TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ September 4, 2024

PL board meeting yet it's still showing a runaround Pond or no we should have a little monitor yeah there it is but I don't I'm not sure it can tell you if it's actually what's that it doesn't necess yeah I don't know that it it

streaming okay it just started there we go it is streaming let's see if mine's still spinning it's working any okay we got that job there we go all right yeah grab all of those I don't know Mike only needs one one me he is conservation uh Guru

extraordinary yeah I wish thank you member of the very knowledgeable very knowledgeable member of the Conservation Commission was on running around P part of the soul and conscience of the town all meetings I volunteered you're a good man I thought it'd be good to sort of have consistency at least we know what you're doing and you know what we're doing yeah yours next week right your meeting um the third Wednesday so two

weeks two weeks here thank you for everybody who's board meeting regular meeting on Wednesday September 4th the year 20124 uh first thing on our agenda is a determination of a quorum all me members are present so we have a quorum next thing is a Pledge of Allegiance

of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you do we have any amendments to this evening's agenda acceptance of minutes meeting minutes from uh both the 5th 5th of June and the 10th of July actually should be the

it is meeting minutes uh it just where it says acceptance of we'll change it from June 5th to July 10th to August 7th and the attachment is in fact August 7th 7th minutes changes desired or to accept I'll make that motion Julia that is motion second Alan is seconded any additional comment seeing none please raise a hand to approve 5 Z next uh item is so the

meeting the minutes are accepted next item is a the informational exchange on non-agenda items we'll start with Town officials Mr thear the uh Community Center facilities steering committee uh did meet on August 26th and uh just got the ball rolling on that project to look at coming up with a a long-term term vision for the town offices the Eureka the fire station and the ball field uh just kind of looking at these facilities uh what are some of the challenges that have been consistently brought up about these buildings and what is the long-term future kind of like a comprehensive plan for these facilities and so they just started the process introduced the members uh greater Portland Council of governments is facilitating that process and um we're hoping that it can produce a a long-term Vision that the community can grab a hold of uh they will be preparing a an engagement process uh looking at having a couple of

stakeholder meetings uh We've identified the obviously the town office staff the Eureka volunteers the fire department uh Personnel uh the various Civic groups within the community so try to get uh and Neighbors in particular would be affected by the future what happens on these properties so just look at getting some Community engagement and talk about you know what are people's uh concerns about these properties and what would they like to see happen with them uh and just kind of see where it goes if if a vision can come together with community support for the future because just my experience since I've been working here six years is that uh it's all crisis management uh for each of these properties properties it's when you know pipes break over at Eureka or we can't get the technology going here they look at putting uh internet over to the across the street to Eureka it's all just crisis management decisions and

that's obviously not a good way to approach stewardship of Municipal assets so hopefully this will just start a process where people start looking forward uh beyond the next Crisis and it really helps you make better financial decisions when you do make investments as opposed to just slapping uh Band-Aid Solutions on problems that could have better Solutions if you had a better plan so that's the process uh it'll be happening over the next few months they're H to wrap up that project by February um so that's uh on the way uh

any questions about that yeah will that be on the is that a vote that the at the meeting town meeting or anything like that no not at this point unless something comes out of it yeah it'll just be a plan yeah it's just going to be a starting point for future uh discussions and projects one of the goals is to see if there we could come up with a plan for uh changing the intersection out here and get that to dot to possibly get some movement on their part uh the Eureka Center is they've talked about putting a foundation under it and if you do that if you move it away from that intersection when you do it which is a cheaper way to put a foundation under it then you can open that up for DOT to really do a good realignment of that intersection and and fix it because it's it's difficult right now uh so those are the types of things that could lead to you know a formal request to do to look at that there may be some facility

grants for various improvements that are available if the town has a shovel ready plan project uh and so just would put the in a much better position to uh to plan its uh Capital Improvements and take advantage of funding opportunities when they arise as opposed to if you don't have a plan and you go to apply for a grant you don't even have a chance of getting the funding so that's kind of what we're looking at question if I may so I would just encourage all of you planning board members to start thinking about this in terms of you you've experienced some of the challenges of these facilities and and uh you you know you will be ident you'll have been identified as a stakeholder group along with the other boards and committees that have to deal with these technology issues and meeting issues um and so your input would be very very important go Ahad Brian sorry um I'm embarrassed that don't know this

but does the town own the property on the corner of 9 and 136 uh no it does not I believe that's owned by the I think it's the owners of the get and go it is it is it's the same property owner you mean where that thing is what do you call it that um no no no that's this just started out here on the empty land right behind us on the left hand side yeah and they did approach me a few years ago about their plans for that property that's what I recall that's what I wanted to I haven't had any followup and I did try to reach out and tell them about this process but never got a response so and at some point we'll we'll send out notice again maybe they maybe they get involved yeah they have major interest in it right y so are all these steering committee meetings are they on the town calendar they should be yeah we've only had one right I yeah what what's the anticipation our meeting times and how

often we're just putting the schedule together now so we've talked about having a daytime steering committee meeting or steering committee stakeholder group Outreach and then one evening one just to recognize the limitations of Staff time and consultant time so give those two opportunities for public input and basically invite all of the stakeholder groups to attend one or the other uh to make it available to folks who want to meet during the day feel more comfortable with doing that or people that have busy schedules who want to meet at night and give those opportunities they're also talking about doing a survey online like we did for the comprehensive plan to just get ideas for what people again what they'd like to see in the future here and what they don't like U just recommendation you might want to if not broadcast it live stream it live tape it if it's a daytime thing because you're going to miss a lot of

people yep doing it that way anything else any other questions or so and then just an update uh well uh the resource protection working group uh wrapped up its work uh last week uh August 28th and I'll be doing a presentation tonight of what that group is recommending and then finally the update on the codification um the Consultants sent us a proposed uh new

outline for the uh land use ordinance not a big change but some improvements to make it more standardized in terms of where things are located within the ordinance and a new numbering system to follow their standard formatting for the uh for the digital version that's going to be online um they're now going to start and have actually started the legal review they have legal Consultants that do this and they've done lots of ordinances all over the country and 30 or so here in Maine so they'll be doing a review to look at problematic areas many of which we've talked about in the past such as this issue of uh expanding non-conforming buildings what's in article 16 right now probably does not comply with state law and there are many other sections as well so they'll be looking at that and they'll be flagging problem areas and for simple ones they'll give examples of uh fixes that we could look at and tweak to fit or

tailor to fit derms uh program um in uh their their target they started on August 6th and they're saying it takes 180 days to do their process and so that puts us at the end of January so it'll be tight but it is possible that that could be ready for the April 2525 town meeting so uh what

I've talked about with the town manager and other department heads is us getting together and rather than waiting until they do that that whole process going down through issues that we've come upon Time After Time and flag those and make sure that the codification product addresses those issues and if not uh try to get um mov on those sorts of things you know we've talked about the problems of uh where currently we have the planning board reviewing maintenance agreements for private roads but you don't get to review the road there just those sorts of things uh how can we better align the policies so that we don't have that type of confusion um and try to get better efficiency so that's all happening and again I encourage planning board members if there are things that you say in the ordinances that just don't make sense and that you've seen the need to change something then we're going to start

compiling a list and then we'll be um we'll be presenting those to the consultants and trying to work those into the process as well if they miss them and when you say ready for the town meeting what exactly well if they if they come back with a um a workable uh proposed overhaul of the land use ordinance in this new digital format is pretty much we have the town attorney look at it and she checks everything and against what their their experience is everybody's on the same page then and and again hopefully it won't raise big policy issues like the ones we're dealing with so it would be matter of housekeeping uh and improvements so it

it would be at that point if they are not done till the end of January then it'll have to really be simple and move quickly to get on the uh warrants for the and meet all of the statutory deadlines for for deal but it is possibly doable it's a stretch but you know other than that you wait another year before you get your codification implemented so we could also like break some stuff up too depending on what they get back to us with right the easy stuff maybe add it to the the warrant other stuff that might take more time we could push it out well I think the whole overhaul of the new framework for the land use ordinance will be you know it's it's really kind of an all or nothing you can't have their ruming system yeah I'm what I'm looking at it like is the renumbering is one part of it and then the review of the content is another right like if we can get the ruming piece at least and then more of the

content see where that ends up yeah again a lot of it will just be cleaning up stuff that's messed yeah uh in then when you do that there may may or may not be and you like you're saying you could put off the real depending what they come back with yeah if there are there are issues like private roads right there was a big debate on whether those private roads should be paved or left gravel um that kind of put a stall on the up update we were trying to do so any of those policy issues would be something that you could put off but at least come up with now you know what they all are and you could start to prioritize and and start fixing those things sequentially so we would have to Let's assume it is ready to get there you know they hand it off to the town in January at some point time we'd have to run a a public hearing on it I believe and then um select board would say yes this is what we want to put on the I mean a

