't come onto this property anymore there's a rail easement just off oh because what i remember man you you did a lot of work and putting together a like a turtle habitat plan oh yeah we had we had this turtle mitigation plan and all kinds of good stuff out here and so i went out the door yeah i went out the door nobody ever built any of it hey i thought it was a good job but okay let it too it was kind of like in between the driveway and yeah it was interesting oh okay so that now is not applicable no none of the natural heritage stuff applies and what joe said you know going through the the the history of this how it was seven lots and essentially now with with our client buying two of the lots to put in this one house it's turned from a seven lot subdivision to a three lot subdivision and the other two lots i don't know if they've been before you yet or not but there's two other frontage lots off of um lever road that are getting developed next to this that are all all comprised of a regional seven lot subdivision yeah i didn't know it's a new driveway or like new road cut can put in the other day yeah i think one of the other ones is a little farther along but they may be all outside of buffer yep yes they had submitted a um correspondence to us um that would be um gosh it was it was i think glenn and chris i think um they're a little further down but they're outside of the 200 foot and um outside of the 100 foot buffer with all their work they redesign to keep it out so cool wow okay so other questions from the commission on this actually joe could you put back up that aerial image because that um i think is kind of a nice um image to just show them kind of what the conditions look like there where the work is happening sure yeah um so on here the uh you know the lever road frontage is here the approximate location of the homes would be in this area the septic is in this area and then the path to get back to the area that would be be cleared for pasture would be to expand this area so basically to uh to to enlarge this area of pasture right joe did they look at alternatives or did you look at alternatives for particularly that pasture to be reconfigured so it's all the way outside the hundred that just not a viable option or yeah the middle the middle of it it's because it's it's um there's a the projection of buffer from the isolated that small pocket wetland on one side and then there's from uh this wetland further in the back in the other way and so it's it's kind of two two lobes on either side in a v in the middle that's you know out out of the hundred but it was mostly in order to there's an existing fence out there um that was put in long ago and so they wanted to restore that area to maximize the fence line yeah the fence was put in as part of the pasture subdivision we did probably circa 2011 12 maybe when they had they had you know some horses and cows out here as part of the farm that was here for maybe five years okay i guess for me um i feel less concerned about the little bit of the grading around the leach field being kind of cleared as long as we have our standard conditions for sediment and erosion control erin do you have a professional opinion on the conversion from the existing kind of forest cover to pasture i mean having that i'm sorry that i have not been able to go out there and see that forest um any professional opinions on that yeah you know uh it's funny i my feeling was pretty much exactly the same as yours jen as far as like having less concern about the grading for the house than for the the paddock i think um you know they are clearly they could be trying to push it quite a lot closer they're definitely making efforts to keep it out which i think is a good thing um one of the things i had mentioned to joe on the sidewalk was possibly you know sweetening the proposal with some um areas of planting for some pollinator habitat that might um sort of add some habitat benefit to the area and um just i mean because there's going to be impacts the other thing that i had suggested and i was thinking about this after um was if just to make sure that we have a plan as far as manure storage for the horses because this has been a plan of an issue repeatedly with horses that at the end of the day people kind of throw it back where you know back in the woods where nobody's looking and those areas always tend to be near wetlands so to make sure we that there's a plan in place for composting and um or or manure removal or however they're handling it but just to make sure that those areas are outside of the 100 foot i think would be my biggest the biggest thing i would advocate for there that makes a lot of sense also flutter any thoughts on like so if they're clearing this like probably what's pretty even aged kind of music forest structure to create a pasture is there anything we can do on the borders or to improve like uneven hage habitat structures things like that like is there anything we can do to kind of create more of a habitat spectrum because we're opening this clearing like um that's a good question i well i mean where they're gonna clear you can tell that it was pasture and it came in as pasture pine yeah it's it's i'm sorry it's a lot of white pine yeah yeah i can tell sorry it looks pretty direct music piney yeah i've definitely followed a lot of deer through there um those damn fence in the way the great thing would be to just take the fence down so the animals can cross across from eastman brook over to the coal property over there but that's not going to happen so my like my in terms of forest structure it's it's grown in pasture so that white pine you know you're not getting a lot of benefit anyway but what my concern would be is basically you open the paddock up then you open a road up to get to the paddock and how much more do you keep going doesn't really stop right like it just if you're putting a paddock back there you got to get farm equipment back there so my in terms of habitat stuff you know if they can just keep the front open keep it grassy that'd be great you know uh steve had this cool like wood turtle um i mean you don't really need wood turtle habitat stuff back in there but like if you can keep the front open and less lawn you know that type of stuff is good but in terms of that pasture that paddock there it was already pasture at one point and you're not going to lose a ton right there in terms of quality definitely maintain that that wetland in the back that place that whole