TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ January 8, 2025

live George but I don't see anything else it's live it says live on my fil here there three people check can you tell if it's on the uh the mic indicators are going like supposed to two so I'm assuming there's uh the only thing that's showing me is winterberries it's not the camera is not showing anything it just says live that's not showing actual

800,000 I don't know camera's not okay George I I can now see on you're sh your age hello you're probably going to get feedback there's a delay I so we're good y we are okay I turn this is a time delay that sucker that's almost a minute it picks up over

the six winning numbers just before just before that's right it's good yeah horse racing would be good um volume be mayor good local hopefully support I think that's the future now every day is Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday okay I think it's is close enough or is 6:30 so we will begin the regular meeting of the Durham planning board we have a quorum we have our five members and so if you will join me in the determination oh no sorry Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag 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

election of officers anybody want to run for chair I nominate John talber for chair second okay I will then I need to step aside so miss Vice chair if you would say that it's been moved and seconded yeah it's been moved and seconded can you come back in now no I can't I guess I can all in favor right

yes okay okay I'm back I abstained George I abstained and okay so the vice chair and I will nominate uh Juliet kaplinger second it's been moved in second in any further discussion seeing none if you're in favor of that please raise a hand one exstension okay four and one OB setion uh do we have any amendments to the

written we can go ahead and do the town attorney you know when you want we get into that stuff yes okay good it's nothing personal but we just want to get rid of you uh so there are no amendments to the agenda acceptance of meeting minutes four changes I have one change that I noticed

it's on page nine it was item six which it actually read it was a motion made by John telet it said to not deny the wav request to allow the access road to remain gravel it should have said to deny which we in my regulation we denied it and a let was sent to that applicant but other than that correction I didn't see any other issues okay anybody else any issues George do we need to vote on that change you could just vote with the amendment okay um so do we I need a

motion to accept the meeting minutes with as amended by Allen second uh move okay moved so moved and we had a second so all in favor raise a hand done okay informational exchange on non-agenda items Town officials well Mr Roy as a town official do you have anything you want to say no George uh just a reminder uh there is going to be a workshop meeting uh in this room uh next Monday the 13th uh there'll be a focus group consisting of the representatives of uh the organizations that use these Town facilities uh for public meeting rooms or other purposes that would be the fire station meeting room the Eureka Center and the town offices for uh conducting business and the purpose of the of the focus group is to just solicit from the people and groups that are using these facilities what they see as the issues in terms of are they meeting the town's needs and their needs as a group uh what are the problems that they see and then

what goals would they have for the future of these facilities which is being incorporated into a visioning process for the future of these town properties um then the following Tuesday the 21st there will be kind of a what they call a charet style uh event over at the uh Eureka Center where uh we'll have groups individually working on uh kind of get get the feedback back from the citizen survey that was done uh about this these issues and then the results of the focus group and then uh try to have groups work uh small groups work to just compare notes and come up with what they think might be the future of these properties just just conceptually uh nothing in detail so that's uh those are the two events that are coming up uh the uh focus group meeting uh next mon next Monday is is limited to the people that were invited which are representatives of all those groups and then there'll be a a open

Community event uh the following Tuesday over at the center uh those are not televised right the uh I don't think so no okay uh any other questions for Mr the what time is the Tuesday meeting I both of them are at six o'clock six o' okay thank you and if we have to have any other meetings on what we're going to talk about tonight we'll talk about that later right okay well yeah then we we we will need them and yes okay okay any other T official business residents so public comment has taken this time it's on issues that are not on the agenda uh three to four minutes so are there any comments on anything that's not on today's agenda tonight's agenda seeing none we'll move on to nonresidents any non-residents want to speak seeing none we have we have no continuing business no new business the other business before us is planning board discussion of land use policy changes for next town meeting uh the

first one being contract there's two potential articles one is on contract zoning and the other one then is on the standards and this if you remember we had the town hall town meeting uh I guess last month no excuse me November uh so this is kind of the followup on that so kind of lay out where the process is and Mr Roy or somebody can correct me two different articles one is on contract zoning which the select board has taking the lead on but the town attorney is going to pres pre provide a presentation for us on that tonight and then the other one is the standards um and so this is one of two

expecting to not finish the standards this evening we I reserved uh this hall for the 15th which is a week from today to continue on maybe finish but to continue on with the discussion on the standards and the follow-up discussion on contract zoning will be with the uh select board so tonight is to learn about contract zoning and if we have any comments to provide this the select board that I don't think it has been presented to the select board yet so uh we get the first first view of it if you will so having said that if the town attorney whose name I don't know will please come up and introduce yourself an address and who you're with I'm Kristen Collins oh please come up here to the table okay let me get