public rephrase that public information meeting select board says this is what we want you to there going going to want to go on the warrant public hearing and then the town meeting and again that will depend I mean are people you're going to want want to have a public meeting just to say oh there's a new newst this to this and we're cleaning up some of these legal problems and and some of these wording problems um you know again in order to meet the time frame of getting this on the town meeting warrant uh and you can and the select Bo you and the select board can decide you know do is this ready to roll if it's not then and you will be having a public hearing to educate people on what's involved in it yeah I I would my concern would be showing up at the town meeting and saying here's the new land use code in in any given you couldn't do that I couldn't do that no no we would in February in February you'd have to get

to the select board have it on the town meeting Warren articles send it out in the town report and put it on the website so there'd be plenty of you know as much opportunity as some of these policy issues but it wouldn't be like coming at the town meeting and spring and Autumn I we I guess it depends on what we got in January and we're ready to go with it so yeah and they may come in earlier that'd be great if they get it in it's much faster I mean originally when if they talking like two years to get this done well again it all depends on what you want to do like they're saying is that look the first first part what we're doing right now takes a year and then you start weaving your new policies into it in the second year I think might be why they say 18 months but we'll find out and the contract that we have now ends with that phase one that you know the restructuring of it is that what's

covered not sure I top my head I mean okay they're certainly not going to pour into issues like we're pouring into on this on this small amount they'll probably like flag it and yeah they'll flag it and then let you take it from there yeah is that contract public like I just wondering what the deliver what the deliverables are and when their deadline is I can certainly provide that to you it has to be public yeah I the select board voted on at a meeting so I'm sure so that was a fiscal year thing so they allowed money for this fiscal year well the select board I mean the town meeting uh earmarked 12,000 something like that for it I can't remember the exact amount and then the select board had a meeting to they did an RFP and so they all of that is in the public records of the select board in approving the contract so all those terms are there are you asking to sounds like George could provide the contract

if you wanted to if you were interested in it yeah I'd like to read it just to see what we're expected to see um and when the deadline is for the deliverables and I mean that might answer a lot of questions as far as what we're expecting to see be by January or to have in hand before the town meeting that is a good question I can't I should remember but I can't remember what the the funding was annual or I just don't

well no there were two parts of it first was to do the overhaul and then put it on the web and then they do annual maintenance of that and they gave amounts for that so what happens is once you get on their program every year instead of paying me to do all my manual updates that I do you'd basically provide them with your drafts of amendments and they would process that and put it publish it in the new ordinance every time and then there's a track record of every change that's made from going here forward and they're going to index those changes over time so you can tell I've got kind of an informal system of earmarking changes that we're making this would be much more ins searchable that's the thing you can go back and say fireworks type in and it'll tell you everything to do with fireworks in that ordinance and when any changes were made those sorts of things any other questions on U codification and I will send you the

proposal all of you yep thank you thank you George anything else cific a nope that's it um okay if next one would be residents public comment will be taken Michael would you are you would you like to talk about the where the commission is on the so just give us a quick real quick update on where you are if cut the solar one of the things that was you know on the agenda to be started this year was the expansion of the solar thing could you if you don't mind just I'm going to make you come to the front please not to put you on the spot or I just [Laughter] volunteers um we're not going to bring anything to the town vote until next not this April but 2026 2026 um what we're trying to do is make a map of resources that we want to

um uh try and protect and where we want to site solar um so some of those things are farmland and in Tech forests um we we charted where the three-phase electrical wiring in Durham is is pretty limited um so that might affect where um companies want to build

um we're sort of still discussing whether we want to have some sort of fee structure to try and uh sort of use a carrot to encourage um solar companies to build in less sort of sensitive areas but we really haven't firmed anything up okay does anybody have any questions I mean they they've been working on it and so I think still early it yeah I've been attending some of the meetings and it's great work that you're doing thank you yeah and thank you sure um okay so any other residents that I don't see um non-residents public comment will be taken seeing no non-residents uh we're through with informational continuing business none there's none on the list so new new business so completeness review of preliminary plan application of proposed phase two of BOE Hill subdivision map 10 law 38 public comment will not be taken um I guess I would start it off with uh I think we are where we were last

month and the developer asked for an extension and we granted it um if I have studied it correctly and George put together some great notes I'm not sure much of anything has been done since then or at least not provided to us since then and so I don't uh I I'm not

sure we can do a uh we can rule it complete or vote on it complete um so a comment here um does it make sense for us to table this until they're here like the applicant I my feeling is that uh no I mean it be for the reason julette is that um they haven't done it in a month yeah and so what I would say is what we have before us is in in my opinion incomplete and my recommend INE incomplete INE um

and so what I will make a motion on uh is that we uh rule it as incomplete and provide them the letter George has got a copy of that sorry apologies that makes sense and then and the Reas and they didn't ask for an extension but even if they had I would still I think recommend the incomplete letter because that's a formal okay it's not complete you know know there's no you're not you're not extending this we're telling you and it's not complete and so and it has no George can correct me if I'm wrong it has no uh negative impact on timing they can still get everything done and into us and we could hear it next month it's not like you have to wait six months after the letter to do it I think or two months or whatever so that's my feeling on it without going into a lot of discussion but I will open it up to just you know discussion I would make a motion with what you just said okay that we do the

in letter of inom letter do I have a second which second that it's been moved by juliia seconded by Mark um any further discussion yes okay your packet on page damn George I thought we get through this quickly well you will you will uh I think it's on page 160 has the actual draft letter of uh

incomplete application so I think it' be important for the board to reference that draft and just uh I'll just run down quickly the items that they need to address the first is they have not paid any application or escro fees uh they their form as we

pointed out for the LA at the last meeting uh notes is is wul incomplete and inaccurate uh they need a location map on the subdivision plan with the required information uh it should be labeled as a preliminary subdivision plan per the ordinance with a complete title block with map and lot number they did not submit a survey plan by the registered surveyor which is on the checklist uh they did not provide septic system logs for uh lot that outlier lot on buy Hill Road Lot 26 they did not on their subdivision preliminary subdivision plan is required by the ordinance include the names and addresses of all adjoining uh property land owners uh they did not include the existing buildings on Lots in Phase One and uh they did not indicate on the draft preliminary plan the cleared areas for each of the Lots so those are all the deficiency that I picked up in the initial review of their application having heard that to that

would you amend your motion to include the draft letter provided in our pack package would I amend my motion yes um I don't think so I was just looking back at my notes just I think I'm sure Georgie got everything but I think I made a note St but no no I don't want to amend it at

right what we're trying to do is reference the oh sorry I do want I do want to amend this okay I want two Amen to say that the motion is to approve sending out the incomplete application notice um per what George just listed at all of the items 6.6 B through 6.7 included in the agenda c23 yeah as included in agenda yep okay would you second her amended uh motion second it's been moved and seconded for the amended motion uh to send the notice oftion letter any further discussion on that seeing none all those in favor please raise a hand it is unanimous and

Mr targe if you would kindly send that out to him I will uh so I believe then going back to my agenda uh that completes the new business board discussion of land use policy issues for next town meeting uh again public comment will not be taken um

with I guess one exception I was since he is here Mr Friendly's been Mike's been very involved in the discussion and if you're willing would like you to kind of as we're discussing this join in give us your thoughts officially or otherwise for the Conservation Commission are you okay with that sure okay you can uh we're going to do battery storage first but you're welcome to join us now uh but your mic is on so no mumbling um so battery storage system Mr thear please if you want to give a quick introduction to that yes John I'll be happy to excellent

so um as we have discussed in the past the and as the board indicated I think at the last meeting you want to make a formal recommendation to the select board to uh put forth a moratorium ordinance on battery energy storage systems for the April 2025 town meeting uh the concerns are uh noted in the

draft uh uh ordinance that's included in your packet and I've got it up on the screen if you want to discuss any of it probably the bulk of it in addition to recognizing the capacity limitations of Durham's uh organizational structure to deal with project these types of projects of the magnitude and the complexity uh the town is really not prepared to deal with a uh system like

was just approved by the gorm planning board 5 Acres of batteries uh these batteries are the size of a you know a box car and I'm not sure how many 150 or something of those in that facility next to the uh en energy plant there in Westbrook so uh this will give the town an opportunity uh oh and and also as I noted in the past meetings I did include and will include as an attachment the uh report of the inter Agency New York inter agency uh work working group on

the safety of these facilities um they that report was released in January of this year and they noted that uh three of these facilities had major fires in uh New York which led their governor to basically formed this inter agency working group and many of the recommendations that were in that report I've summarized for the draft uh uh

ordinance moratorium ordinance and it gives you report that was in our last package yes okay and what I've done is taken each of those points from that report and put it into this as a summary Point uh identifying some of the issues that they have had with these facilities and that providing the basis for saying Durham really needs to carefully review these facilities and its ordinances and its uh uh infrastructure and services to