wetlands complex back there is actually pretty nice even though the railroad tracks go right in the middle of it but i mean yeah in terms of like you're not cutting down like huge mature trees back there to make that paddock back okay yeah but i think the limit of work needs to be defined so it doesn't keep going yeah that's my biggest fear Fletcher is how we're going to make sure that there's no creep sort of going forward it's a good it's going to be constant creep i mean i know it's going to happen the existing fence line is is a pretty good you know marker that's that's what there the plan was designed to utilize in that um so that's that's one way it's pretty that's where that's where the pasture butts up against sorry yeah yeah okay should we think about any kind of heavier duty monumenting there guys like we always think about our big rocks or i don't know anything to to mark that in perpetuity as the edge of that clearing that's what crossed my mind jen and i like that idea i mean what's our yeah so joe and steve oh sorry go ahead well i was just wondering my tourists how what's our is our jurisdiction what we could do for like demarcating like the wetland boundaries we're not talking like just the paddock right yeah the the wetlands have actually been marked in a kind of a unique way with they've been monumented they're not they're not flagged like typical ones they have inserted rods to mark the wetlands which was the first for me it's the first time i had seen it too they had done that for the last project that's the surveyor had done that and there's most of the 90% of those those markers are still there after 10 years are they the ones that like the mushroom tops no it's it's like a one of those fiberglass rods like you'd put on the end of years and there's a little metal shiner on the top with the number the wetland flag number you know etched into the metal so i mean that marks the wetland but not the buffer though and so you know this landowner the next landowner they kind of keep going back towards that and so if we could put in some sort of permanent demarcation as Jen was saying i mean boulders are a favorite of our group you know they're flexible yeah there's plenty of other ones but this one is usually pretty feasible so like boulders at the pivot points of you know where the fence line is out there to kind of like have more of a i don't know what the spacing you would want on boulders yeah it's we're flexible on it like you know every 10 feet or something like that i don't quite this looks like a visual i think the pivot points is a really good idea since it's a it's a zigzagging line i would also suggest maybe putting it at the limit of work for where the clearing is proposed specifically because those are areas excuse me that are going to be coming in question in the future yeah exactly who's driving is that you joe yeah just trace tracing the fence for him yeah is anybody concerned about the existing path to this paddock at all i hear you concerned about it flutcher um because you think it's just gonna kind of get concerned you think it's gonna get heavy use well i mean it's existing so i don't i guess i don't really have too much it's gonna get cleared act and yeah oh that helps thanks joe yeah thank you oh that's the existing fence that's the existing fence right now yeah okay i'm sorry i was confused where it was so the so the path would come down here there is a gate on this side to get to the to the right away but um you know the more all the horses would be oh there's a right away right there that's why yeah there's an ever source power line right behind oh okay i guess more than like i guess in terms of boundary marking that isolated wetland would be nice to have that marked i don't know i haven't been out there i'm right at that exact spot it's probably pretty dry right now okay that fence line is a lot better to see now and the fence line continues across the back to where joe stopped it it keeps going around right the backside as well i do think monumentation on the corners of the proposed paddock like those three those three points um where clearing the limits of clearing are going to be and then possibly the pivot points around where the septic system is going to be would be particularly useful to indicate the limit of where approved limits of clearing are yeah i think that makes a lot of sense because that's our main concern really it's creep yeah so joe that makes sense from your side with the boulders so to do uh to do the inflection point to have markers the inflection points to have permanent uh demarcation correct is that something we can condition in the in an order yes yeah yeah and i would say just at the areas where there is clearing and croaching on the 100 foot buffer those would be the specific areas i would recommend calling out for boulders yeah certainly let's not go inside the buffer and place boulders randomly that'd not be good or outside the buffer for that matter right that's outside our jurisdiction so okay um so before i open up to the public any other commissioners have any other more comment any other comments okay so i don't know if there's anybody new from the public but um if you have any comments that you or questions you'd like to raise just raise your hand and we will elevate you so elevate you so you can talk okay um so i am not hearing any um so we did get a couple of conditions for this one so boulders at inflection points that are within the buffer zones um the condition related to manure and i'm not quite sure how we want to put that in the conditions erin did you have a specific idea i would suggest that we require manure storage be located outside of the 100 foot buffer zone perfect okay okay any other conditions well i mean i think the issue of pollinator habitat is one you know uh whether you want to require that or not that's another one that we had discussed always like it like to wear we can definitely probably propose like for the septic that would be a might be a good spot to propose some uh pollinator conservation mix or something instead of seeding the uh graded slope in that area it could be maintained as as a more of a pollinator blend Steve do you think that seems reasonable yeah i don't see any issue with it i mean i think the best vocation for it would be up by the row but that's outside of buffer zone so that doesn't really do anything for sweetening the pot for for the commission no i think that actually does i mean you know the pollinators