you be me to it thank you we are recording we are recording so I will call the I'm calling the April 30th 2024 meeting of the Community Resources committee to order and I will we'll go around and say if we can hear and be heard so let's start with Pat present um councelor hanii we can't hear you present okay thank you Pam Rooney I'm here okay and um we hope that councel uh ET will be joining us shortly so pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 and 107 of the acts of 2022 and extended by chapter 2 of the acts of 2023 this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone uh no per in-person attendance of members of the public is possible but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via techn technological means so um I again am oh hello councelor ET we just called the meeting to order and can you hear us and be heard hi pres okay welcome great we are literally just getting started um ham May jump jump in as chair in a few moments but if you can see she's in a car right now so um I will begin chairing the meeting so our first um item is public comment but I'm not oh I am seeing one member in the audience so I will now um open open the meeting to public comment if any member of the public would like to speak please raise your hand and we'll invite you in okay I'm not seeing any hands go up so I think we will end public comment and we can come back at the end of the meeting if um a member of the audience um you know would has a question or would like to speak so we're um the first item on our agenda is a report on regulations um versus bylaws and a discussion of our workflow and roll out of the bylaw and we're delighted that Chris breasto and Stephanie chiarella could be here to provide um an update because I think you've you've done some work on this since our last meeting so I will turn it over to you Chris and Steph okay um good evening my name is Christine breast I'm the planning director and I have with me Stephanie Chella the director of sustainability and we spent time last week um at based on your directions from the previous meeting I should back up and say we have met with you twice now we met with you on March 26th and then we met with you on April 9th in the interim we also met with um counselor hanii um and she had some ideas about how to uh reorganize this um solar bylaw so um we took some cues from what she said and we met with you as I said on April 9th and gave you um kind of a picture of what we were proposing to do and you essentially um agreed with it uh to that point um and what we decided to do that was that there were uh many many things in the Solar bylaw and um you all felt that it would be clearer and more useful if we um could separate those things out into different categories and among those categories were we're going to have to present this to Town Council at some point so a cover memo what is this all about why are we doing this Etc um a solar bylaw and this would be part of the zoning bylaw so it has to have the same characteristics as the zoning bylaw um and rules and regulations now the zoning board of appeals and the planning board both have rules and regulations and um several members of the CRC felt that uh parts of the um solar bylaw the way it had been um initially drafted um contained a lot of uh items in it that should more properly be in rules and regulations and then the other part is um conditions so when the planning board or the zoning board of appeals grants a permit they put uh conditions on that permit and usually we have what we call boilerplate conditions so um for you know say a residential development we have certain conditions that we always put in for uh commercial development we have certain conditions that we always put in so we're trying to develop some boilerplate conditions for um solar installations so um I said Stephanie and I um met last week and we um went through the bylaw as it was written and we um determined what we thought should be in these various categories and Stephanie was very uh colorful and um as you can see I don't know if you can see this but um somebody can can bring this up on the screen uh our version of the solar bylaw um which we've divided into do sections and maybe it would be good to kind of just skim through this and give you a general um idea of what our thought process was um so if someone can bring the large scale ground mounted s solar photovoltaic installations up on the screen and the colored version which I think Stephanie called the highlighted version that would be helpful so what we did was we divided this based on color into these four categories which we developed um the cover memo was one category the bylaw sections was another category rules and regulations was a third category and conditions was a fourth category so we assigned different colors to these different um parts of the bylaw um a cover the cover memo was going to be green and so things that are um in green highlighted in green here are we think should be in the cover memo as opposed to being part of the solar bylaw um things that are in yellow We Believe should be um left in the Solar bylaw itself um if you can scroll down and see if you can find some blue um I think blue is not too far how far is Blue there we go okay so things that are um highlighted in blue we thought would most practically be in rules and regulations and that includes things like submitt requirements and then things that are in pink and I can't remember where the pink is there it is okay so things that are in pink we felt that those would be most suitably um offered as boilerplate conditions to the zoning board of appeals and the planning board for them to use when they're um reviewing and approving a solar installation so um we can go through the this document here that is um highlighted and give you kind of a sense of why we put things in various categories starting at the top if that makes sense to you although I'm happy to I'm open-minded about what however you think it would be uh best to review this okay so um thank you for this the color is great I think that's very helpful although it didn't come through on what was in the packet did it come through for anybody else oh it did I mine there this is this is from the packet it's the PDF okay I must have been looking at the wrong one because I didn't yeah it's what I had was just all white okay okay I'm glad it's there and it's uh Pam um it came through the in the packet but it wasn't able to be printed in color and I also need to let you know that my since I'm in a car I do not have a power cord so I'm just going to keep going as long as I can until the power of my computer runs out and then when we get to our destination I will log back into the meeting so I'm apologizing okay no thank you for' I'll just keep going until I can't thank you great um I think what do you all think I think it would be helpful for Chris to go through this but I sort of do it category by category instead of um you know line by line from the beginning uh Pat yeah one of the things that might be helpful is to go through the bro you you didn't remove anything you just took what was there and highlighted it yeah so it seems to me that we might be able to go directly to the sections and look at them sectionally instead of going I don't know just seems more efficient but yeah does that make sense to you Chris sure that's fine okay um so you want to start with what do you want to start with um the cover memo uh Stephanie has your hand up I was um actually um going to recommend that maybe focusing on the bylaw first itself might be the place to start um because the cover memo can sort of come at the end and that was just pulled out from the existing document but I think the solar bylaw itself is really what you want to be focusing on maybe just a suggestion sure that's fine that's what's in yellow so um does everybody agree with that that we should start with the solar B sounds good to me sorry rather than going from this document maybe thew itself that was created Sor I'm G to mute myself um I didn't understand anything that was just said but I guess I'll just go ahead and talk I think Stephanie had suggested going through the bylaw itself and not the colorcoded copy there's there's a version sorry there is a version that was in your packets because what we did was we colorcoded the document and then we provided or Chris provided each one separately with pulled out so there's a a version of the solar all of the yellow that's just there it is okay great yeah it's on the screen there you go okay so I will start with this so um normally in a zoning bylaw you have um you know sections that are sort of typical and one of the sections is intent and purpose so um we took uh the very beginning of the intent and purpose from the larger solar bylaw and um put it in the first part of this um document here so this is what's going to go into the solar bylaw in in our opinion um then what does this apply to well the applicability section tells you that it applies to these large scale ground-mounted photo photovoltaic installations um and then the next uh paragraph says this byla is not intended to regulate solar panels installed on buildings such installations are permitted by right with a building permit um so that's that and then um we had long fairly long Nexus statements in the Solar bylaw initially and the reason for that was that um we were told that if we had um limitations on solar installations it would be a good idea to have something in the bylaw that would tell people why why are we having these limitations and so the the solar B working group developed these this text to say well here's why we need to have this solar B here's why we need to um protect Forest lands and protect farmlands so um so we're leaving the Nexus statements in the bylaw for now so the first Nexus statement is on Forest lands and protecting those and why they're valuable to us and then the second section is on farmland and again um why we not need to protect farmland and why it's valuable to us um the next section is definitions and all zoning bylaws have definitions often these definitions are found in section 12 at the back of the zoning bylaw and we may decide that these definitions should also be placed in section 12 but for now or excuse me article 12 but for now we're putting them in the body of the so bylaw and you can decide later whether you want to have them in the body here or whether you want to have them with all of the other definitions so these are definitions that relate to uh solar installations um the next section not sure why this popping up in the pH the next section has to do with design standards and um we talked about that Stephanie and I and we decided that um many of the design standards that were put into the original solar bylaw may be better off placed in um the rules and regulations of the uh particular board that is reviewing these things so what we what we're left with is the one that we felt was really um very important to put in the Solar bylaw was glare and how to control glare or what should be done about glare um then the next section special requirements um we talked a lot about uh protecting the ecosystems and um we talked also about setbacks