make sure that if one of these is proposed in Durham that the town is in a position to deal with the application effectively so uh this was based this draft was based on the model per uh provided by main Municipal Association which interestingly enough use Durham uh from something around uh 2000 where the town did a moratorium and it used that moratorium as an example of towns doing moratoriums in compliance with state law um so I basically took that template and put this information into it it calls for a an initial six-month uh moratorium and then the under law and under the terms of this draft ordinance the select board would be able to extend it for an additional 6 months and we've talked talk conceptually about the first 6 months being to dig it deep into these issues and see whether this is something the town could possibly accommodate from an economic development standpoint uh and Alternative Energy uh but at the

same time um it would helpfully frame the issues that need to be addressed in an ordinance and then the town at the end of the six months the select board can say well based on this study and hopefully form some kind of a working group or study group of citizens with uh staff assistance and possibly a consultant uh to look at these issues and prepare a report that gives the pros and the cons the issues to be addressed and then uh if it's a go to say yes if

all of these safety problems could be addressed then it would be an economic benefit for the town to have one of these big big facilities in terms of tax generation looking at what other town have benefited from these then the town uh could say Let's uh let's go forward with drafting an ordinance that will effectively regulate these things and put in all the safety requirements uh and service requirements that the developer would have to provide to protect these things as opposed to the town um or if the town part of that would be a public participation and if from a rural character this is not gorm uh does not have Industrial Park the just from a land use standpoint you may say this these really do not fit in the town and then you could draft an ordinance that would maybe allow and this this draft actually does exempt like a homebased battery energy storage system so someone has solar panels and

they want to have a small uh storage system for that that that's Exempted from this which is one of the things we'll need to discuss do you want to have moratorium on all battery energy storage systems or just the very large projects like gor and we can change the wording of this to accordingly but this is the starting place of a template for that I have provided this to the town attorney and asked her to take a look at it so uh I'm sure the like the retroactivity Clause of it probably needs some some work I just took a stab put put it in there as kind of a placeholder so uh to meet legal requirements to have it retroactive from the April town meeting back to whenever someone might submit an application there are things you need to do to make sure that it can be applied retroactively and we'll ask the town attorney to give us help with that so coconut shell that's it I got some items did you want to go first John uh no go

ahead are you sure okay so three items one the last thing you mentioned um homebased storage I I don't think we want to prohibit those right like I'm thinking of just you know someone has solar on their roof and they want to add a battery to capture that maybe for Ev whatever right we're not talking that doesn't that deal with size of storage yeah I think so but you talked about the size yeah the language the language that I got from I looked at several moratoriums in New York okay I mean they've got a slow yeah and uh probably the most and some did tier one tier 2 which was I can't remember how many hundred kilowatt hours uh but the the one one of them had 25

which is I understand is about a single home okay uh and so I grab that as as a starting place for exemption and you can work up from there you could say well we we allow these neighborhood solar like for a subdivision and if they wanted to have their own storage that's not connected to the grid feeding the grid and it's 100 or whatever it is then you you can consider other exemptions for whatever level you want you want to permit right so I think we need to talk about that so you have a home you could also have a commercial business that would take a bigger battery we don't have much here but something that takes more energy would need a bigger battery like but is it all all based on um right now whether it's behind the meter which is attached to your house or your building versus front of the meter which is attached to the grid is that the concern that we have because we could say we could consider saying something

like that versus having a size because these the technology is changing I don't I don't know I hear you saying two different things residential and Commercial and then before the meter and after the meter yeah and yeah I get the residential part that that definitely needs to be defined like if I want something in my house just for my house but getting back to the subdivision thing I mean that that that could be a an option for for a subdivision yeah um

and then behind the meter or front of the meter front of the meter that's more discussion I think George try listed 20kw uh as the cut off Max Max size that would be allowed in is so I guess what's important to know here is um what is

what is a first off this is only for a year so you know if somebody came in and said I want to do my subdivision and I want to put battery storage in there it doesn't bother me that they can't do it for a year uh is I guess what I'm saying is while we're trying to sort through this but I think what the one of the key questions is what is the right size what is is and think what everybody's saying is that for a house is it 20 is 20 kW

enough for the get and go you know it's the only business I can think of what is the right amount uh to last for a year or could we say instead of a size because things are changing too could we say a residence or something like that like Define what it is like a one residents you think it changeing in the year I I possibly I don't even I don't know because this is based on what others are doing right is this the 2025 yeah but again the across New York they had varying approaches what they wanted to limit people can oversight them too they can oversize their battery 20 is pretty limited I mean a Tesla power wall is 13 12 kilow well that's that was think the same thing cuz I have solar panels and I produced 40 today so that's a lot that's nice yeah but if you I mean if you want to back up your home for a day or two you need more than one battery right so I think it's just one battery is 13 you said a Tesla power

wall is 13 and 12 there are other one other makers but they're all in that you know 14 15 16 kilowatt range okay so we I guess would I mean I don't whatever makes sense within a an upper limit is that 20 is that 40 well how how do we find that out is there a way to uh cuz if we ask a battery cash oh yeah 2,000's good you know would right well actually so main M main energy Association there's the r in there um renewable I'm sure yeah they are starting a storage task force

similar to New York nothing as big at all of course but they're starting their own group that's going to be studying these things um so I wonder I've got a good contact over there I could reach out and see what she's recommending we could just try and get some guidance on that but the idea is for our residents right we're trying to permit personal batteries for residences

yeah I mean some someone like Mark who wants to put a battery in which is a good thing I mean there's given how you know reliable the power grid here is a greater Durham area um so but there's guaranteed I don't know anything for sure but somebody's got to have a battery in this town oh yeah yeah I have one you have one you have a power wall yeah yeah so so 13 and 12 kilow right it's already it's already happening like it's pretty small it's like half the size of this table yeah how long does that cover your house I'm just kid not very long you have to you can't operate certain things so and just my suggestion my suggestion is rather than take approaching it from the standpoint what do we want to permit yeah what do you want to limit so you'd start out with saying definitely gorm size facilities the town can't isn't ready to deal with something like that and then work down from there and then determine how how low you want to

go in the limitation moratorium yeah I mean I'm I'd go the other way and just pick a pick a number that if it's 100 even it's bigger if it's five times what this is that's still not going to be a uh do we consider that a major threat to you know the concerns we've got is fire um so on and so forth is just pick a relatively low number that that works for people who have Battery Systems one thing too to consider so all of this stuff about New York is all about a best which is a battery energy storage system yes thank you um

that is like you wouldn't call your battery you don't have a b right like it's not megawatts it's kilow yeah so maybe there's a definition in there too I don't know read this I'm sorry John but this is like a structure this is a commercial structure that's got rules and regulations of how it should be built this is not a power wall in your garage right right that requires special training by these folks um this is very

different than any other thing uh it's all commercial like concrete bunker kind of thing with you know fire rated walls and cocking yeah it's very but I think we just need to say so you don't run into the confusion of you know I want to put in a 100 or I want to put in two two because otherwise we what if it's the size of a container and it's you know this that or the other thing I think I'd rather say here's here's what's needed to for Mike's house was somebody who's slightly bigger rather than say you can't do best at this because is there an intermediate thing that may or may not be of concern to us but we are based on what has been presented to us it's it's item number four when we start with this moratorium and it specifically addresses the bests I think it's been addressed based on that it's it's it's basically giving a okay a definition and totally explains it that's actually we're talking about EXC uh you know

self-contained interconnected storage units talks about best being a facility so we've already identified it yeah that's a good point so I think it's covered so this is about best and not so a individual homeowner is not going to be considered a best facility are we in my interpretation of this are we good then get rid of the 20 kilowatt thing in the back because it doesn't matter I mean you don't need to set a a you know 100 kilowatt or 20 kilowatt just go with the definition that is here I yes I completely agree really good point Alan one question for you George when you were looking up ordinances from New York or moratoriums from New York did they specifically have mention of like you know this doesn't have to do with residential or 20 kilowatt I just wonder we all know the idea of this right that this is about best and then our CEO can understand that too but I just want to make sure legally we're covered yeah and the only

thing I would caution is that let's just say Michael adds a second unit in in line with the first storage unit does that now trigger the the definition that we just read uh in in an array so there could be again we need to look at the technicalities here of the legal language

subject to interpretation Yeah the more you can spell it out the better yeah we going have to resolve this tonight okay we can work on this as we go forward this is just a starting point uh you got until probably February to finalize your language and again you'd want we're talk talking about taking this to a public input process and you may get some good input from folks yeah I mean I'm thinking more like November time frame for a public information hearing where somebody could come in and said you know I'm powered my swimming pool and my my uh workshop and my Sawmill and you know everything else that I need you know and I've got them interconnected or and last time last time we did this you heard from some solar uh uh Farm installers they might have some good input into these these

be concerned with with the um folks that are looking into installing one now um I have not heard anything for months and months um and again part of what we want to do is get this out in the public because I was I remember from my review of the MMA information that once you go public with your intent to do it that's a trigger uh part of the process of being able to retroactively apply things so there are no active applications right now that I'm aware of okay so we because we do say that there is we say that the town has had inquiries we say that and at least one project is under consideration for is under consideration but that's not an application we not we have not received an application okay just to go back on what we're just talking about excuse me I just looked up New York real quick and there is is a definition so they spell it out between two tiers tier one and tier two tier one is under 600 Kow I