don't know where the wetlands are it's not a no yeah we're flexible i mean we could talk to to the client and see you know i think she'd probably be amenable to it you know there's probably be some areas of this that they're not going to maintain as lawn just because and you know they can keep it as a wild meadow and certainly the area that would be converted to and maintain as pasture would not be lawn so that would promote some you know transition to flowering habitats as opposed to what it is now and we also have some fairly standard um conditions for lawns or those type of areas within buffer zones so no chemicals and those type of conditions but seeing that it's pasture i assume that that wouldn't be done anyways um i'm not sure yeah we have a standard boiler plate for both wetland protection act and local bylaw for a single family home so i would advocate that we just include that standard boiler plate as well as the special conditions we noted that sounds perfect to me anything else uh sounds like we have it covered at this point so i think we're ready for emotion you want me to just run through the conditions so that you guys can just say so moved that'd be beautiful erin okay so i would recommend that um the commission issue a motion to approve and include the boiler plate language for single family homes under the wetland protection act and local wetland bylaw that the commission includes special conditions for manure storage outside of the 100 foot buffer zone um a condition that pollinator habitat be incorporated in disturbed areas within the buffer zone and outside the buffer zone if possible um boundaries be placed at the pivot points of cleared areas within the buffer zone i think that's all i have so moved second okay so thank you so we will go through roll call fletcher hi brit hi larry hi jen hi laroy right so i think we are good anything else on this one erin no i don't think so i think we're good to move on okay so thank you everyone thanks guys thank you very much have a good night you too let me just change up things here real quick i'm missing somebody well they must have jumped off okay you know some guy that was on yeah but i don't see that anymore so i'm not quite sure where he went okay um so that means that we're going to move on to our 755 which is a request for determination this meeting is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended in the town of america's wetlands bylaw this is for um the property for the highway construction or the highway changes let's see how do we want to how are we referencing this one i know what we're talking about here erin i'm looking for the language for the specific area that we want to reference here erin oh um i'm sorry it's north hampton road between route 116 and um university drive perfect thank you i was looking at it earlier by based on that so okay so for those people who are here for that if you want to raise your hand and okay so i see brian i see escamble okay and i see somebody from mass dot as well but we can leave them off unless they so desire okay so um i'm not quite sure who is presenting but if you want to introduce yourselves and give a brief introduction that'd be most appreciated sure how you doing i'm brian mires from gpi also with me is a same camble here yeah so all what i'll do is i'll i'll go over just an overview of the project and then i'll hand it over to sam here to to talk about uh our work in the in the buffer zone so let's see all right so are you seeing this locus plan here no okay all right sorry about that it looks like anything's being shared yeah okay there we go there we go i have to hit the share button um so as you know this is a mass dot project um here's here's a locus um it's in the red is our project area you can see it's it's quite close to the town line here um it's a little less than a mile long um it goes from university drive all the way to the south pleasant street over there see um here's uh what we're proposing for a new our new section we have two foot uh two 11 foot travel lanes two foot two five foot shoulders that'll be striped as his bike lanes and then we have um two three foot grass strips with five and a half foot asphalt sidewalks the majority of the the road is going to be completely reconstructed so ripped up in a new pavement we're doing uh we're completely replacing the existing drainage infrastructure as well as uh doing some upgrades to the the water lines along along the corridor um we have two midblock crossings um one at hazel avenue here and one at orchard street these will be supplemented with rectangular rapid flashing beacons we're also doing some some work at the intersections as well the intersection of university drive um geometry won't change much but we're replacing all of the signal equipment and milling and overlaying the intersection the intersection to the north uh we're just milling and overlaying the intersection and we're actually updating the existing pedestrian signals this will also be changed to a video detection for the for the approaches um and now i think i'll just turn over to sam here to talk about our our work in the buffer zones and brian if you could just stop screen sharing so that i can share mine all right okay okay let's see and share screen one all right so you're all able to see the same locust map that brian was pointing out earlier yes great so as he mentioned uh the project limits extend from approximately the intersection of route nine at north ampton road to the intersection up here and only a small portion of the project is actually located within the buffer zone and that portion is uh at the western end of the project here so at this point i'm actually going to open the plans that were submitted with the rda and reference those um so we are proposing work within the 100 foot buffer zone associated with some small bordering vegetated wetlands which you can see on the first page of the construction plans here and here whoops as well as the bank to an unnamed intermittent stream that you can see on the second page of the drainage plans here the total work area within the buffer zone is 25,826 square feet but of that area approximately 22,628 square feet is already developed as route nine so the increases in impervious area that we're proposing are results of the uh proposed sidewalks five and a half foot sidewalks on the northern side of the road here and the proposed shared use path on the southern side here and those improvements are necessary to