with the solar Bilo working group and so we thought that those two things should be kept in the Solar bylaw as opposed to be putting in rules and regulations and then special requirements for large scale ground-mounted photovoltaic installations on Farmland um we thought that it was important to keep that in solar bylaw for now um then we have on the next page uh dimensional standards so if you scroll down to next page you see dimensional standards and we start to talk about um some setbacks and and as Manny Joe has mentioned there were setbacks mentioned in other parts of the bylaw but these are ones that we felt really should be in the Solar bylaw um then we have a section on battery energy storage systems and this section is really fairly short um and in some ways it's kind of um just representative of what should actually be in the bylaw so we have a choice between either having a battery energy storage systems bylaw that stands on its own or putting one uh together with this with the um zoning bylaw I'm I'm not saying that correctly we have a choice between having a solar bylaw that doesn't really talk a lot about battery energy storage and then an accompanying bylaw that would talk about battery energy storage and those would be two different parts of the zoning bylaw so this is something that you need to decide um in this case we're just showing kind of a a summary of what might be placed in battery energy storage systems in the zoning BW itself I think we would if we decided to keep this in zoning bylaw we would elaborate on this um and then the alternative choice is to create a separate section which I have drafted but I haven't shown it to you yet I don't think I've I don't believe I've sent it to you but the solar BYO working group did have an opportunity to look at it although they didn't have an opportunity to talk about it um so anyway that's a decision that you'll have to make about whether you want to keep that in here or whether you want to have a separate section then all of the solar bylaws that I looked at had pretty much the next several sections in the Solar bylaw in the in a zoning byw one of it has to do with modifications so if you're making substantial modifications to your solar installation um this tells you what you need to do um the transfer of ownership is also something that is typically contained in a zoning bylaw so um we kept the transfer of ownership that is if somebody builds the solar installation and then sells it off to somebody else what happens and what are the notification requirements you have to notify the permit granting Authority and the Building Commissioner Etc so that's what that's about the next section is about abandonment or decommissioning so abandonment means you know that the operator kind of walks away from it um decommissioning is when it reaches the end of its um Lifetime and then you have to um take you know take it part um so that's what this section is about and again abandonment and decommissioning are usually part of solar bylaws that I have um reviewed um if you go down to the bottom of the next page Financial Security or shity um we often have um there is often a section or almost always a section in a solar bylaw um having to do with well what do you do if somebody walks away from from a site doesn't complete building it or doesn't um doesn't take it apart when the time has come to um to take it apart so that's why we have this section on solar on financial shity for solar uh installations um then we have a section on taxes or payment in Le of taxes again that's kind of a typical section to have in a solar bylaw severability means If part of the bylaw is found to be invalid the remainder of the bylaw won't be affected and then um how can you appeal a decision and this describes various ways that you can appeal different uh types of decisions that may be made with regard to solar Bots or solar installations so um so that's what we think should be kept in the Solar bylaw do you want to talk about that um now or do you want to go on to the next sections um well let me Mandy councelor hanii has a question so I'll call on thank you to ask or make a comment no it it is it is more of a question and I'm going to keep it very broad um because I I just you you seem to have and I'm just trying to sort of get an idea of how you did this or how you made decisions you seem to have taken entire sections or or sections of sections um thinking about design standards all of the glare but none of the signage say um the signage all went to regulations without modifying at this point any language or anything like that you're just creating these new documents right now and then I I'm I guess my question is the next step is to then dig into say this document and start modifying it to whatever concerns we have or addressing all of that so that's question number one but question number two is did you make a distinct choice not to say split up signage into some portions that might be more appropriate for bylaw into the bylaw and then some into the regulations and said well we're just going to keep entire sections into one or the other and since that section is more regulatory we initially put it in regulations um or is that it so should I read it like that that some of it might migrate back in to bylaw at some point um or should I be looking at this and saying none of it's going to migrate back unless someone asks I guess that's that's sort of I think that this is a fluid um situation like Stephanie and I took our first crack at what should be in what document and I think neither of us has a very um rigid um stance on what we put in the bylaw and what we put in rules and regulations so this is all open to being discussed and I I think you know signage is certainly something that we could put back into the bylaw we thought it was applicable in in rules and regulations but I think you could make the argument that it could also go in the bylaw the the bylaw itself the zoning bylaw itself has a whole section whole chapter on signage um so in terms of a solar installation the types of signage that would normally go in would be things that are uh warning signage or things that tell um the fire department for instance what what they should do when they arrive here or where they can find things that's another kind of signage but another kind of signage might be um you want to bring a school group here and obviously you're going to stay outside the chain link fence but you might want them to see some interpretive signage about what they're looking at so that's another type of signage so I think um I see Stephanie has her hand up and I think she might have had stronger opinions about where signage should go so maybe she could speak to that question um Mandy did you have a counc Han do you have a question before no I mean I we don't need to get bogged down and signage that was just an example I was more Curious there were some sections that I read that I thought maybe the first sentence or two of the section was appropriate for say the bylaw but the rest was more regulatory or conditions and so I was trying to get I guess my question related to will that be teased out later and how did you make the decision it was it oh it's mostly regulatory so we threw it into regulations even if something might be more appropriate in the bylaw as we dig into this document further I think that's the case that if you have certain things that you'd prefer to have in the bylaw for certain reasons you know we open to that this was a first cut thank you uh Stephanie um yeah to Mandy Joe's question I would say that um I think possibly with a signage especially but um I thought that for the solar bylaw things could be more generally referenced as you pointed out Mandy Joe there might be just a sentence but then the rest that gets more specific could go in regulations but we just kind of kept that in for now um to Chris's point we just felt like well you sort of under you'll get a better sense of why we pulled what we pulled for the regulatory language um and if it seems like what's in the bylaw still some of that might still be regulatory language you might want to pull that out and put it with regulations so I think we were just trying to tease it out to sort of help discern what seems more like regulatory language um again I was sort of more when Chris and I were speaking and doing this work we were having conversations and I was sort of feeling like that we wanted sort of more generalities to be in the bylaw and the specifics to be in the regulatory language so I think we were just trying to show the difference of and when you look at them especially when you look at the conditions compared to the regulatory language you can sort of get a sense of why why we chose to put those in that category so it's just to make it clearer but by no means is this a final it was just what we saw as an easy way to begin the process thank you no this is really helpful I mean it's it's kind of like you put it in tranches and then we can you know refine it and dig further from there so would it be helpful to go through um this is to the CRC members to go through the different sections for CIS and Stephanie to walk us through and then we'll have a sense of what's where and we can you know have a more Global discussion of if we initially see items in different sections that we think might be moved so if I don't know if anyone has any it seems to me that would be helpful to go through all of them and then we'll know what's the lay of the land is and we can go back to specific sections so I'll turn it back over to you Chris okay so maybe the next thing we should go through is what we thought should be in rules and regulations and again we lump these in together um with um the planning board and the zoning board of appeals so the planning board and the zoning board of appeals already have rules and regulations and those already contain requirements for various types of um submittals you know whether it's a special permit application or comprehensive permit application or whatever so these things that were put in the submitt requirements um initially in the draft zoning bylaw were taken from other cities and towns that had solar bylaws that had specific requirements for um solar installations they wanted these types of materials and there's a lot of overlap between what's in this list and what is in already in the planning board's rules and regulations some members of the solar BW working group felt pretty strongly about keeping these things here and in any event um so what we did was we said okay well we could take the submitt requirements out of the solar zoning bylaw and put them into the rules and regulations and let's not get too bogged down on exactly what these submittal requirements are at this point but just to know that that's why we put them in rules and regulations um so you can scroll down there are a lot of them I think there are 32 of them or something like that and there could be arguments uh pro and con of why you would want certain information or why you wouldn't want certain information or why you would insist on having it um then we said um well design standards could also be put in rules and regulations and this first part of