believe which sounds like a lot but tier 2 is above 600 Kow what they say for tier one is that um they are permitted in all zoning districts but subject to the uniform code and the battery energy storage system permit and exempt from site plan review so it's still I guess considers them a but

they're not required for some huge review because what they also say is that a best is not a small power wall or something that charges your electric vehicle so like something that you have is not is off the table but it does Define it that way in that like up to a certain size these are pretty much to the um review and approval of the local CEO per local building code yeah there's an NFPA that covers it yeah um what code did you if you could just repeat the not everything yeah I didn't say it very well so you mentioned the code but you didn't say subject to the uniform code and the battery energy the uniform code is all it says y it's kind of big isn't it yeah that's not complete and again some of these were from New York and they have that means something in New York that it whatever main would be uniform code you're right that's New York I don't know what it would be for Maine well this all what George put

together which is fantastic all talks about New York they they've adopted their own code just for this they not using a uniform building code or the they do talk about NFPA in a couple of sections but I think you know we need we

need to I don't know that we want to get into defining a main state code for so it's the uniform code is the definition is the New York State uniform fire prevention and building code yeah adopted pursuant to article 18 of the blah blah blah so it's really if main has a fire prevention we just follow NFPA NFPA and then our building code and there's a special one for Batteries but I don't you're you're right I don't think at this stage what we're saying is we don't know these answers and therefore we want to have a moratorium it's sort of what I'm saying clearly defined so what we're what we want to say is up to this size however we want to do it is okay under the moratorium because we don't think that's the same risk as above that size but the

issue is that size what is that size yeah I think that's but I think we we need to determine what that size should be so there is guidance for the CEO I don't I don't argue that at all so um how do we get there from here I mean it seems like the one thing that is that that we need for this I and I have another concern but how do we get to the right size what's the best way to do that well because a 600 kilowatt hour which is what their definition between tier one and tier two is is could be you know not a huge battery but could be a good size like you know what I saw was that it would serve about 30 to 35 homes yeah that sound right yeah yeah that sounds about right so so you know if you think about that it's but I I certainly don't want to restrict an individual homeowner

because we have over limited yeah the capacity well I guess so then my question is at what point does the size of the battery require all of these building um uh code you know it has to be in a bunker right yeah you can put yours in the garage right at some point when it gets to a certain size NFPA or the IBC is going to say

it's got to be fire rated it's right is there anyone that can tell us me um so I guess what I'm thinking is we we punt this to next month and and any other questions we've got as we're going through here that this is you know this is what the information we need to know for the next month and then figure out the best way to uh to get that and I don't know if a so a good solar guy would be able to say Hey you know for 90% of your homes you don't need anything bigger than this um I would think the CEO should be able to figure that out Al Alan that's really falls under well it that would be a good place to start and see what he's what he's got and then and possibly checking with the State Fire Marshall's office could do that see what codes do apply yeah hope right yep so that's one of the things we're going to punt until next month some understand everybody then anything else that you have yes I have

one more thing um those were the two the third one is I don't know if we should mention the water one number 14 have in there is is substantial we're definitely listing out a lot of like you know concerns and things we have to look at the water piece might not even be a concern so it's almost I don't even want to put it in there because these facilities need to have their own fire suppression system or yes exactly that's not why

we're not what we say may be inadequate so what we're going to do is study this whether the water lack of water is an issue or not no I mean I think I can get you I can get you data that shows that you don't need water for any any of these systems like it's not it's not a limiting factor if there's a fire they are going to bring their own other compression retardation stuff they are not going to want to use water water doesn't do it I they don't like electricity you don't want to put I've seen it like could so and in The Battery Systems they have all a lot of that already built in it's like there's a lot to it I just don't the the water is um just doesn't sit right um

but I I could be wrong I guess maybe I'll just ask that we consider this and I can maybe send George and everyone some some links but given 8i the New York water working group recommended establishing guidance for water supply cluing whether water is appropriate for different Technologies um so they do consider yeah so so and I think what George was saying if it is a requirement we don't have it that's something we should it's also the issue of the spread of the fire from this facility to other yes that's where the water would come in to contain to that facility the spread of it versus containing it CU it because one of the things they talk about explosions MH so you could end up with uh flammable fragments flying to budding properties and that sort of stuff that could be uh an issue for the fire department to not have water it's a really good point yeah and they do say that last sentence John that you were

just talking about um including exception for system which water should not be applied in the event of fire so yeah that's that's okay well and I think a lot of these we're going to study them and we may say yeah look at water is not an issue you know for sure so it just because it's listed here I mean I see this as a list of things we need to think about and and be able to answer that we're comfortable dur them can handle safely and not not picking on Chief or any of his guys but these are comp in my mind complicated yeah they are complicated systems that uh they're saying in this report you need experts available 24/7 that can be activated within 15 minutes and arrive on scene within 4 hours and be maintaining constant communication with the local uh fire departments to tell them what to do and what not to do in dealing with the fire and one of these things that is certainly beyond the capabilities of the Durham fire

department well those are the kinds of things we write into the ordinance yep and say if we if we actually want if we actually move forward in having them is that's the kind of thing said okay if you want to do this you're going to have to have this kind of stuff readily available to us um and I all on the applicant it's all on the applicant say you know this is you're going to have to who's going to do this for you you know well we got some expert who lives in in pel and he's you know available so that I'm not not trying to write it so that we automatically preclude it but if there's things that we want them it's kind of like erosion control you want to build a subdivision put in erosion curl you want to build battery storage you got to build in this kind of we may need the fire department may need additional equipment they may have some kind of special chemical dispenser that we don't have now and we can't we can't I think

the applicant will have that special equipment in case yeah but is it not the Durham fire department or does he buy it for them but I mean yeah that's yeah we don't the town's not going to buy it or shouldn't have to buy it cuz it's not going to be cheap yeah nothing it

um yeah that was it for me thank you because I think a lot of the stuff we are going to study um Mark did you have anything any one nothing additional Brian good thank you I do have one more um which is uh the timing of it which is if we go six months and six months that comes out less than the town meeting so I don't no maybe I'm worried about something that may not happen but if there is somebody who doesn't want to follow our ordinances or our lus article he could so 1 of April uh 360 days takes you up to the 5th of March if they submitted on the 5th of March what a you know the moratorium expires before we could vote on a um although although you could have and probably would have a draft ordinance ready for the April 2026 town meeting as part of this because this isn't going to start until April of uh 20125 you'll have a full year so you will have in that second phase drafted the warrant

articles and if you adopt an ordinance you can have it be retroactive my my conern is probably chicken but it's if we have the meeting on the 5th of April and the moratorium expires on the 1st of April there's a hole there's a window there that they could file on of a few days but again if your draft ordinance says it's retroactive which under main law you can do that that'll cover that'll cover any Gap yeah that answered my question I think and again we're going to get to the town attorney to make sure well retroactive means previous yes right so if submitted prior to the adoption of the ordinance the ordinance an application that's Retro Retro act it applies retroactively from the date of adoption back to a date certain in advance of the enactment six months year whatever you do okay that's my only just cover that Gap and if that works I'm good with that I mean I who you know somebody's

actually going to come in who know you know this may be what you do about nothing but it may come in at some other time anything else that we need to discuss so it looks to me like the key item we need is what's the right limit or how do we limit you know the size of stuff is it the definition that's in what is it paragraph four that Allen put out will that cover what we're really concerned about is there something that's um you know you could could you have a b best facility that's not interconnected uh you know those are the kinds of language things that if we go with that kind of language could you just have one big um container that's full of uh

stuff is that fair the between now and you okay yeah I kind of liked where uh Brian was going with this like understanding the size of the containment piece are we talking not talking about that right now we're talking about the same thing here trying to figure out the size to put in yeah that's what yeah remember Brian asked like what is that size limit that the NPA or whatever requires for containment or whatever because that is our concern our biggest concern is safety right yes so if we can if there if that is um

specified in the code then that's something to think about yeah I mean I wherever we would get it from that a we get that reads these codes and can understand these codes so maybe Allen is a good starting place and the fire State far Marshalls Office so again what we're looking to do is get this before the select board and just say the the planning board recommends a moratorium and here's a draft of an ordinance starting place and then we're going to do a public participation process which now in the end of the year and we're going to take input on this and that may you know help Define what your limit is going to be on these so you may get some experts come in that are you know in the industry that are working in the area like last time and they may give you some input to help clarify some of these issues again get input from the fire department the code officer State Fire Marshall's office and

all of those things might help you draft frame the final graph that goes out to to the voters you don't have to you don't have to resolve that tonight yeah final draft of the moratorium yes y I mean one other option is calling an installer and saying what are the outliers what is the typical you know installation yeah I mean I think those I think the experts last time were Juliet and then there was a guy who sat in the front row who was an installer as I recall it was very knowledgeable yep but I don't know how I guess for the Homebase systems people that's a fairly frequent uh you the battery installs becoming more common okay so I George I think what else do you need from us on this no so I will be preparing a report to the select board uh and presenting it on September 24th at their 2 September meeting along with the next item which is the resource protection so I'll package this up into