you know meet the eda requirements and improve safety and accessibility throughout the corridor additional work within the buffer zone as brian mentioned includes pavement milling and hot mix asphalt overlay as i mentioned construction of those sidewalks drainage upgrades including catch basin installations installation of erosion sedimentation controls to protect those wetlands during construction as well as some work at this outfall which is adjacent to that unnamed intermittent stream during the survey some basically they identified that the existing outfall is pretty much silted up so we're just proposing to clean out that silt and then through the installation of deep sump catch basins resolve that issue in the proposed condition within the buffer zone all disturbed throughout the project limits all disturbed slopes will be treated with loam and seed upon the completion of construction to stabilize the areas and i think at this point it would be best to just turn it over to the commission for any questions erin i don't know if you have photos or if you'd like me to share the ones that i have um yes so i um if you could share the photos that you have that would be very useful i wasn't actually able to get out there today i ran out of time and um and just for reference um for the conservation commission i know i had mentioned sort of if you guys had time to get out and take a quick ride by um this application was actually submitted after the submittal deadline for this meeting but um it just so happened it came in the day i was writing up the legal ads so i i kind of piggybacked it on to this meeting just so we could try to get it um get it rolling and um because we have so many continuations so i just wanted to put that out there for sort of perspective on um why i threw it on this agenda and also just because um we we weren't able this morning to squeeze it in on site visits we just ran out of time um i guess while we're looking at site visits i just i have a couple questions because i haven't even had a chance to look at this application yet um and this is a general question and i know you know mass dot has sort of different process than some other applicants but it sounds like there is impervious area being added in buffer zone um additional impervious area and i was just curious why um i mean it's it's kind i guess it's kind of on the fence as far as like a notice of intent versus an rda but um it just since imper it looks like impervious is being added i was just curious why um an rda was filed instead of a notice of intent application so as i mentioned the well first of the impervious increases associated with the installation of pedestrian and bicycle accommodations so you know areas not intended for any motorized vehicle use and the decision to file an rda was just based on some internal conversations with dot um generally the thought being that you know because it's only work within the buffer zone even though it is resulting in a net increase in impervious area you know it wasn't resulting in any impacts to the adjacent wetlands or um intermittent stream and so much of the area is already you know previously developed um that it wasn't a significant alteration to sort of the existing condition um brian i don't know if you have anything else to add to that or rob if you yeah i mean and just for perspective sake like we just required a notice of intent application for adding impervious surface in a you know the outer buffer of a turnaround for a small um this little school then they had to put in a rain garden and improved drainage um situation just for that small addition of impervious so i mean it's uh it sounds logical what you've suggested i just wanted to make sure that the commission's aware you know there's no stormwater management plan associated with this so long term when in order of conditions is issued typically there's a stormwater management plan that includes things like maintenance of stormwater structures over the long term to make sure that they're managed properly but again you know it's a it's a mass do t project and and i know from working with them in the past that this happens quite frequently so just just to see that from both sides okay thank you um any other so do you want to go through some of the pictures at this point soon absolutely yep um so are you still able to see my screen yes okay and i'll just say that these photos are also submitted as an appendix with the rda so you should have copies if you need to review them any further um but yet you see this first photo here um you can see this concrete flared end section this is actually the drainage outfall um and as you can see it's it's silted up pretty good um so as i mentioned the project will clean out that outfall and we'll be installing um deeps on catch basins to address sort of those sedimentation issues sorry where where's that where's the outfall absolutely yet so i'm just going to go back to the plans for just a second it's this outfall to this stream here so this is the existing paved parking lot on private property okay yep um see here this is just another view of the outfall this is the stream this is the vegetated area adjacent to it you can actually see that parking lot in the background and the outfall is somewhere in there again this is just another view of the stream so the outfall would be somewhere here and we're looking you know up towards away from root nine towards that private property and here's just a whoops just another shot of that intermittent stream in the adjacent wetland to be to that wetland sorry i'm actually asking the commission now is that wetland did that come in front of us for no i do some evasive work anybody remember is that the one by the um urgent care center it is the one by the urgent care center and i know i've seen it on another delineation that's all been delineated yeah yeah yeah i believe there is a project going on with that little parking lot um brian i know we've done some coordination with them just to make sure that our you know they're doing some some work at the cooly dickinson there um there there there's a new curb cut that they're putting actually right there right where that right over that pipe this area right right right you can actually see the the driveway there that they'll be right so how about other commissioners other thoughts or comments okay sorry can you say again how much the square footage you're going to add to the impervious surface again yep it's going to be