design standards visual impact I know there are a lot of uh arguments against having um visual impact be a criteria or a a a set of rules that you would govern um solar installation by some people say well you shouldn't worry about what it looks like because it's so important for having these things for climactic Change and there can be all kinds of arguments about whether people think these are beautiful or not um but in any event the visual impact is something that is considered by other cities and towns and so we initially put um you know uh analysis of the visual impact and then how to kind of I think we have some things about how to control it but maybe it's just analysis or mitigation in the Solar bylaw but when Stephanie and I were talking about this we said well maybe that could be in rules and regulations it's it doesn't necessarily have to be in the Solar bio so that's why we have visual impact here um fencing was another issue you could argue that fencing should be in the Solar bylaw on the other hand it makes sense to put it in rules and regulations so we made the choice to put it in rules and regulations so that's why it's here under design standards and then screening and planting um there was a lot of talk among the solar bio working group members about um how many how much screening should be around these things whether you want to um you know keep people from having to look at it or um you know keep um a screen between a solar installation and somebody's house so you know those are all things we can talk about but for now we said well let's put screening and planting in the rules and regulations and take it out of the solar byw um what else do we have in oh slope and soil so we have regulations about um how steep can you uh install these things what's the steepest um property that you can install these things on now there was a wide range of slopes um that were talked about in various solar Bas that we looked at and in fact I believe that the Watership protection committee actually said that they could be placed on slopes of up to 30% um there was a lot of discussion about that in the Solar working group and we we decided to uh go with 15% um and then soils all existing soils should be kept on site we have another section I think it was in the um it might be in this section talking about how do you oh it's right the next section how do you um maintain or manage soils in an area that is considered to be Farmland so the first under slope and soils here is really just simp saying you really need to be careful about not taking soils off site and if you bring soil onto the site it has to be approved by the permit granting Authority the next section has to do with special requirements so um as I started to say one of the special requirements um people were very concerned about well if you put solar installations on Farmland how do you um keep the Farmland in a state where it could be farmed in the future once the solar installation is removed so there were um there was a lot of material that we read about maintaining soils and we put it in uh the uh rules and regulations rather than the zoning by law because it seemed so detailed and it seemed more um more apt to uh want to be put in rules and regulations um and then we talked at the solar B working group about uh let's see next page um if you scroll down to the next page where it says design and Reporting requirements um there was a feeling that you needed to um have a plan and be able to uh report about um how you were managing Agra agrial Tes on Farmland so that's what this section is about designing and Reporting requirements for agrial TXS on Farmland again we felt like this was more of a specific type of requirement than um what Stephanie had characterized as being more General description of requirements in the Solar bylaw the next section is maximization of ecosystem services and frankly I had never heard of ecosystem Services before I met with the solar BYO working group it was something that um we were trying to capture how do you preserve and protect the natural landscape and natural environment and Dwayne breger who is um very involved with solar work and also environmental work at the University um introduced this topic of ecosystem services and maybe perhaps others of you had heard of this before but it's kind of a a big um phrase that encompasses a lot of different things and this the paragraph that we're looking at at the top of the page here ecosystem Services may include um uh no I'm sorry we have a definition of it in the definition section so if you wanted to go back to that we could but anyway this was trying to um describe in a general way how you protect the natural environment again I hadn't heard of this before but Dwayne and many others had seemed to be very familiar with it so um let's continue on um the next is storm water management and erosion and sedimentation control this was something that we initially had in the Solar byw zoning bylaw but um when Stephanie and I had our discussion we decided that it would be better placed in rules and regulations and there are a lot of different documents here that are referred to and some of them are specifically um related to Massachusetts in fact I think the first um group of them are specifically Massachusetts and then there are other things that people brought into our um brought to our uh knowledge that seemed to be helpful so we put those in um into the solar B but now we're saying well it probably makes more sense to have these in rules and regulations as um references or as resources for people who you know want to make sure that they're doing the right thing um the next if I could I just wanted to let the group know I am going to jump over to the regional school committee meeting I think Mandy and Jennifer are the co-hosts now so you should be fine and I'll see you in a little while sorry to interrupt thank you okay maybe we'll see you later bye thanks okay continue the next section is protection of drinking water supplies and a lot of this came from the water supply protection committee white paper so if you scroll down to the bottom of that page um there it is yeah so there were there was a a lot of this there was probably almost a page about um what we need to do to make sure that drinking water supplies are not impacted by having um solar installations constructed near them or operated near them um I think all of these were taken from most of them were taken from the water supply protection Comm and those seem to be again specific requirements and so it made more sense to put them in the rules and regulations than it did to leave them in the zoning bylaw um then uh the last two sections that we suggested to put in the rules and regulations if you can scroll down again um would be maintenance and Reporting so maintenance is you know obviously maintaining it in good condition I um and the owner operator is responsible for maintaining it and you can't use any cleaners that are um not to that are toxic and so that's again it's really a specific requirement that made more sense to put into the rules and regulations and Reporting um I think we have other sections in the B that talk about reporting too but um this is really um reporting during construction and then report reporting after construction and who do you report to well during construction you report to the Building Commissioner and then you have sometimes you have large-scale storm events so you report to a list of others um talks about uh then then there's on the next page there's a reference to post construction and what kind of reporting are you required to submit um after you've constructed the project and then um you know while it's operating and there was a feeling on the part of the solar B working group that it was important to have this reporting post construction because um everything might not be completely stabilized and you would want to be able to know if there were problems with erosion or sedimentation and we heard from um people who are knowledgeable about solar installations that although they do come out at least once a year to um assess how the the installation is operating um it would be worthwhile to have someone have to report to the town about these things and not just rely on them coming out once a year um and then the last paragraph has to do with an annual report that they must submit so the obviously the reporting seemed to be more related to rules and regulations than to the bylaw in general um are there any questions about that um you know I think I'm going to turn over to Pam are you there to continue chairing so Pam yeah we um Chris has walked through the bylaw section and we're just finishing the rules and regulation but I did see that counselor hanii and Pat have their hands up but I'll I'll turn it over to you now to take over the Reigns thank you appreciate it um councilor Hani thank you um some of this that you decided to put into rules and regulations while it's very specific seems more like requirements for building than a rule like on application so I guess when I was thinking rules and regulations I'm thinking well what do you have to submit for an application that that submission requirement doesn't necessarily tell you whether you can build or not build in a certain area but when I look at some of these that you've chosen for rules and rs um you know lgpi shall be constructed outside of a 400t buffer zone from a public water supply well that that seems more to me like a bylaw requirement because you you if the bylaw doesn't have that in there then you can build in the 400 buffer I would think because a rule can't create I've never thought of a rule or regulation is being able to create an additional requirement that isn't in the bylaw for whether it can be approved or not and I was just zooming through the current plan board and zba rules and regulations and they talk about submitt requirements is a big one or how the hearing is going to be held um you know or or the timing potentially of appeals but I'm not sure that was in there but how many members are on the board how the board elects its chair um not really as a bylaw sort of thing yet I look at some of these that you chose to put into rules and rs and they modify potenti some of the things that you kept in the bylaw setbacks and I'm not sure that's appropriate so I guess I'm I'm looking for more of a how would this be legal under state law to put in a rule in regag if the bylaw doesn't authorize it um and wouldn't some of it be better for a bylaw because it just seems more bylaw like I'm I'm not stating myself very clearly but so I would say again um it's fairly fluid and I was kind of taking my some of my Clues from the wetlands um situation the wetlands people just came up with a new bylaw having to do with wetland but then they also have rules and regulations having to do with Wetlands so maybe Stephanie would be better person to um elaborate on how rules and regulations and bylaw uh operate in the world of the Conservation Commission Stephanie do do you want to do that now um sure well I can just respond um I I am not familiar with their recent process can only speak to previous experience um but in my mind there may be a general