a memo uh include the draft language and the New York fire study and just say this is what we're thinking to take out to the public and get them on board with what we're doing okay yep so we checked the block on battery storage as George says the next one is resource protection and the resource protection working team whatever the title is has had I think three or four meetings they've all you know been very um useful uh your members

are Juliet Allen and I uh then there's three folks that have been coming from the Conservation Commission all of who have been very helpful um so I think what George has prepared are uh and I'll let George kind of go into in detail but there have been changes uh po recommended proposed on um the resource

protection areas and I will say that the the workshop reviewed 40 or 50 of them last at our last meeting looked at each one individually so they have been looked at in some detail um so tonight we're here to kind of tell you that this is what we would would go forward to the select board for their thoughts before it went to public information and it next two weeks this Conservation Commission will do the same thing we're doing tonight and see if this that's what they want to U send forward so George I'll let you update us so just today I finished a report uh draft report on the results of the research and uh discussions that the working group had over the summer and I've got it actually got it up on the screen so what I'm going to do I didn't send it out to you because I I just finished it today uh but what I I haven't really had a good time the opportunity to carefully proof it but what I'll do is just walk you down

through at a lot of it's the same illustrations that we've been using but this has uh explanatory text with it so the first uh that's the um the contents is the introduction of the key findings the uh Town research that led to the 2023 revisions the past proposal for two-phased approach the second heading is the new beginning with habitat data the SE separate issue of the buildings restricted by resource protection options that the working group looked at for dealing with that and then the recommendation for a 100t development buffer with differential treatments of flood planes large Wetlands stream uh and waterfall waiting board buffers uh and then the proposed uh resource Protection District boundaries that result from that so the key findings um the zoning map was updated in 2023 based on the comprehensive plan recommendations and the natural resources data provided by the state and during the public participation process

uh in implementation of that new boundary the public input indicated significant concerns for the accuracy of the state data and for the impacts of the restrictions on existing homeowners it would then be required to go to the planning board of the board of appeals uh after a review of Durham's data precipitated by some of those concerned citizens approaching inland fisheries and wildlife uh they did confirm that their co-occurrence map was inaccurate and they they did a customized study and revised it for Durham the other issue that that uh overhaul in 2023 did not do was to consider the full impact of placing existing structures into resource protection and whether environmental data supports that uh type of restriction being placed on those structures and the two concluding points of the are the proposed revisions will remove areas that were erroneously placed based on six plus co-occurrence

and will also uh uh include buffers around the existing uh buildings to uh to make those buildings uh now be able to be expanded without going to boards George yeah sorry one thing as we go if it's okay as we go through it the last bullet um we all understand what this is talking about it's it's providing for the land owners that were impacted by the change that we made I just wonder if we need to add any language in there so that and again I don't know where this is going if it's just going to select board or the entire everyone but it's not for all land owners right this is just for the impacted y land yeah and

again those are the key findings and just a summary and you'll see as we read through the text and I'm not going to read through the whole text but but you'll be able but you'll be able to read it and and yeah make notes of anything like that okay y so this is just my first draft um and then I talk about the research that I did back in uh 2021 that uh based on the this is that map on the bottom was in a report I did in uh August of 2022 uh that proposed uh a

potential resource Protection District based on the criteria of the comprehensive plan and the land use ordinance and then suggested doing two phases one was to remove the flood plane which was a significant portion of the town that weren't flood planes were included and then doing a second phase that would do the type of fine-tuning that we're doing right now uh that went to phase one went to a town meeting a voted down and then both phases were wrapped into one and that led to the adoption of the uh current zoning map with the current resource protection district and this uh diagram shows the beginning with habitat 6 Plus that was included in that map and then uh the

updated review by in the Fishers and Wildlife and in in those Red Dot circles are the only places where the it reaches the threshold of six plus cooccurrence of Natural Resources value so can you can just go back see that again what's in what's in the Red Dot okay so in the Red Dot the uh beginning with habitat okay so this was the beginning with habitat map provided by the state that led to the 2023 plan uh and

then uh yeah those are wait a minute did I go too far no no I'm just pointing out things sorry no no you're right but it says 2025 I'm going the wrong way here sorry yeah let me see if I can get back there okay so this is what uh we got from the state starting in 2018 and up until 2023 that's what we thought was 6 Plus pretty much the Blanding turtle habitat I think I got a pointer here the Blanding turtle habitat is this circular area outside of the flood plane

Wetlands uh these are Wetland systems uh buffers around those uh similarly on some of these streams waterfall waiting bird that thew removed that's what was identified as part of six plus prior to 2024 so then if I can get this down right okay so they recalibrated everything for Durham did a customized analysis and this is what that they sent me as the their new analysis for what hit six plus in Duram so maybe having a legend those red dots is the existing

current yeah I think I explained that up above uh red circles in that low so again you can read visually this looks like a lot less area it is than than what's in the previous slide 1500 Acres it's very deceiving not it's hard for me to When I saw this in your in the in the materials here I'm like what is this red dot actually and that's why I did the text of explanation of all this and again this is the first time anybody's seen it so and it's hard to read it on this and in this setting it's a huge amount I'm sorry huge but a lot of area that's discounted from the previous map yeah but it's there's still George correct me wrong all those red dots have resource protection just in the dot though right well no they're continuous contiguous with other streams and uh Inland water

habitat so they would be protected anyway yeah even if they land area we're not looking at structures right I think it might be helpful George if you put exactly what the point system for the 6 plus I wonder if that would help people that you know size of the property and Inland water foul and you know how many points you get for each of those things I remember going through that process but yeah yeah you're right but the the next slide or whenever George gets to it all those red dots will be covered up as you can see here they're all covered up by other there's other reasons resource protection yeah all of those red dots are in the green here they're they're in areas of green and so the language that you'll see on the last page of this presentation this report it says uh to basically eliminate

any areas that are solely resource protection based on six plus so ex so basically there's six criteria in there if it's just flood plane resource protection if it's just stream buffer outside of flood planes and other it's still resource protection if it's just six plus that gets taken off the map and that came from Direction with building with habitat beginning with habitat well they're not going to tell you what to put in and put out of resource protection the it's up to the town but they're saying there's no areas other than those little red circles where you meet six plus and it's up to you if you want to take those out so we're still meeting six plus we're just not intersecting with RP if if something is resource protection solely because of six plus then it goes off the map okay

if it's six plus and flood plane it stays in right but if it's just six plus it's just based there it's resource protection solely because of the uh co-occurrence of Natural Resources values of 6 Plus then it's going to come off the map because it's no longer 6 Plus and so that was something that we had decided in my brain it was building beginning with habitat removed they removed the blandings turtle yes that was that's no longer correct but then we're going above and beyond that and removing all six plus yeah because there is no six plus they revised other areas too in addition to the blendings turtle the only places that meet the state standard for six plus of inside those red dots that's right okay we're saying the same thing we're saying the exact same thing okay yeah we can come back this is probably going to get some questions um from the town and yeah but

fure okay so uh the other issue is the buildings uh again next Monday hopefully this audio visual system is going to be fixed to give clear images up here um and there's a new bulb for the projector a wire coming so I can hook up to a laptop here uh so hopefully this will be much clearer but and you'll see it when you when I send you the report so those uh those purple circles are uh those are areas within the beginning with h currently beginning with habitat 6 Plus that have buildings within them and so I think I if I can read this uh 18 buildings will be removed from resource protection with the removal of the beginning with habitat 6 Plus mapped areas those are those uh purple circles the yellow circles which don't show up real good on this screen uh but they're scattered there are 34 buildings uh in on 20 I think it was 24 properties uh

across town uh it was uh 34 buildings on 26 properties uh are have the same impact from the resource protection so those are the areas that this next part is going to look at giving them relief uh from the restrictions that were placed on the on their buildings this was not part of our package right no I just prepared this today okay uh and so we we tried to get at

this last year and uh how do we give relief to those TW uh 24 26 property owners that have their buildings within the resource protection district and the answer that was given during the public participation process for the uh draft thing was that they can go to the board of appeals or the planning board uh file a conditional use application do a 30% expansion um or uh go to the board of appeals if they wanted to go Beyond 50% with no stated limit uh in the criteria for doing it didn't make any sense so we started to look at making it easier for them to go to the boards have the code officer approve certain levels of expansions have the planning board not the board of appeals do conditional use for those but we kind of started spinning our wheels on former or current associate member and T gross's concerns that those Provisions were not legal uh and so you're just digging the hole deeper by doing something like this so

then I went to back to the drawing board and tried to look at well what about taking the developed areas of Those portions out and then that got spinning on well how do you define the develop portion of the law is it the building is it the yard is it the field the farm field around it uh you can't have an objective basis for doing that so you can't do it so then this round uh three