approximately 3200 square feet of impervious surface and that's bicycle lane sidewalks yep but that's roughly a 10 percent increase isn't it uh yes 12 but yeah so i mean it is a substantial increase in the amount of impervious going in and i mean it's for good reason and it's necessary so that's not the debate but brian and your experience um with this being an rda instead of an noi is there can we sufficiently condition were we to decide we would move forward with this in its current form can we sufficiently condition to a point where you'd be comfortable with controls on sentiment origin control and storm water management um during construction of this increased impervious surface or do you think that we need a full blown storm water management plan yeah so just for context on that um i have no objections to it being issued as a determination as a determination of applicability i don't have any issues with that and um i think it can be conditioned during construction so that the wetlands are protected that's not that's not my concern um and also just for context i have permitted previously orders of conditions to dot and also managed orders of conditions for dot that had storm water management plans that doesn't necessarily mean that they were followed and i think it's it's all a symptom of the state and budgets and things you know they do the best they can they get out there and they clean them when they can but sometimes even having those even when when we have a storm water management plan it doesn't necessarily mean that they're followed to the letter of the plan so to speak um they they get out there when they can clean them and they get do the work when they can so whether it's an rda or an order excuse me whether it's a determination or an order of conditions i don't think it's going to change the long-term maintenance or management it's merely if there was a problem like for example if one of the catch basin started backing up or there was a clear issue with something not being maintained it's just um there's a little more teeth for the commission in those instances i think but in either case i think you call dot and you say hey this structure is not being maintained and could you guys get out there and clean it out it's not any judgment on dot whatsoever it's merely just um you know a resource it's a resource issue i think so that's yeah and i wasn't assuming it was a specific problem with dot it was more just a general question of how much control we have and what levers we can pull in the like full no i versus rda scenario but it sounds to me like you feel like we can be in good control in either of those yeah and i think like i said just from you know they're they're going to maintain it the way that in through their maintenance plans the way that they maintain all of their state roads um they're going to follow those procedures regardless of whether we have an order of conditions or a determination so for example just because a determination wears out after three years doesn't mean that they're going to stop going out and cleaning out the catch basins or that they're still going to stop doing stormwater maintenance it just means they're going to be doing that anyways and they're going to be doing it on their own schedule so um i don't have concerns with issuing it as a determination um i just wanted to point out the difference to the board in the permit itself and how it's being issued so i just wanted to make sure that i was kind of being clear about that um and also be clear about the fact that i haven't been out to see the site so but it's it's completely at you guys discretion and if you're comfortable with it um i've seen many commission's issue approvals based on plansets like this as determinations so okay thank you um so Robert you were raising your hand before i didn't know if you had something that you wanted to add at this point you're on mute if you do maybe not um yeah i gotta admit that i'm a little more comfortable with the noi versus um the rda route uh i understand what you're saying that the at the end of the day the difference is not all that great but yeah particularly i mean i think part of it is also just that uh you know we haven't been out to see this noi on this so it's kind of strange yeah i mean so can somebody from the applicant side give me a better justification for why an noi was not it seems like it was just kind of out of a whim i don't know if there is a better reason uh no i mean as we discussed you know we looked at the scope of the project um and the proposed work within the buffer zone said you know despite the increase this is really you know in line with the existing condition you know given the development as the roadway i know we sort of discussed the the increase in impervious but again those areas are um you know not associated with the roadway they're associated with uh non-motorized uses so less potential for um you know pollutant loading sedimentation from those locations um you know that's really again just sort of internal discussions but i don't i don't have any anything else yeah so i appreciate what you're saying about the vehicular travel but they it is still obviously increase in impervious right those deleterious effects and a substantial increase so so i mean a couple options might be you know if we if we were to continue to the next meeting it would give us a chance to go out and look at it um and see you know hey if the areas of increase are relatively minor or in areas that are already you know um you know they're already degraded then maybe it would it would feel less impactful to issue the determination but at the same time i don't want to hold up the process i don't know what the timeline for getting this completed is so if it makes more sense to sorry to cut in i am a fan of continuing it because i would like to be able to go out there and just look at this i'm sorry i know i'm familiar with the area and i did a drive-by but i mean to like see it again i also have to go um i'm really sorry that some things come up uh so i just want to say sorry thanks guys i'll see you in a couple weeks bye Jen yeah so i mean i'm okay with the continuation as well i mean my only problem they don't have a quorum now anyway um no i think we still have four are we there yep well the the other benefit the other benefit of continuing is that we can have two additional commission members be a part of the discussion who can view the proceeding and and you'll have additional folks