statement about buffer zones and setbacks that may refer to the regulations for the specifics so I think again we really weren't we were just trying our best to parcel this out but it's by no means exact so I wouldn't look at leaving this in as you know in regulations as why isn't this in the bylaw it could go back in the bylaw I think that's what we're saying is at this point we've separated it enough to identify the differences in the language of the regulations versus the bylaw so if you think something should go back in the bylaw by all means we're just trying to make this a little bit easier for you um because the comment that we got initially was that the bylaw as presented initially was just too much and there was inconsistency in in the language especially compared to the other bylaws that we have for the community so I think you know to Chris's point it's fluid and if you want to take this out we're not we're not recommending I want to be clear that Chris and I are not recommending this as this should be the final we're just trying to make it easier for you to work with this document that was presented to you without changing the language that's why we didn't change anything we just wanted to sort of put it in a format that might be easier for you to digest thank you and I think that's exactly what was asked of them is to just do the do the parsing out the breaking out without any editing um and and Mandy your your comment is right on that that is the discussion that needs to take place um it is it is not necessarily a given that you know it'll go as as colored at the moment uh councelor ET thank you Christine and um Stephanie I think what you say makes sense so this is not a question maybe it's just to reiterate what you've mentioned we had this bul document and different things seem to have been mixed in them but right now there has been a separation and the separation isn't completely distinct or set in stone and so we can at this point if we want to focus on the bylaw and bring in things of course toss things out of the bylaw as we see fit but bringing things perhaps from the regulations that might be more appropriate in the bylaw would that be correct okay thank you 15 bre so I wanted to say that if we have time this evening maybe we could go back through this rules and regulations and choose things that we think should actually be in the bylaw I think that would be very helpful for us for the next step Jennifer um yeah this is extremely helpful so thank you Stephanie and Chris for all the time you spent going through this um but so I just want to to I guess clarify for myself that what's in the rules and regulations that would be up for the permit granting authorities I guess mostly the zba and the planning board this would be a recommendation and they would decide if they wanted to adopt them but it's they could also choose not to and then it wouldn't be part of the the rules and regulations or the bylaw that's correct yeah they they choose whether to have them in their rules and regulations or not um and may I just say one more thing many of these things are things that the planning board or the zoning board of appeals would review while they're reviewing um a site plan that would be presented to them so um if you go down to the next uh section that we had said could be the the drinking water um this one yeah this drinking water one um so the planning board would look at a plan and say well is the installation inside or outside of the 400 foot buffer zone um when they're reviewing it I think I think Mandy's point was really that the rules and regulations are more about the process of filing an application and the process of reviewing the application rather than the specifics of the application itself and I think I understand that point and that's a good point so even though you know it it would enter into the process that the board would look at is this thing inside or outside of the 400 foot buffer zone um having it in the zoning bylaw may make more sense because that's the that's the actual rule that would be able to be um upheld in court whether it is or is not in in the proper location so I think I'm I think I understand what Mandy's point is and and I would be happy to uh you know have that conversation this chunk really shouldn't be here it should be in the bylaw yeah we want anything that we want to ensure is followed or stated has to be in the bylaw okay thank you I wonder if this might be a time just to to tangent just a little bit of before before councelor hanaki ask your question um just a a um it might be helpful before we decide is something a a rule and regulation or is something a bylaw um I would appreciate uh just a five minute conversation about where something some item section 17.11 where that might end up if it became a rule and Regulation and in mind there are a couple of options one it would be a solar rules and regulations number two if might be under the zba rules and regulations um it's I would I would love some feedback from especially from Chris in um in just placement so before we start dispersing things widely where would they end up and who would who would manage them who would regulate them well I think if they did end up in the rules and regulations each board this this planning board and the Z ba would need to have a section of their rules and regulations that deals with solar just like the the zba now has a section of its rules and regulations that deal with Comprehensive permits so it would be a section of their um rules and rs and I I think I may be wrong about this but I think that once this group decides what things should be in the rules and regulations I think that both boards will will be um inclined to take the suggestions or the recommendations of this group because they haven't really studied um this topic to the extent that you that you're studying it or that Stephanie and I studied it with the solar bio working group thank you thank you U councelor kenaki thank you um two two things one comment sort of one question and I'm I'm just using this protection of drinking water supplies is one example um because it's sitting here on the screen um and and I think I think one of the struggles is hence my first question we were looking at the bylaw side was some of these bullet points and there's probably 10 to 15 of them they're not even all on our page right probably are more zoning bylaw logical and others are more regulation facing and I think that's that was the tough part of you saying which part do we put that in because maybe the buffer zones should be bylaw but the plan needs to meet X might be that that you have to submit a plan right that might be more regulation um and what that plan has to include right um but yet they're all in this one section so that's more of a comment of I don't think and that's probably where you all struggled is where is is it as a whole more regulatory but now we have to pull out the zoning stuff and plop it back in zoning or was it more zoning and then we have to pull out the regulatory stuff and plop it into the regulations my question is at what point in this process something like protection of drinking water supplies we have a drinking water or water supply protection commission I don't know exactly what their scope is um we have up up above there's some storm water management stuff we actually have a completely separate General bylaw on storm water management um I believe um that we have it might even be referenced here yep storm watered management bylaw and there's apparently a Wetlands bylaw um at at what point in this process it are is it appropriate to go and pull out the stuff that's duplicative you were talking about even the application section that has a lot of duplicative with what's already required at what point are your are you planning on sort of pulling that duplicative stuff off and saying you know that's not a zoning thing at all because there's a completely other bylaw that deals with that that they have to follow anyway or water supply protection and I don't know whether there's an actual bylaw with water supply protection but there's a committee that does that I don't know whether zoning bylaws in any other sense deal with water supply protection um but you know at when when does that sort of review of oh this is duplicative of EX boards own bylaws and the work they're doing so we don't need it in zoning happen yes so um I agree that um there are boards that review these things like the Conservation Commission I'm not um aware that the water supply protection committee has any role in regulating land use permitting but I could be completely wrong about that my only interaction with them has been to receive their recommendations um about solar installations so I don't know how they fit into the permitting process I know we never go to them and say does this building in this location have a problem with water supply protection so so that's one thing I um the the planning board and the zoning board of appeals rely on the Conservation Commission to review many things having to do with certainly Wetlands but also with storm water but if there's no Wetland on the property then the Conservation Commission doesn't get involved but on the other hand we need to be concerned about storm water and storm water runoff and how do we control that so the planning board and the zba do review you know storm water management plans and plans that show you know where is the detention Basin or whatever it is um so I guess it sort of happens um on a normal course of events because we call upon the town engineer to review plans for our boards but um I don't think having these things listed is hurting anything I think it points people in the right direction and says you know you need to pay attention to those rules those bylaws those laws of the state and of the town and you know you you just need to um maybe we need to have them make a statement that they have um complied with the and it's hard to count on somebody else to review them you know I guess I'm not saying this very well but the D stormwater handbook well if you have a site that has uh conservation you know jurisdiction then you go to the Conservation Commission and you say what do you think about this do they comply if you have a site that doesn't have any conservation um jurisdiction then we're sort of reviewing it ourselves or counting on Jason skels the town engineer to review it and sometimes the wetlands administrator helps us out but um I don't know I don't think there's any harm in having all of these in here and it made the solar Bilo working group feel better about what was being written here because I think a lot of what they're worried about is that these installations are subject to erosion and sedimentation to the point where you know whole hill Ides have sloughed off so having these the references to these laws in here was um was reassuring to them Chris was a very quick followup and then Pat d'angeles um the finding that that a that a permit granting Authority would go through um do their fi do their findings um look at compliance for instance compliance with storm water does zba actually have a finding or could there be a um as part of a general condition or a list of