strikes and I'm going to be out on this one uh so I went to the comprehensive plan and there is an objective basis scientifically based of the undeveloped uh unfragmented habitat blocks and developed areas is defined by beginning with habitat as a starting place for the discussion and uh so I looked at that and presented three different options for doing that based on clearly identifiable developed areas objectively based and the option one was to do all of the land within the development buffers identified by beginning with habitat second option was to just do a targeted 250t development buffer around existing exting structures as opposed to all the road Network within the town and the third option was to even scale that down further to address the specific issue that was raised during the public participation process was just putting a 100 foot development buffer around existing structures which would then

prevent those Property Owners from having to go to a board to approve an expansion of their existing buildings so the resource protection working group over the summer processed those three recommendations including getting direction from the select board not to consider option one which went beyond the charge of the committee and came up with the recommendation to go with option three which is the 100 foot development buffer around existing structures so then further refining that

the working group wanted to differentiate between more sensitive environmental resources and less sensitive flood planes being in the less sensitive category if people want to build expansions of those buildings in those flood planes and meet all the federal flood plane management excuse me flood plane management requirements for flood mitigation they should be able to do that but at the same time don't open up all those flood plane areas for new development uh and the problems that are associated with that then the uh so there would be and this depicts a 100 foot building develop and buffer around those existing buildings on those properties then similarly with forested Wetlands large anything over 10 acres 10 acres are larger is a forested wetland shown here this is up around uh stackpole and uh Auburn pel Road I

think um those existing homes were put in I don't know how long ago before this was ever considered uh whatever wetlands may have been there have been altered when those homes were built and so similarly this would put a 100t development buffer around those existing buildings and then streams this is where the committee wanted to be more fine-tuned and said this doesn't really show up good on this poor quality uh screen but there's a building right there and about a quarter of the building is in resource protection which I'm not sure it makes the whole structure non-conforming you could argue both ways it's just the parts that are in but just to clarify this would uh the committee kind of came out saying they can uh we will pull the building out of the resource protection entirely and therefore Clearly say it's not non-conforming and they could expand on either side going away from but not

further compromising the already compromised uh stream buffer and the same issue would be for oop sorry uh wrong button uh for uh waterfall waiting bird habitat buffers of 250 ft around emergent Wetlands that are used for nesting for these types of waterfall and waiting Birds um so this house is located almost entirely within that buffer and therefore they have to go to the board of appeals or planning board to get any expansion of that building so this would just simply pull the pull the resource protection boundary out outside the building perimeter and there thereby allow them to do an expansion in these already developed areas without further compromising the buffer so that's the research we did over the summer and that leads to the recommended amendments to the map and again this doesn't show very well but this includes removal of all the beginning with habitat 6 Plus that now has come off here uh because it's not

depicted and uh and those are the circles on those flood plane properties right there the others are so small you can't even see them on this scale uh and the working group did go through all um 24 instances or 26 excuse me uh where

the properties would be affected and uh I think they felt pretty comfortable with this as as the proposal now now we need to talk about a public participation process on bests as well as this but this is where the working group ended up last week I do have one comment um did we the

building with habitat 6 again did we mention that we wanted to keep it on the map or I can't so we still have building with habitat 6 Plus in town we still have that and we're still it's it's not that we are removing that as criteria for RP it's just that doesn't show up the definition or whatever it doesn't quite show up and the the definition is now Incorporated within an already existing RP layer right but there could be a time that building with habitat 6 Plus comes out I don't know maybe they find a new species or something but also

like um like some of these overlap right a lot of flood planes overlap with streams and wetlands like there's a lot of overlapping going on here I don't know what why we wouldn't include building with habitat 6 was even if it is just those little circles that we saw okay so I'm not proposing to take the language out of the text of the ordinance that says that that beginning with habitat 6 Plus is a Criterion for resource protection yeah but the net effect of it will be the rezone map that that pulls all areas areas that don't have anything else off the map if that's all they've got is beginning with habitat 6 Plus U the effective result of it is they go away because the only places that is six plus is in those other areas so we'll keep the language in the orance so that if they do doesn't show up on the map at all yeah doesn't change the map yeah I yeah so it'll keep it in there as a placeholder that in the event

future studies are done yeah the catalog it it'll already be in the ordinance but it will still have to go to the plan to uh town meeting to get added to the map right for any property if we amend the map it has to go back to a public code I guess I'm so sorry to stick on this but I I just don't understand the building so all of these items are resource protection yes right we have flood plane we have 10 acre Wetlands we have stream buffers and we have waterf waiting bird is building with habitat 6 Plus still an

RP yes okay wouldn't we list it even if it's small and it it's Incorporated in all the other yeah we can keep it on there if you list it you need to show it is my is my the reason I say that is people are going to say well you know my house is here why is it why is it RP I mean you're gonna have to have a red dot or something and I wouldn't put a circle I just put a red dot sure that that says this that's my thinking was which of those areas are in fact what color are you going to use to show uh the habitat sure I mean right now all of these are Blended almost it's hard to tell you know and part of the reason and part of the reason for that whether it's RP because of it's a buffer on a waterfall or stream or a flood plane it's it's the restriction still RP same thing exactly and the other the other challenge I mean you you could do them all in different colors but I'll tell you you have a map

that will be totally unreadable right and I don't know I don't mind that I I I guess I'm just saying I think we should add if it is an RP like a you know um an item that requires RP protection I think it should be added to our final map yeah now the flip side of it is when you go to the public process and you show it up there as a Criterion and you try to explain well it's it's up there as a Criterion but it's not on the map that will be the why isn't on the map it is on the map well it is on the map can't see you can't see it I mean right it's superimposed on yeah but just be just be prepared some people will attack it because they think you're trying to leave it in there okay no fall I I think this is going to be extremely difficult to explain this building have you know I mean I SP three months going through this and it is a tough a tough explanation and I I get

that the select board hopefully is they've been in indoctrinated or whatever the right term is there to go or this but um uh okay um go we'll leave my personal feelings I vot out of this but anyway uh I think if you try if we try to get in here with people who are looking at it for the first time it's going to be really difficult and the only thing going to give a damn about is MI and resource protection that's right and they they don't care if it's h your flood plan or waterfall or whatever we don't even need to get into the details really yes I I completely agree with you but for like a data technology reference not technology reference I I don't know why we wouldn't include it

open up Pandora's boxes just by adding that one thing I I think the most hated thing about this map is is habitat I mean that's what what people are complaining about resource protection they're complaining about you know why didn't we do it we didn't have to do it the state's not making us do the state or the government federal government makes you do all that it doesn't make you do but we still we got this past so this is the whole we got this whole thing passed a couple years ago with the building with habitat when you go back in that's still going people are still going to say but the reason we just have to be clear the reason we took it out is because the data was wrong that is why it whatever the data I don't know if I would use it changed it changed the turtle the best dat sorry it's not wrong it changed it's not because we are changing our our regulations or requirements that's not what we're doing it's just

that the data that's not what we're doing but I think there's a lot of people who would who would want it's part of that discussion there's going to sure there's going to be people who don't want anything there and so George so I think the the real change I'm not sure you can get there with one meeting is my concern with one public information meeting yeah and you know somebody my house would I look at that there is like a an area the size and maybe it's changed but the size of that white covered way off in the corner I don't care uh it has no impact on my property but some of the houses that we looked at were you know you me and I walk out my back door I'm in a resource protection area but that that's they're going to worry about that though there are specific ones and one of the things I want to discuss with George is how how do you teach that before that meeting or after that meeting because I think

you're going to get whatever number of structures still if if they if they're out of resource protection they'll probably leave as soon as they hear that I mean the meeting but the 30 something who are still in there we're going to have to try to at least explain it to well they're out the 30 plus people are out right whatever he said 26 Parcels or whatever there's still 26 par buildings or 26 Parcels with buildings on them that are in resource protection or move they move slightly but they were before yeah and so that's the cell is how how are you going to do that I think that that could be another town meeting possibly how many how many were in before the change was it more than 26 50 something I think well that's a win man wa so I think yeah 50 well I think the thing to highlight is you're not adding anybody in to Resource protection that's not currently in resource protection and you've looked

at a way of giving relief to everybody that has an existing building in SP the positive main speaker for the public hearing don't focus on the negative yeah yeah so my point George what we're talking about is that just going to be it's going to be a challenge because I think what people are going to come to do is where's my house you know

am I in uh resource protection and those who we say yes look it here's your wall and this is where resource protection begins that will raise questions because you know well I don't want to build to you know you're going to have those kinds of questions um and um so I think it's just

going to be a really tough cell and I really think that somehow we're going to have to get to the individ those who are left in resource protection we're going to have to show them how we did take their we propos taking their building out and this is your house and there's still you know there's one guy who uh is is beating the horse says that's not I don't think that's a scream don't put it in there yeah I think we're talking about two different separ two different things and we need to be straight and narrow about what we're doing here we are talking about giving relief to the people that were impacted by our recent change that is what we're doing I think that's a secondary secondary is but you're going to have to explain that my point is when you present this it's going to be part of the the questions and presentations I hear no I agree with you 100% so there they'll be I I don't know I think like do we want to open that up

like with our presentation or do we want to see well this is the state mapping that indicates that this is a stream and these are wetlands and this is the best information we have this is what was voted years ago I hear everything everybody's saying but they're going to want to know what's happened to my property and why did you just draw it right on my property line I mean those are the questions that that I should have come up years ago honestly like like weren't those people were impacted years ago no cuz there the last time we upd did it was two what what did we do this whenever ago yeah but now they're hearing the street I'm playing Devil's Advocate to to an extent here is we just we George somebody just needs to be able to explain what does that mean to my property we don't want to go through 30 of them on whatever time we have a public so I'm talking more about the presentation that I am about changing