to vote on it and visit the site before the next meeting my only concern is if we continued for another two weeks which again i'm fine with and then at that point we decide that this needs to go to an no i route that's just going to delay things longer versus going down the no i route at this point seeing that we're not going to be able to continue we're not going to vote on this tonight anyways i mean so is there a lot of additional work from the applicant side to put this in as an end of no i is there objections on your side for that well i could tell you um at the direction we're taking right now um so we'll be submitting 100 plans i'm sorry ps and e plans um in the next couple months and then it's it's um the rest of the work is kind of just there's a lot of abutting properties and a lot of easements that need to be worked on and that that takes quite a bit of time it's scheduled to be advertised um in uh march march of 2021 okay which to me sounds like that's far away but and maybe it's not yeah it's again it's those uh what takes the that huge amount of time is is knocking on every door right and telling them what what we're doing to those those proper work we're doing there are land and everything has to be set before that needs to be done so maybe we should ask the applicant what they would prefer to do if you would prefer a continuation to add additional folks um to the you know voting um block and and kind of consider the rda or if you'd prefer the board to take a vote on it this evening and um well i don't think i'm comfortable voting this evening um either way but just kind of if we want to take are you saying because bret you asked you're saying that because you want no i that's my personal predilection yes well if you voted a positive is the point i'm making is if you voted a positive bret it would it would mean that they would have to file a notice of intent if you said that it was a positive then then that's the direction they would have to go in okay thank you erin so robert you wanted to chime in robert are you there see his hand raised he's not muted but robert if you can hear maybe try to call in number from the phone as opposed to the oh yeah he might not have a mic on his um my computer mine can be a bit uh if he too so i know what he's probably dealing with we do have somebody a couple people we have one person on the phone but i don't know who that is um also oh wait i guess we don't have a comment we don't we don't have the ability to type up comments i'm gonna unmute um so i just unmuted the person who's on the phone is that robert who's on the phone that is me on the phone okay now we can hear you so now we're good oh thank you thank you very much i appreciate it um do we have time do we have time to go back to a couple of the comments or or or no thank you so much i um i i've enjoyed the conversation i've tried to chime in a couple of times excuse me for the technical difficulties um so yeah that um so thanks for discussing the project and um from my perspective the the project um incorporates some impervious increases in pervious within the buffer zone and overall it's if you look at it overall i know we've got the microscope zoomed in which is great and i'm happy to talk about that but if you look at it overall the increases in pervious is minimal for what this could have been um so i consider it as avoiding and minimizing right uh as two two of the three prongs of avoiding impacts and minimizing impacts work within buffer zones and riverfront area and resource areas uh so that was completed and that was done uh and discussed and reviewed again and again and again so it wasn't just something we just hey we're gonna we're gonna increase things and just go go and go um so we avoided we minimized review we reduced we're providing um you know travel way for all vehicles and all pedestrian types so i'll keep it short so yes there's an increase in pervious within the buffer zone and um if you think about um all the different raindrops are going to fall within that buffer zone and within the areas contributing the water to that wetland in that buffer zone the percentage that falls within the highway layout is managed within the curbing and within those um catch basins which if there's older catch basins in place those will be upgraded to deep sum catch basins um the new curbing and new uh pavement will add to that management that efficiency of the management in storm water and uh in my opinion the the um function of water in that area in that buffer zone and the areas contributing to the buffer zone are going to be um almost identical as before and after the project due to the the uh curving in place in the deep sump catch basins so and just to throw numbers at you before as i wrap up your average deep sump catch basin with a four footer greater sump has upwards of three uh capacity of 300 gallons of water which is significant um so if we're talking of again if we're talking about that area of the project within the buffer zone and and let's not forget the storm water management that's in place in the hundreds of gallons that's being um retained letting allowing sediment to fall out and then uh solely discharging out to that wetland so that that's going to function basically the same that is today um that's my opinion of course but uh i'm happy to continue to discuss this in whatever shape you want to discuss it in whatever way you're uh comfortable in discussing with it thanks thanks for letting me go out ramble on and so robber can you um either verify or add on to what sam was saying as a rationale between a rda and a no i um you know i mean in my mind it just feels very i don't know if unjust is the right word but unjust to do this as an rda versus some of these other much smaller projects we're putting through as no i's i mean so i heard i think it's minimal and that's not the issue on my end per se oh no i and i um i can currently see the the tipping of the scales if you will and your your perspective of it and things like that um so a couple of things um we don't you know gpi mass dot all the people involved there's there's no um preconceived concept of what what the permitting is going to be and trying to avoid one level or the other the the concept always is to do what's the best thing for each each very unique situation um and you know was was um sidewalk and pedestrian and bicycling improvements required in this area and the answer is absolutely yes okay what what can we do what resource areas