findings um you must comply with storm water management that would be a condition um and yes those could be written into conditions that um you must comply with the D storm water handbook and you must comply with the Massachusetts Welling protection act Etc um so those could be included in conditions yeah just wondered where Pat sorry to cut you off I don't really have have uh anything important I just want I want to remind the group here the CRC members the bylaw has to be followed by the zba and the planning board rules and regulations do not so it's seems to me that what we consider the most important aspects needs to be in the bylaw and and parsing them all out right now isn't going to work I don't think but I'm reiterating it because that's the issue what are we going to allow a group of people who change over time uh the ability to change and what do we think has to be um the the by the bylaw that will protect the health and safety of community members will protect the water supply so it it really is a our responsibility to make sure that the bylaw contains what can't be changed that's all I'm sorry if I'm not thank you uh Mandy Joe yeah um to go back to storm water because I'm I'm trying to like figure out as as Pat was saying what something like this would need versus what's covered in other parts of our laws already right and because we don't want to duplicate or conflict if if they have to follow two different ones and they conflict we got problems and and all and so you know I'm I'm not an expert on storm water I just pulled up the storm water bylaw because I was curious who enforces it and who approves stuff um so something like storm water the bylaw itself says prior to the issuance of any site plan approval or development permit for activities where the regulations apply and we I don't know whether solar applies or not I haven't delved into that but this is what my question was when do we look at that right that that the storm water management plan must be approved by the DPW so if if at what point does whoever is writing our solar bylaw determine whether our general bylaw on storm water management applies to solar large ground style stolar Mount installations and if it does doesn't the whole section that's currently in regulations essentially get deleted in favor of this one with a condition or just a statement in the application section that says You must have already received your DPW storm water management plan approval you know something like that right at what point when are we making those who's looking at that and when is that looking at before we get into say the real you know I don't want to dig into storm waterer management to find out after two meetings of storm water management that we have a general bylaw that applies to these and we only need two sentences you know and that that's sort of where my question is going and it and and storm water is easy because you know we were on many of us were on the council when we went through the really difficult storm water man management General bylaws at TSO and trying to understand that so it's just in my brain of I know we have one but I think like concom when when do we do those comparisons and say you know that's covered by there we only need something that says in the application section you already have to have that permit before you come to site plan you know come for your special permit or how you know or we deal with how they get that and the timing between those two thank you yeah that's that's a good way to phrase it um I was in a similar L vein uh if I were to look at the zba rules and regulations there are um there are a number of just protocols and then and then one of the items though says all lot lines easements properties must must apply to the the rear and side yard Dimensions as set forth in table three of the bylaw and Zoning District so amongst all of this you know location of proposed trees and curb Cuts is also this reference to oh by the way you have to comply with table three of the dimension um Dimension table and so it's it's kind of a combination of of items um I think it would be very helpful to be able to go through this pretty carefully and and and identify as Mandy just said where do we write in and you must have the DPW approval of your storm water management plan and you must have the concom approval of its of of any Wetland uh infringement or something like that and just make it part of the the the process so where would where would those show up if if it's not just in a in the regular bylaw Chris sorry I didn't call on you um yeah I I would say that um interdepartmental communication is challenging um and we don't always know what the DPW has looked at or has approved and if they have a permit that they give out I'm not um familiar with it and so uh I think what I've heard from the DPW is that there is a um stormwater bylaw but they're working on developing storm water rules and regulations so um and they have to comply with npdes which is National I forget what it stands for but it's like a nationwide uh storm water um uh requirement so I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't hurt to have this list in here I'm fine with taking it out because these things all have to be complied with but I I wouldn't say that um it's completely clear to me how the DPW reviews or doesn't review um storm water and often for large scale things like um solar installations uh we call in a peer reviewer to review what is being proposed so um there's currently a large scale solar installation that's being proposed in town and the zoning board of appeals is going to have the storm water management plan for that um project reviewed by a thirdparty peer reviewer I don't think we're going to rely on DPW so um I guess it's just I I guess I'm reluctant to take this list out because it says it all it's got you've got to comply with these things um and it doesn't harm anything to have them in here since there it's just a list it doesn't pick certain parts of this out and say x section of this document you must comply with it's like you got to comply with all of this um and as I said right now the in the intercommunication between departments is not refined enough to really make me feel comfortable just dropping this whole thing but I'm not going to I'm not going to make a big deal about it because we don't have this list in other sections of our zoning bylaw we know these um we know these documents exist and we you know refer to them and we know that our the engineers that submit plans to us also refer to them and have to comply with them and they stamp a plan and they're putting their professional reputation on the line if they don't comply with them um so I guess this argument that I'm making is very circular I would prefer to leave these things in here if you feel like they should be out because there are they already exist elsewhere and you know we're sure that people comply with it all and we don't need to talk about it okay but my own Comfort level would be enhanced if this list we in here all the down to the where it starts to say other documents that may be in use um I think those things are you know materials that we could offer to somebody but they don't necessarily have to be complied with but the ones up above I would personally want to leave in I think thank you very much appreciate that Stephanie so again going back to the wetlands permitting and I'm having to recall it's been a while but the point at which you ask for the storm water management plan is the point at which someone submits the application so it's a requirement of the application that a storm water management plan be submitted at least in relation to the wetlands regulations which is all I can speak to from my experience um so and the the storm water management plan addresses the state regulations and then if there are additional Town bylaw requirements that are then sort of on top of that um which is I think what DPW is working on it would have to reference both so I think you know in terms of the there was a question of when does this get called into play so storm water management plan requirement would be in the bylaw as far as the submission requirement um then to me that would be in the regulations of then spelling out what it is you're complying with or what you need to comply with um I I'm a little confused by the by some of the conversation in terms of referencing sort of when does this come into play if if there's a a project that falls within the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission then they are going to be the ones they are going to be looking at storm water management that is part of what they will have to do so I think again spelling that out that a storm water management plan is required would be a thing to have in the bylaw this other supporting documentation again would make sense for the regulations and be kept to be kept in the regulations and I agree I would lose anything that is not specific to Massachusetts or the town of am first um and I don't know if that was helpful or not but um I that to me would would be a way to sort of simplify the language in the bylaw versus then having it spelled out in the regulations thank you a a question that came to my mind is if I were an applicant and I and I came to amorist um what would what would make a what would make a process the easiest to understand the easiest to follow and the easiest to comply with and so part of me is um is questioning if it might not be appropriate to have a a bylaw that is intact with with much of this information actually in it when uh not edited down thinned out a little bit as as Stephanie just mentioned um but if if I had to go to the zba rules and regulations and find their article five that deals strictly with solar or if I had to go to some other entity and find their section their subsection that deals with solar I think it would be I'd like to make it easy for somebody to actually do this while putting all of our all of our uh parameters in place so that it's done well um I would love some conversation about that it does it make sense to have a unified solar bylaw with much of this information in it the requirements in it um for Simplicity sake Mandy yeah I guess I I want to clarify you know what Stephanie indicated she was conf confused or I was not clear I probably was not clear about sort of what my question was going about when does the timing come in um I I guess that question relates I think I might be able to to it better with if if we're on rules and rs and I don't even know whether it's our within our purview to be dealing with rules and Rags but but we're talking about it right now now and you you stated at the beginning the submittal requirements has application requirements and then these other 34 that you just pulled out and stuck into here but that some of these 34 are probably duplicative of zba's application requirements in section 3.1 and so essentially my question is are they going to be looked at and duplicative stuff sort of removed and done before we have as a CRC a discussion on application requirements or are we going to be discussing these 34 when some of them might already be in the rules and rigs to begin with at what point is