I'm not talking about changing what we've done we're going to mail these things out to the effective property owners well what we're planning to do and and that deals with another part we're get to discuss tonight is the public participation process so if you do a meeting say first week of November

right after the or second week after the election um what we would do is number one I'm starting to identify every property that's affected by this uh whether they're being pulled out of beginning with habitat 6 Plus or whether the boundary is going to be be changed as we've discussed with the second part of this we every one of those Property Owners will get a postcard that will alert them to this is going to be discussed on November or whatever it is and that the information is on the website and if they have questions contact the town planner like we did last time so I so I anticipate a lot of people will be contacting me and every time they do I will provide them with the details of their property just like we did last time and I think worded in such a way that you know this is we're trying to make their life better this is not we're pulling their buildings out of resource protection I

think we just have to make that clear yeah and to John's to John's point I think some people say doesn't go far enough I want I want off my property completely yeah I don't I don't think that's stre you know yeah you're exact so you know it's that's why you have a vote you know is if you think this is still wrong then get your friends to vote on the the first sorry sorry we're not voting on whether this is right or wrong we're not voting on whether RP is right or wrong here we are voting on these 30 impacted property so telling somebody if you don't think this is right don't vote Yes on this is not right just going to hurt these going exactly we we this is this has to be a separate thing but if those 30 people get up enough people you know one of the things that got then they won't get they won't exactly that's all part of the process and I think it's sellable if that's the right term but we just have

to be prepared because I think there will be playing Devil's evocate I think there will be strong oppositions to not taking everybody out you know if you go with the first option up there there's a lot of R land around every structure and that's kind of what the state if I'm not mistaken that's kind of what the state says option one is okay with us you know this stuff doesn't have to be we consider this developed land option one two and three are supportable by the comprehensive plan and beginning with habitat in the state are not going to tell you which to do if any like I say that's entirely up to you no no I got you I'm not talking about you know putting them in I'm talking about taking stuff out yeah because we elected not to use option we again they're not going to they're not going to say you need to take it out they're just going to say this is the data it doesn't have to be in there maybe you know this is we

consider this developed land so those are the things that I think people are going to want to discuss and so getting the postcard is out there setting the date which we probably need to start talking about here set a date for when we're going to do the general general meeting and hopefully everybody will have who ask questions will come in and see George and I think we we do need to be uh clear on speaking roles and our

message at these things you wouldn't let me talk to the select board so I'm sure you find somebody Mark or somebody else or you think is a better person no I'm just saying like I think it is going to be important the messaging um saying John you can't do it but you know I think we all need to be aligned on this and um whatever you know the direction we're going in here and we need to be clear with what this is and if things come up what this isn't and that there is time later on to get into this further but this is not this is not something it is something for 30 people but not for everybody I think the way well I mean I'll be if I haven't made it clear I will I am I am in favor of going with option one and at some point in time whether it's at the public information meeting or the otherwise I will or at the town meeting I will state that so if people you know want to and I'm not trying to to hold up those I don't know

can we talk about that you as an individual can do that as an IND not as a planning board that's where to be careful with that the direction that we're getting from from the select board I I agree I mean that's what that's that's why what we've what George has come up with is this this particular thing and I may change my mind you know after the public quite truthly I'll sit through the public information hearing and if they if people are are not against what we're doing here I would probably go with them I mean I'm I it doesn't impact me personally so what is it going to do to others in the town is my concern I mean and I would not speak as the chair of the planning board okay and if in opposition this okay just to so I I think it's wise to consider that all 30 or 26 people might be upset but I

don't think everybody will be all all of those land owners will be upset wait why would they be upset at all if anything we're helping them it's the others that are that you're thinking are going to be upset right no if if we've used option one it would nobody's RP would begin at their back door so we're not presenting option one I know we're voting on option three or

four whatever it isly but my point is there was another option that we haven't gone for with and as a private citizen I was supportive of that so I'm not guys I'm not going to get up in the public me that between the workshop and whatever people here said this is the way we want to go and that's you know that's the way we'll go at least to present it to the town

um a couple of comments um the beginning with habitat maps from what I remember there were residents in the runaround Pond area that were most vocal about how it impacted their property I don't remember who went to the board of appeals if it was one of those residents or not but I want to understand what the board of appeals granted relief from was it 100

foot was it 250 ft I want to make sure that we're consistent with whatever they granted relief from and so that we don't get yeah bit later with hey you know the board of appeals allowed this but now you're only giving me 100 feet what was that while George can correct me I mean what the the one the hagers did specifically was they they paid F yeah they paid and they are they the boat of they paid I don't know 35005 Grand to have an expert come in and say there are no blinding Turtles you should not be in resource protection and I think it granted their entire parcel cuz it yeah that was that big circle that's gone yes blings Turtle but that's what the the appeals board gave them blanket approval on their land because it was just uh Blanding turt or habitat but that wasn't just like a blanket you can have this that was because the data showed it wasn't there anymore I think so because we've removed the Blanding turtle part

from all of the equation we're pretty much covered with that that was the that was the appeal was to remove the Blanding they did their own study or was it they did their own study and it found that yes but yeah around run around Pond that was the turtle mainly there's still there's still you know resource protection around it was an equestrian center too that they went to the appeals board and I think they had an expert came in they paid for a Prett W study and what they revised the wet yeah it was Wetlands so they got relief because someone on the ground a biologist on the ground said you know the Wetland border is slightly inaccurate okay and that is so options one two and three would not contradict this appeals decision that's my understanding all right fantastic I liked where you were going with that though like what is the buffer they're giving versus what we were proposing right like they just said

you're not in right re and other people can do that somebody who's still in resource protection could say you know I'm going to hire an expert to tell you that the stream is not there and and it's going to be 200 feet that way and so I get an extra um and which is fine

that's the right when we presented this the town meeting yes the outlet was go to the board of appeals if you have an issue right this particular land owner did that but you know we also tried to make it easy so people didn't have to you know if that's the whole intent of impacted to help people out right you can build a little bit around your property without having to spend several thousand dollars to get a specialist come in say yeah n yeah and I'd like to talk a little bit more about that if we can but just we go back to the building with habitat 6 plus I don't know do we need to vote or talk about whether we want to add it in show it on this map the final resource protection map what's it do I guess the question is do we want a little red dot or some some little I mean it it if it's going to be green then there's no sense doing it because sure any color if it's something different yellow uh which

I I just think you're going to be really throwing confusion unnecessary confusion process that's my feeling you just leave it off the really all we're talking about is changing the map we're not talking about changing the ordinance the language beginning with habitat 6 Plus will still be in the ordinance putting it on the map says there's some on there on map when there's the only spot there is some but it's minimal and it's hidden I mean it's very true quential it is

because those areas are already in resource protection so I just think putting it on there is just a flag to say let's make this a controversy okay Mark your thoughts but are there any other beginning with habitat than they're all the same all the same all right so it if if you want that put it out as a motion let the well no I mean I'm I don't want to make it more confusing if we're going to hurt ourselves by this then fine but what I'm saying is that did our last map had it it was a lot bigger building yeah because there was so much on there 1500 Acres on there so there's a lot more we took it off and we don't want to keep it on because we don't want to confuse people right so it's you're you're those I forget six whatever they were those areas are resource protection doesn't matter if there's you know Dart minnows or or whatever it is there it's it is resource protection for flood plane