are there this is from step one this is before the ink hits the paper what can we do and minimize mitigate uh and avoid um one of the answers is is that those resource areas are set back from the roadway uh they're not within the layout there's not we don't have kind of let's say a tannic or parcel where we can pick and choose and say okay the driveway is going to go here the building's going to go there we unfortunately we're we're we're kind of cut out of that scenario we don't usually ever really usually have that scenario so we're we're very limited to where where we can put things based on we don't want to impact people's right to their private property you know as well as to the discharge of of that water uh so we had to work within those parameters which is very strict um so what can we do within you know within what we're proposing and with regards to resource areas and what's Protection Act and as we as we discussed it a number of times those anywhere I think the minimum of five to six to seven people on the discussions um you know I was never really of of the feeling for me my personal opinion that this was elevated to uh a notice of intent and to be really um specific to the Wetlands Protection Act the only thing that really brought me to thinking notice of intent or impact direct impact or increasing of some uh what could be perceived as disturbance or change or impact to the resource areas would be the cleaning of the sediment which actually is an improvement so that was really the the removal of the sediment was the only thing that I visualized uh as like an oversight person when this is under construction as okay what could be considered as an impact in these resource areas now is the one thing that I thought of actually the work again just in my humble opinion the work itself I did not see as a significant change I thought I was very minor actually to the amount of water that comes down through that area which is tens and tens of thousands of square feet again which is managed by the stormwater management system so I think that the increase for the sidewalks whether it was sidewalk or whether it was on the highway itself I think it is not changing as it as it meets that wetland area so that's I can only speak for myself but being part of those meetings from from day one before Penn was even put the paper I again the only thing I really thought of as far as notice of intent was that sediment work which again is really an improvement to start back uh with a nice clean out you know all fall um I'm not sure what else I could look to say on that part okay so that's helpful Robert so thank you um I hear you you know I'll need to kind of sleep on that I'm not I'm not particularly swayed at this point I still think at NOI is you know at least my preferred wrap I'm just one person here um and so we have a couple of different options that we have um and so first uh I just want to see there's somebody else from the public um John Asorio did you have anything you wanted to say if you did you can just raise your hand and if not we'll kind of keep going okay yeah so John you should be able to talk now good evening John Asorio GPI um I was just really listening listening in and um I mean I don't have too much more to add but to I believe Aaron mentioned that there's a possibility of uh I thought I understood adding conditions to the RDA so if that's I'm not sure that we're going to get much more different uh results from the notice of intent I think she pointed out that MSTOT has their uh maintenance program that they pretty much follow for all of their state highways um so you know it's maybe not delay things so I understand that this would probably get continued you know those folks that want to go perform their the site visit which is understandable um but if we're leaning towards a notice of intent we would rather know that earlier you know and if it can be done prior to the next meeting because it would take us a little bit of time to get ready for a notice of intent there's a stormwater report that needs to get prepared again I don't think it's going to give us much of a different outcome but if there's certain conditions that can be added to this RDA then we would be happy to take a look at those and talk to MSTOT about that so that's all I want to say okay thank you John yeah and I'm not sure that yeah the difference is I mean I think there's some permanence differences and some other pieces it's also just precedent um truth right totally understand so yeah um and that's why I was trying to deal with this tonight so if there's other people who feel strongly about the NOI so if Larry or um the Roy or Fletcher if you feel strongly about that now would be the time to you know pipe in about that if not we can punt until next time um this is not a closed issue so we will have to bring it up again but if there is strong feeling we can deal with it tonight but if not if I'm the only one which is perfectly fine um let's just continue you mean continue as a positive RDA uh continue the discussion until next continue it clear because clearly um Jen wasn't wasn't feeling either I'm okay with it I am my thing is the precedent like Aaron just said we just had somebody do an NOI for the common school there but the fact that mass DOT has their stormwater management plan already in place and they're scheduling in place I'm not that's where I'm I'm not too worried about it but clearly we're not clearly this is going to go continue so we could just um sounds like Brett and Jen want an NOI so I'm not sure about Jen Jen at least wanted to do a site visit I didn't really get her feeling I'm sorry that I don't mean to speak for her yeah I I tend to agree with Fletcher about the idea that that I don't like the precedent issue as well but I also realized in this case with the state and the DOT that we're already they're already accomplishing some of these things separately so I'm I'm comfortable perhaps but I don't like the idea of the uh the change in precedent yeah can we just put that in our conditions is there any way that we could get a copy of like the mass DOT stormwater like statewide stormwater plan just so that the commission could feel more comfortable with kind of what your statewide management plan is for um catch basins and detention basins and street sweepings and things like that to be honest it's not going to help me that much I understand those in general and I'm sure that their budget as long as the budgets are there they're