this document going to be sort of cleaned up for that duplica liveness before or after we have our first serious discussion on say section on submitt requirements and and then if if if you extrapolate that out to storm water management before or after we have our first serious discussion on storm water management are we going to clean up that section who is it going to be cleaned up before after that first discussion to identify what's already covered by kcoms review and so doesn't need to be in a zonian bylaw or is already covered by the general bylaw and storm water management so doesn't need to be in a zoning bylaw or maybe it's covered but you want it in anyway but you've identified this is a duplicate of X Y or Z I guess I'm trying to figure out the timing of that of how we're reviewing given that we already know at least for this section 1704 as it's indicated now there are duplicates to something that already exists so I can take a pass at um the submittal requirements and see how many of these things duplicate what's in the planning board and Zoning Board of Appeals rules and rigs so that would sounds like it would be something helpful I didn't have time to do that last year when we were um reviewing this but I can do it now and bring back a list for you next time that that would be lovely I was going to offer to help with that um and so maybe we could we could sit down at the same time and do that but that would be I don't want to hold you up um at that on that note I given that we're going to be crashing through this in many iterations um I'm also going to say that I would appreciate if if every member on the committee has comments it would be great I would collect them and I can I can tally them and keep them going so that we just we make sure that we cover our questions and we cover our concerns um and sort of check those check those things off that people send to me and it could be a rolling you know once we've once we've dealt with something we strike a line through it we we keep going um but it seems smart to have a a single point of collection rather than um trying to track it in many different ways but if Christine is willing to at least highlight on here it could be the same manner you know which if if on uh 3 1704 number two the first five bullets are straight out of it uh the planet or the zba I mean I really think we should focus on the zba because as of now the recommendation is that all of this uh is by special permit so it would go to the zba um I would focus on what shows up in their in their list um as a starting point and just color coded this is already covered this is already covered uh in in somebody else's document does that make sense just say something about um not doing it for the planning board just that even though we have decided that large scale solar installations that are operating on their own or will operate on their own will be permitted by the Z by the zoning board of appeals there are accessory uses such as the one at um Hampshire college that because it's an accessory to an educational institution is reviewed by the planning board under site plan review so I don't think we should leave the planning board out you know completely because that may happen in other instances um so that's all I wanted to say y so so it could be either zba or planning board and maybe by color you could indicate which one maybe okay so that's that's very helpful to know that the planning board actually dealt with Hampshire College uh Stephanie please and then Jennifer sure and sorry not to um go backwards a little bit but going back to storm water management I just wanted to point out that it's required if it's required for concom submissions if the project Falls within the jurisdiction which it may not so I think the point and the reason why this came up and it was included in the beginning and why all these other regulations were all referenced was the concern by members that stormw be included as a matter of course for any solar project submission so I would be happy to do a similar process with storm water in meeting with the wetlands administrator and maybe following up even with DPW about what they're working on to see what might make sense in terms of the kind of language that might work here as well for the bylaw itself would that be helpful oh you're muted Pam thank you the dog was barking that would be helpful thank you Jennifer actually Stephanie kind of answer just answer my question because I was wondering whether if it when or if it needs to go before storm water review or the Conservation Commission would that be indicated in the the zba requirements or is do we have to look at all the different entities that could possibly have to review it would should that be part of our review I'm just thinking of it like any project right any let's just say any project a building project comes before is it within the realm or the jurisdiction of these other boards and committees it's the same thing with the solar project that's the same it should be the same questioning process of which is the entity that reviews this project in addition to the DBA um so I think it's just the same questioning that you would use for the Solar projects as you would in another development thank you Christine so I just wanted to mention that um the items that were listed in the first part of section 1710 Water Management blah blah I went to Aaron jacqu who's the Wetland administrator and works with the Conservation Commission and I asked her what references should we put in our zoning bylaw to make sure that we are covered as far as um you know storm water management erosion and sedimentation control and she mentioned these one two three four five documents that she thought would be helpful to have a reference to in our zoning byw um so that's the EPA 20122 construction permit Massachusetts D stormwater handbook Massachusetts Wetland protection act town of Amber General bylaws and town of Amber Wetlands bylaw she thought it would be helpful to have those listed in our bylaw so I took her recommendation and that's why they were put in here um so I'm not saying they have to stay but I just wanted to let you know that they did come from Aaron thanks thank you uh councelor hanaki I'm curious I'm going to bring us back to how are we going to review all of this and what document are we going to start with um thinking about staying in Lanes the regulations are not within really crc's purview but I also feel like we you know we can't ignore them right but I feel like maybe we should be starting with the bylaw um and and getting the bylaw in shape getting the bylaw to have everything in it getting it in a passable form you know making those decisions like do we just add the definitions to article 12 or are they included in this article 17 or whatever and and and concentrating much more on the bylaw than the regulation side right now although I I I appreciate and have been one of the people that have been pushing this conversation on regulations about how we do it right but but um should we be and this is more a question for the committee should we be sort of pausing on those regulations and that regulation review and saying you know that's step two step one is figuring out what all goes in the bylaw and then discussing the scope of the bylaw you know I I know there are many things that are currently in the bylaw and some of the regulations that I want to strike um and probably that councelor d'angelus wants to keep you know and we have to have those conversations too right um and so so I guess my question is what's our next step is it is it having Chris and Stephanie do all of this with the regul or is it us coming back given these documents and saying you know I really want this part of the regulations moved over to the bylaw and then and then starting from that and then working through what what are the next steps with that and and where are we going say for the next meeting or two meetings Chris do you want to respond or um yeah I wanted to say that I think one of the most helpful things would be deciding what did Stephanie and I put in the rul and rs that should be put back into the bylaw and then we can look at the bylaw as a whole that makes sense to me so who decides what should go back into the bylaw do we do that in a joint session like this or should should Stephanie and I take a crack at it and bring it back next time along with the other things that we said we would do I I'm gonna I'm going to interject here I think frankly each of the the council members should take their own look at it and and mark up their own copy and say this really feels like it ought to be part of the bylaw and then um they can email me to that to me and we can have a discussion um you know using everybody's notes um I think I think doing a little homework before actually just sitting down one by one and and thinking about it as we see it is not a good way to do it um so I would I would suggest that perhaps a homework assignment for us is to do exactly that I also felt that there were items that really needed to be part of a contact or or a concise bylaw that were not necessarily regulations um as as part of that though I think it would still be helpful if Christine goes through and says oh by the way when we look at something from the zba or planning planning board perspective these items are covered in their very standard and very complete listing I think we can do multiple multiple tasks here um councelor ete um could you repeat what the assignment is because I on one hand um agree with councelor hanek that perhaps we should tackle the bylaws first but on the other hand I think there's a benefit to going over the rules and regulations knowing that that is not a focus and so we could speed through that picking out things that are um significant for us to bring back in and giving those two polls I was listening kind of to your assignment so if you could repeat what the assignment is then I might know where exactly I would lean between either of them thank you if I if I could clarify then if it were me and I sat down with the printed bylaw I would look at anything that had been um identified as blue and I would say to myself is this does this feel like a bylaw or does this feel more like a rule or regulation that um that I'm comfortable with and so each each of us personally should go through and and grapple with that you can either write it down yourself or bring your own marked up copy or you can email it to me and then it would be it would be a much quicker conversation to go through then the the the list um as a committee um and we would be able to go through fairly quickly to see if most of us agreed with item 10 11 and 12 should really go back into the bylaw and we all nod and go great those go back into the bylaw 13 14 and 15 really still appear to be uh regulation let's let's label it as such um that that to me would speed it up rather than just hearing noises um oh okay um does that make sense did I follow up so I was looking at you you didn't realize it okay so we we speaking about the initial document that had the entire byw color coded and looking through as you said grapple is the word you use so grapple with this color codes and see what