Wetland stream buffer um the more we can simplify this the the better it's going to be the state gave us an award for this shouldn't we at least recognize it somewhere and then also another point is if it's listed in the ordinance right we talk we still talk about building with habitat 6 it's listed in the ordinance but it's not talked about on the map it's okay because those those are criteria that are listed there in the ordinance but before they can be implemented the map has to be changed so just you know um all not all streams

have the buffer only the ones that are shown on the map yeah right maybe instead of drop beginning with habitat 6 plus co-occurrence maybe new map you know I don't know no I just drop all we're doing all we're doing is not including it in the legend I know but you've got drop beginning with it's in there it's in the map you got just not showing that it's in the map right no it says drop beginning with habitat 6 Plus currents areas areas that's the effect of this map this map will make people a lot happier because it's gone you're saying get rid of the this isn't the is this the no this isn't because you're not really dropping it you're just it's a new the six plus cooccurrence is much much smaller you're not really dropping it it's actually including it it's included that's actually a really good point I didn't even see that piece can you go to the final one would you

so this is what people are going to see right the final result the final yeah okay okay all right good I'm okay you guys is fine I I will I just I aired my thought are you are you good with and thank you yes you were kind enough to listen toor uh I think it's semantic thing you're good but you're good with your folks in two weeks to are we going to have a problem get because they go on the 21st I think something like that that sounds the I guess what we're I'm asking is a Conservation Commission we as a planning board are saying we're okay with this yeah I think we were we were all in I I don't think there's going to you don't need to go do anything you're George sends us forward can say the planning board and the the full planning board and the Conservation Commission are supportive of this yeah I you don't have to say except for John tala George you could just George when are you presenting to the put that in bold the

town manager on the agenda for September 24th 24th I mean we talked about it at our last meeting in oh that's if you're good that's how I just want to make sure we met after we had the resource oh we did oh okay good so mhm you guys are good I do have one containment suggestion for the storage no no no oh

okay I got so many things are you talking about containing me George go ahead well I'm I'm concerned you know you're having a discussion you how are we're going to deal with this how are we're going to deal with that if they bring that up I think the safest and simplest response is to just say this was the charge of the select board to the working group blame them it was simply to deal with the beginning with habitat 6 Plus data and to Grant relief to Property Owners whose buildings were were put into resource protection anything outside of that is beyond the scope of our work now it's not that you shouldn't pursue that we just can't do it as part of this because we're not authorized to so just go go to the charge yep and it's I strongly urge to say well if you don't like it vote against it that's not a good thing never a good message to tell people but also George when you say you're telling

them how to vote and that's just not a good idea when you say um our charge was um to evaluate or to address a six plus it's really to address the change in data because since day one our thing has been we're standing against this data so that is it's really not I wouldn't even just say six plus I would just say a change in data based on reassessment refund plus but the specific charge from the select board did mention that because they were talking about the change in data so but the point is stick with the charge that's how you contain it yeah okay so I think the the consensus is to send the you know send it forward to the planning board with the or excuse me select board with the Y blessing of the planning board and the Conservation Commission on the 24th and then George brought up the point of we then have have to do how are we going to so that's the 25th of September 24th well maybe the 25th is before you can do

I mean my point is we can started but what do how do we want to go forward with that George you're going to send out um so you'll schedule just like we did last time schedule a public informational meeting we will send out a postcard to all affected Property Owners um you're probably going to do both bass and this on the same night I'm assuming uh you might want to do this first uh and then give plenty of time for that assuming that best is not going to generate a lot of input and interest did tonight yeah uh so anyway what we will do the same format as last time to do a presentation explanation of the project um hopefully if you public officials or appointed officials can kind of lead it off I'll try to just deal with I think technal explanation so to be kind of and I think that the the resource protection would not be the would be the working group versus the planning board yep yeah cuz we're not

going to it let the let the Conservation Commission take the lead on that one that would be good that yeah so uh I'm I'm cataloging everybody that has affected by this and we'll be sending out a postcard just saying there's a meeting uh check the website and I'll be preparing all the website stuff so I think doing it the F second week of November will give us time to get ready for that and we also talked about doing some kind of display at the election either yeah display or just a little sign that says November whatever day it is November 10th no I think we can do a display that okay it'll help people know what it's about okay um and then try to encourage people to come over we did that for affordable housing and about 10 people came by uh but it's 10 people who get the word out well this is going to be a very busy ction like very oh yeah you know oh yeah the select board has one or two things

they want to you know talk about as well okay so want to pick the whatever the a Tuesday Wednesday in November are we ready to to at least throw something out there for the public information public information meeting well we have our meeting on the 6th right I think we're probably hope assume whatever that we'll have two

um land use you know um preliminary final plan stuff in that uh start so November 13th would be a Target I'm just does that work I'm pulling my calendar up the second Wednesday of November well Wednesday seems to be good because that does not conflict with uh the select board because they the second Tuesday hold on one second I'm going to so we could get the get it would have to be televised or should be

13th anyone have any issues I'm still waiting for my I don't think I do but I'm still waiting for it work for me of course you guys are probably all hoping that I can't be there the RP working group yeah I can make it but I can ask Sam chess okay yeah if you would just you know would tentatively set it for the 13th okay my phone's not going to open so uh 6:30 here George if you'll

get them to set up the so it' be RP we lead off with the RP working group followed by the planning board on the battery storage are folks able to meet earlier than 6:30 or no I just wonder if we should or is it harder for people actually maybe if it's earlier it's not for me you know sometimes Mike your folks are you know flying in at 625 27 Sam and

Jess usually can't make it too early okay okay then there we go I think we can you know we can we'll control the flow of the meeting so that you know we don't have to listen to the same thing if somebody says I want to know what happens to my property get with the town plan or you know separately we don't need to go into uh um we probably need to decide which examples we're going to show too the so people don't get hung up on that so when when do you anticipate those postcards going out probably two weeks before that okay so the reason I was asking that see what weaing wondering whether they would have time or you would have time for them to go into the detail prior to the public meeting yeah and it's a you don't want to send it out too far in advance because then people forget about forget about going yeah so again what you know

I can be pretty responsive if I've got all these ready to roll okay George did you really want to talk about historical I mean I'm not sure we've got anything to say short version is the select board is going to discuss there John can we talk more about what we were talking about a little bit before about when or not if but when the public does

come to us for RP issues or other environmental issues that aren't um addressed by this what is our recommendation or thoughts on um messaging for that well are we empowered to address that that's my first question the select board really has the decision making but we are the ones that could I'm not sure there's anything we can do I don't think so either I mean if if if we if if the town approves the plan that's the plan I mean they they can certainly uh stand up on the floor and say I want to you know this is not fair to me and they can do all that kind of they can go through that process but I don't know that it's the planning board's charge or ability to make changes you know we're we're we're not going to sit there and say oh okay Mr talot you're worried about that your corner of your land will will'll take that off the thing I think you live with with what's presented and that's voted

on is again until the time meeting they can get up and say whatever they want yeah no I guess what I was talking about is George your email about what is a stream and what is not a stream yeah about our the land owner that is asking about a stream that's on its property um right now the options are to go to the appeals board right and is that is that going to be uh sustainable is that okay with the appeals board to go I think you mentioned that you know they don't have a wetland scientist on The appeals board well these got you have to pay for it so they have to get it done first my feeling correct me if I'm wrong is they as as that the the Hagar did I don't want to throw their name out there uh but they paid money to to have a Wetlands Guy come out and say this isn't or Wildlife guy I guess or combination of them come out and say that and that's anybody who is wants to argue and say that's not really Wetlands that's not

flood plane that's not whatever it may be they're going to have to hire you know they will have to do that individually and I agree with that I think George where you might have been going is that the board of appeals might um give them relief without the

data no you weren't going there no the the argument was who should pay for that and some land owners think that the town if it's going to put the regulations on should be paying for the enviral that's what you were saying there and the some towns as I pointed out to you Juliet have done studies yeah spend hundreds of thousands of dollars going out and surveying properties to identify clearly where Wetland boundaries are for like these large 10 acre Wetlands if you're going to include them yeah um

Pro couple of problems with that is getting taxpayers support for the funding and the other problem with it is then landowners generally don't want you going on their property identifying restrictions so so it it's just a formula for disaster yeah it's not workable so yeah I guess my recommendation is to keep going the way it's going the board of appeals requires Wetland delineations or whatever to be done paid for by the applicant yes at the time of development because if someone's not developing their property just having it on the map doesn't do anything to their useful enjoyment of the property right yep okay great yep subject Clos thank you you sure um okay so the 13th of

November uh we'll have the joint public information meeting um between now and then because I don't think we'll have another meeting I said we have October October we talk about how to present at the election that that you know what to what to put up there my experience with the when I I was there the whole day for the election for uh affordable housing and and George did a really good job of simplifying it but it still wasn't um so we'll have to try to simplify the info as best we can um and then somebody's going to volunteer to uh probably stay there and try to explain it I'd be happy to do that if you'd like I'm willing to do it I don't know about the 24 hours but well not 24 I can do a shift oh at the voting oh I would love to too yeah shift sounds great yeah I think it you can be there the whole time what's that you can be there the whole time if you want to well it'll be a pro or a consite you

know I've got Juliet all fired up now uh it does help us because it it you couldn't just and George simplified it well but it wasn't as simple as just reading the uh the thing so I guess we could talk about how to do that at our next meeting which may may not be busy with um the boy Hill Ruby Lane so on and so forth so I would be happy to accept a motion you want to talk about historical when I interrupted you okay great no no no I want to say we're not going to talk about it motion to adjourn second second anybody want to discuss it no if not raise your hand it is passed did you want to vote on that but I don't think I get to we didn't let you speak I mean Sam's going to be really mad or is that Jess Jess one J two the inside joke there is

that I confuse those two after like five meetings I have yet to get them right although I did get them right the last meeting and I called physical today and the doctor Dimensions so