going to do a good job so what what Fletcher said was can we put something in here that effectively makes it like that 30 30 there it's there 30 there they have a plan it's it's it seems like we're at a bit of an impasse to be honest um I feel like maybe we should schedule a site visit before the next meeting and then if if the if the applicant is in favor maybe we could just do a continuation and take it up with a fuller complement of board members to make a decision okay yeah again that's fine by me I was just hoping to if we did want to go to the NOI to speed it up for the applicant that's what I was trying to do so um yeah Robert you had a comment oh yes thanks thanks for giving me another chance to chime in and um you know I'm absolutely willing to work with GPI and the commissioners to provide whatever information is needed um if if Aaron as Aaron mentioned if some of the maintenance schedule information examples different and even even specific information to that stretch of highway would be beneficial to the conversation I'm more than happy to to put that together I'm more than happy to meet with you in GPI out on site or whatever whatever sites are available we don't really have access to private property per se but whatever we can see from from those side of the highway side of the roadway areas um definitely um as much time as you want to spend out there I would going back you know beauty is beauty is in the eye of the beholder so I'm going to say this just again just with my humble opinion as far as uh precedent being set personally I don't see within the Wetlands Protection Act and I'm going to be um I hope I hope this isn't an offensive to anybody in any way but I don't see an impact so as far as the Wetlands Protection Act goes or even um bylaws um I don't I don't see there being uh any increase any impacts to Wetlands I see there I see a direct benefit to Wetlands with the sediment removal which I think we're going a little bit you know off the beaten path you will to make that improvement I don't see any um you know you know negative uh water quality type situation or removal of canopy removal of vegetation change of vegetation yes there is increase in impervious but again with the hundreds of thousands and tens and tens of thousands of uh square footage of impervious within the project that's coming down into that buffer zone from one way direction or another including from other areas not within the highway layout I think that the stormwater utter management system in place is more than adequately um containing it detaining it and then gently out out letting it and I and I honestly and with knowledge of the area I can say that that discharge is not changing so I don't I don't I don't feel that there is an impact but I completely am open to whatever the commissioners feel and if we if we have to go one way or the other site visit another meeting whatever it takes to for everyone to feel comfortable with it that's the ultimate goal really is for everyone to have enough information that they can decide it one way or the other uh so thanks again for letting me ramble on I appreciate it okay thank you I mean so we're going to need a site visit one way or the other um you know so I hear from the applicant side they're very comfortable at the RDA um that's their prerogative um that's not where I am that's my prerogative um so you know so it comes down to the other you know members of the commission so Larry Leroy Fletcher are you guys comfortable voting tonight do you want to wait till we have a site visit the way I'm pretty actually comfortable with the site okay I'm I'm almost wanting to vote just to again after instance be willing to go the NLI route and sooner than later but I'm very willing to wait we can all go see it yeah I'd like I'd like to see it have a good site visit okay yeah so why don't we do that um so we'll basically table the discussion for now so as long as the applicant is okay tabling or continuing for two weeks and can you give us a date for that Erin at a time yes so it will be um June 10th at 8 p.m and from the applicant's perspective that's okay yeah that works for us that works okay yep and so then we'll have a better chance to look at this property or this area I'm very familiar with it I actually don't need the site visit I'll go out if I can but um I know it a little too well um but yeah and then we can have this other discussion hopefully yeah next time we will hopefully have a broader group of people of commissioners who will be here as well so we would just need a motion to continue it let's go Larry condition okay so Fletcher your vote I me I LaRoy all right Larry I okay so we are continued so thank you everyone we will see you in about two weeks thanks for your time thank you thanks guys thank you thank you very much okay so I am just switching up the attendee list here looks like they are all we have one more okay okay so um that was the last thing that was officially on the agenda um pine grove we're to dealt with Erin yes um I just wanted to let you guys know that there was some invasives pulling being done on the bike path by DCR um that was that's being done this week so there are people out pulling invasives um off of the the bike path um and I've been following monitoring reports nothing really to report there I do I am a little behind on site visits and returning calls to people but I'm you know crossing and crossing them off my list as I'm able to it's just been uh very busy and lots of calls so that's that's about all I have to report what you gotta do thank you um the bike trail that's just garlic mustard type stuff or they do yeah they're focused on garlic mustard yep okay that's minor I mean it's nasty but that's not as impactful as some of the bigger stuff yeah that's all I have okay so thank you any other thing that the commissioners want to talk about if not we're looking for a motion for closure I make a motion to adjourn second so okay so I vote hi um Larry Fletcher hi oh wait Larry I don't think I heard you hi okay I hope we need to the right all right kind of a silly thing to vote on but gotta do it so thank you everyone hi guys hopefully I'll be able to make some of the site visits um in two weeks airing that sounds good I don't think we're gonna we're probably gonna have only that one I think maybe we'll go out and see Tafino too but I'll I'm still working on that okay sounds good let me know if there's anything I can do where sounds good thanks Aaron take care bye