we could bring in the bylaw okay may I say something yeah all the blue things are contained in a document and all the pink things are contained in a document and all the yellow things and all the green things they each have their separate document they're not colorcoded but they're um all put together so it might be easier to look at those separate documents and Mark things that think that you think this isn't a rule in rag this should go back in the bylaw because I think when you start looking at that document that has all those colors on it some of the the writing isn't clear and it's just all a big jumble that's what I would suggest just look at the the white black and white documents that represent each of those sections that we talked about specifically bylaw and rules and rs and figure out what in the rules and rs document do you think should go back in the bylaw that would be my recommendation thank you very good one uh counselor hanii thank you and I just want to clarify one other thing um at this point our opinion on whether we would just delete it completely or modify it extensively should not come into this review um we're dealing with whatever the original language was and saying if that language is kept it should be here or there not my particular opinion of well I would get rid of the language completely for example or I would change it X Y or Z that it that that's that's the task right no matter our thoughts on the language not editing yet yeah as much as I mean obviously you're going to make your own little edits so you can do what you want but it wouldn't be at that next meeting that we would discuss it right okay good um anything anything else I it's now 8 o'clock and uh we have two other items actually probably only one but um we needed to discuss we needed to discuss um just a quick update on planning board I'm sorry I'm being distracted here is there a nice seems like there's a dog or animal there dog sorry I see people with cats on them tonight it's it's my turn um so do are we are we clear with Christine and Stephanie if there's anything that they're [Music] um so should we try and get this to you by next do we have a deadline for our homework I think we should come to the meeting prepared we try and get it to you before W if you if you want to send it to me ahead of time that would be great if you do not at least have gone through it yourself and be ready to talk about it would be would be wonderful uh and I don't have a calendar in front of me but I'm trying to remember the the next um CRC is the 15th is that right 14th or 15th the 14th Stephanie or Christine any questions have we left you hanging my question is just whether um you still want us I think you did want Chris to still look at the duplicative language and then wondering if you would like me to still follow up on the storm water issue in terms of what would be required happy to do that very helpful yeah I mean we we can be dealing with a couple different aspects of it and then bring it together okay so I would say thank you very much to Christine and defy for spending time with us and U we look forward to more meetings with you hopefully we'll keep them in short as possible one one other item on that topic though is um at some point as we um we've talked a little bit about engaging other staff reviews and I think I would love to hear back maybe at the next meeting um when it feels appropriate to have a at what point might we have a document that in fact could go to different committees and or departments for some feed back on actual content since we're not dealing with content yet it doesn't seem as Mandy pointed out way back when it doesn't seem uh fair to saddle them with with trying to add edit and add material um until we have something that's a little more polished so I'd love some feedback on that at the next meeting thank you and thanks very much for spending time night good night night Jennifer you want to give a quick um overview of of our planning board I think we're really talking about sufficiency of pool because we have talked about interview questions we have talked about guidance um and the the description of all about the planning board still stands so we're really we're really talking sufficiency of pool yes um so right now we have four active applicants um two of those who had previously submitted calfs when uh Pam reached out to them and they indicated that they were no longer interested they were probably on other boards or committees and then two um people that had previously submitted calfs didn't but they needed to submit new ones have they they've received an invitation to do that and they have not submitted calfs so right now we have four that have um responded that they're interested and have submitted a calf and have you um it's I don't know if people have looked to see who those people are in SharePoint but I would say the fact that we only have four we were probably would not say that was sufficient and in terms I would say there are three men and one woman I would say the diversity is you know I would think we could would probably agree that we need to continue to do Outreach but so right now we have four for two spots three men and a woman C hany yeah um I I wouldn't call the pool sufficient I don't think we can declare it sufficient it's too early anyway because the vacancy notice hasn't been up for two weeks yet um and it has to be up for 14 days before you can do anything um so under our our policy so but yeah I I know two and four a lot of times you'd say yes but but i' I'd love to leave this open a little bit longer simply because it hasn't been up very long and people don't necessarily know that we're seeking applicants um have what kind of Outreach has been done with the bulletin board notice going up have have did it when it went up did it go out on sort of those in the news sort of email lists and stuff that do do we know whether it went out to people who subscrib to like news lists the the the town news list I I think it's called in the news or this or that that the manager generally sends his own press release out for when he's seeking and vacancies for everything else have we done that for planning board yet I don't think so I would recommend we do that before we consider closing a pool it's I mean it's on the bulletin board but I don't know who on Earth even looks at the bulletin board uh for that kind of announcement um I I can reach out to the the town manager if that is I mean obviously it's some he's responsible for filling his his committees this is not his committee um and maybe maybe that's in the past if I've reached out he's he's been able to figure out I don't know it used to be Banna I don't know who does those those automated emails that that his go out for I've seen his go out with Town manager seeking applicants for these 12 boards right I don't think a planning board one has gone out I think you have to contact him and ask him he normally sent me to Briana I don't know who he'd send me to or he'd send you guys to but i' I'd request that that that get out there in the next week or so if we could work on that I mean we've sent a notice to our district mailing list you know we do kind of monthly bulletins and it's been on there that's the star District I know I I know it was announced at the Town council meeting last night but did you send the link to the bulletin board notice to the council so they could so they know there's a bulletin board notice I actually didn't realize there was a bulletin board notice out at all um because I haven't seen it come through on anything so the other posted last week yeah no it was I I just looked and I saw it because I was like we can't do anything unless the Bon board notice is posted but it's posted but I'm not sure the rest of the council that's not on this committee even realizes that the notice has been posted despite last night's announcement during committee reports that we've started the process sending an email to the council that says here's the bulletin board notice please let your things could be very helpful too y good idea good idea and I don't know uh counselor E I don't know if Dona has any kind of meetings coming up but that's also a a very good way to get the word out some people saw the bulon boort notice because we got like two calfs immediately after it went up two or three yeah I mean at one like a week and a half ago it seemed like we had seven or eight but then four people either declined or didn't respond and they may respond I mean I could send them a little a little Tickler saying you know I reminded you to send in a new calf please do it if you're still interested we would love to have you so um councelor ete so thanks for the reminder um Dona has some I think small events this weekend and so I'll be able to pitch in and see what comes out of it thank you and and just of note that there are two two people whose terms end and that we are we are seeking um a good pool of people to select from wait I think that kind of wraps up those are really good suggestions on how to how to outreach um and our goal is you know July 1 is when we hope they'll be seated yeah so so thank you I was that that was the thought that evaporated um working backwards we want to have the council um have a chance to vote on the the recommendations by by when mid mid June it' be nice to not do it at the very last minute I'm looking at at Andy she looks like she's looking at her calendar oh Jennifer I was just wondering since the planning board chair excuse me did um for the criteria he had a suggestion it's in our packet to change one of the paragraphs do we need to vote on that question yeah yeah we have the the policy requires we adopt selection criteria every every time um there's a scheduled Town council meeting on Monday June 17th um there's probably a tenative one although it's my C my calendar has it on June 24 that is generally there to give us an extra week to adopt a budget it depending on how things go I don't know whether that's a solid June 24 meeting is happening but June 17 is happening CU that's one of our regular Council meetings so that's probably the one we should probably aim for to be have recommendations in by so our our interviews would be the I mean the the the second half of May would be appropriate which is coming up soon or early June yeah early June right right okay so we'll we'll try to Target that and um and I may look to uh Jennifer to help not do that that bulletin board announcement um I am going to try to keep my access to my computer going here um our last topic is and I don't sorry I don't have the agenda right in front of me but our last topic was the nuisance bylaw and I Jennifer did you actually hear back from Anna um I spoke with Lynn I guess I wasn't able to reach Anna and just Lynn is on go well as is um councelor ET so what you great yay councelor [Music] ET um so I actually I think shared the last meeting we had for go and what we decided to do is to see if we could get some questions from members of the committee to to ask um the chairs of CRC regarding um the new bylaw and I think that's what we are going to do I um don't know if any questions have been sent to Athena or um to Anna but that would be the route that we are going to go instead of having it return to you okay can I make sure I understand so go discussed the bylaw I mean the the the document um the bylaw um and that the questions were raised that are going to come to us to answer so we didn't discuss it we discussed the process we would take and the process would be that we would send questions to Athena or Anna and those would be questions that could then be sent to the chairs of CRC okay so I should expect to see perhaps a list of questions um I'm going to ask Mandy if somebody sends a list of questions to me um and I don't necessarily know the answer or don't want to reply without without um legal you know sort of legal footing um is it possible for us to as a either as a committee or as a like I call you and say Mandy what about question number two um I would like the latitude to be able to discuss it necessar I'm not gonna answer all these questions by myself is what boiling down to yeah no if if you get a list of questions you can either put it on a CRC meeting for us to discuss to as a committee as a whole responses or if who knows what these questions would look like right um um if they're fairly basic and you feel like you can answer most of them um on your own but have a question with one or two it's it's it's perfectly fine for you to consult one CRC member before answering them I'd be concerned with more than one because then you get into sort of potential deliberations but as long as they all just come to you uh come from you to the committee back but it it when you see them you might be like oh CR needs to discuss this it might be pretty obvious when you get on and it might not who knows yeah good Jennifer well yeah no so go received the nuisance bylaw with KP laws comments and they're they definitely be go go beyond their substantive it goes beyond what's clear concise and actionable so does so if it's beyond the perview of go do they have and they want it to come to they want CRC to address those comments from KP law that are not clear concise and actionable but substantive does go just procedurally have to send it back to the C go back to the council and then ask the council to refer it to us or can it just happen by an email to the chair I'm looking at councelor ET and also at councelor hanaki so we've been wrestling with this actually and I was going to ask that as a question too um councelor Rooney um one of the options we had and it was actually we considered it quite a bit was to Simply refer the by to CRC since the comments that were made by KP law were substantive um Athena mentioned that as the body that looks over legislation go should be able to make um the necessary edits and so we moved away from that and returned to having a list of questions that we would send to um CRC but in listening to the discussion right now if the questions end up coming before the committee itself I don't I think it would be more efficient to Simply have it return to CRC to look over it because this practically no difference between having questions answered within the committee and having the committee look at the bylaw with oh yes the newsance bylaw with the comments that are made by KP law I don't know if that makes sense if I understand you if if it comes back to CRC it would come back with questions that would that would want answering um and then CRC would um edit appropriately and come back with the documents that go could then look at again so there are two options both of them are going to involve the entire committee so one would be questions that the committee discusses or another would be that it referred back to CRC and it wouldn't be questions but we would look over everything make the necessary necessary updates and then send it back to J um demanding so it's complicated right because our committee structure is not potentially set out properly to deal with this situation but I'm going to bring us back to um rental registration after CRC pushed it out and said we're done with it with a recommendation that it go to finance for looking at specific areas Finance struggled with it for a while and basically sent questions directly back to CRC who then answered them and sent those answers along with amendments to the bylaw back to finance directly um and the council didn't have a problem with that so um you know I I think I think the question Approach at this point given the um uncertainty and the confusing nature of how our committee charges are set up to review bylaws and work on bylaws I think the question system of sending questions from the committee that it's got reviewed to another committee and say hey can you do that can you answer these questions is the most logical and probably most efficient at this time TSO does it all the time with sending questions to Tech for reviews and advice while they're looking at stuff without a formal referral to Tech or anything they just send them on so I think there's precedent for doing it that way um and it's probably the most efficient if go is having issues to do it that way given how our committee structure is set up thank you so we could we could address the vice chair of go and suggest that go um send back the document with with questions and any any markups any questions and that would put it back on our on our table to discuss and we would be I would be very happy to discuss it D noted that separate issue so if uh we're not done with this discussion I can wait it up does everybody feel comfortable with that approach Martha Hanner has her hand up oh okay sorry oops I'm sorry I'm yes and I did say before that we would go back for um if gu there was no public comment at the beginning nobody had raised their hand thank you and thank you Pat for saying that um I I haven't had that open um I'm very happy to have Martha Hannah make it Hannah make any comments um I'm guessing it's about the solar bylaw are you reopening public comment uh no I'm taking some comments on the solar bylaw that I think you have to reopen public comment for everyone who's in the audience if they wish to comment I'm reopening public comment it is 20 after 8 and um I see a hand in the audience could someone bring Martha Hanner in please all right thank you this is Martha Hanner I live in District 5 and I was a former member of the solar bylaw working group but it has disbanded and so I'm speaking strictly as an individual I thank you all for giving your attention to the bylaw I wanted to say a couple of things that as uh Jennifer pointed out and I think you all others too that anything we want to ensure will be a requirement has to be in the bylaw since uh the planning board or the zba can set their own regulations and so on i' also like to say that I think we want to make it as easy as possible for developers in the sense that you know how many different permits from different departments do they have to have uh can they go to just one document namely the solar bylaw to see what all the requirements are without having to track down you know a dozen different places and different zoning laws and so on uh also for the zba you know how many things do they have to track can they just turn to the solar bylaw and uh have everything pretty much laid out there that that is is quote important shall we say uh for that and and so I would say that from the solar bylaw working group the erosion and the conserving the soils and you know storm water management and that whole category was really something that was important and we debated for quite a while and and showed a lot of concern if you folks are not familiar with what happened in Williamsburg please investigate before you next time because uh you know as we've seen and councelor hanii we've seen this on a small scale right in our own neighborhood twice now where a developer just comes in with a bulldozzer and just clearcuts and grades and Smooths the entire property right up to the borders the property never mind the erosion or the this or the that so that uh requirements about buffer zones or gradients and so on really are important to have in a bylaw somewhere however you manage to figure it out and then I would just like to suggest to to Pam that I could see where it would be helpful if you could ask your fellow council members to send their comments in advance so that you could kind of draw them together as much as possible and it may be if if several people feel a similar way you'd be able to draw it up in into a coherent um you know language right in advance to shorten the discussion and then have have things uh focused I certainly uh look forward to hearing about it unfortunately I have a conflict on the 14th of May I can't come but uh also then on the battery storage I want to emphasize that our solar working group never had the opportunity to discuss the battery storage section it kept being postponed and postponed owned until the very last day when we were under pressure to approve the the final draft and you know everybody said oh we you know can't approve anything because we've never discussed it so that's why the battery storage section was was not really fleshed out in the document and there are some important things I think that that might be considered to include so thank you and thank you for all your good work on this thank you Martha very helpful appreciate it uh is there anyone else in the audience that would I'm having trouble opening it here that would like to speak please raise your hand don't see anybody okay okay um future agenda items I think solar bylaw is in our future will include that nuisance questions that nuisance bylaw questions bylaw right thank you and planning board yep Mandy so the planning board has been discussing a whole lot of University Drive potential rezoning or additional zoning uh are we ever going to weigh in on that discussion before they potentially bring something to the council do we want to as a committee have a presentation on that in a discussion that's question number one and question number two is the consultant is working on design guidelines for downtown right now are they ever going to come to CRC to see what crc's thoughts are on design guidelines in downtown before their work is done during their fact finding and Consulting stage before they've drafted a bylaw I would love them to be here to talk to the entire committee on and I my understanding is they're talking to Residents why are they not talking to us good question great good question Jennifer no I would love for them to talk to us that I mean so could we just make that request and do we have to go through the town manager probably and copy Chris breast rup since since I think her staff is managing that project a very good that's a very good question I will I will write a a request for that pass that along thank you anything else Pat counselor ET uh I have no um and this is memory I don't have anything within 48 hours that I'm aware of and and it looks like it is 8:29 I think it's a really good time to um adjourn um do we have to vote I'll move to adjourn second let's see you okay we're gonna quickly go hanaki hi Rooney I d'angeles hi oh hi hi okay hit stop recording and we're done thank you everybody and thank thank you for jumping in the car and thank you all bye bye bye bye feel better Pat