I'm at The Firm pretty flarity I've been the town attorney since the summer um and have been working with the select and George on these issues about potential contract zoning um and so I think the purpose tonight is to go over contract zoning in general and um to start I guess my first question is how much have you all discussed the concept of contract zoning we you know out to this I was going to say minimally minim we sort of been introduced to us and uh I was somewhat remiss you're not going to go into details on the actual uh article you're just going to do an introduction to contract own correct I'm going to do a sort of a conceptual overview so that it's not total news to you when you see an actual draft and have um prepared a draft which I've now circulated um to Joe to share with the select board prior to the workshop next week and I think the idea is um if that's a successful workshop and

something comes out of it um correct me if I'm wrong George but maybe that could be discussed on the 15th as well although it'll still be kind of news to you and um who knows whether there will be more discussion to be done after that certainly there will be a hearing because it's an amendment to the um the Landes ordinance which requires a hearing uh by the planning board even if it's the select board who initiated the the amendment so so they can't do their own public hearings they can't they can but okay they can do a public hearing for general public input but it's not the statutory public hearing that you have to have in order to change zoning ordinance okay okay so that always is done by the planning board um and that will be done here um both on these uh best standards and on this contract zoning um so to be scheduled once everything is ready in an informed Sheriff public so um contract zoning in

general I am a big cheerleader for it um the reason being I've seen it used quite successfully in a lot of towns to do some really great projects uh projects that end up with public benefit that you wouldn't have otherwise seen um but for the contract zoning which is you know a construct by which yes there's land use review um standards that apply to that land use review just like they would to anything else but because the applicant is asking for some degree of flexibility or because it's a certain type of development that maybe is more intensive we the town have the ability to ask for more from them so it's a tool by which a lot of um Oceanfront or Lakefront communities have preserved public rights of access to the water for instance you know a big subdivision that has beachfront that you wouldn't otherwise get any public rights you can sort of you know through that process demand those rights um a

development that's going to create a lot of traffic uh perhaps it's Road improvements that they wouldn't have otherwise had to do under site plan review standards or conditional use standards um maybe it's um you know they have an unusual Demand on public infrastructure like water so they're going to put in a water line that didn't exist um so there contract zoning is

provided for by Statute in the zoning laws and um a lot of people you know you might have heard the term spot Zoning for instance that that spot zoning is evil and wrong and illegal it's actually not um all zoning has to be in

accordance with a comprehensive plan and that zoning could be on a single piece of property that zoning could be you know a big District the thing that really matters under the law is that we have a comprehensive plan that supports the general use and the district um or in contract zoning coming down to the very specific piece of property in question um so once you have a framework for contract zoning in your ordinance you're not mandated to have it but it's something you can elect to put in an ordinance um you can use it as you wish so that means that um some towns have ordinances that say you know we just have this one odd property that we have a big public interest in um we want to make sure it's developed in a certain way so this piece of property has to be developed through contract zoning so for instance I represent the city of Belfast they have that um really great Harbor walk and they used contract zoning only

on specific pieces of property on the harbor to make sure that that public Harbor walk was protected and preserved and sort of developed as part of that by the by the developers of those properties um the other way you can use it is just it's generally available um anybody can come to town and propose contract Zoning for a particular piece of property because the standards that are there don't fit them so I'm seeing it used a lot for housing right now for instance um you know I'm working on a project on behalf of a developer where they're doing a mobile home park expansion the town needs affordable housing but the lot widths the lot frontages are too big under the ordinance to accommodate the kind of density they need in that kind of development so they're using contract zoning to reduce those widths for that project in exchange for that under the contract they get other you know assurances for this community that

there's going to be sidewalks and Recreation areas and things like that you got a question yeah my question is do they or would we have a general uh contract zoning thing that could be applied to obviously we're talking about battery storage here but trailer parks or whatever it may be or uh is that specific to trailer pars I mean they have they have something in existence now contract zoning wise or no right and in this community for instance with the mobile home park they have a blanket contract zoning provision that anybody can make an application for any property and they just pitch the case um and the planning board reviews that the legislative body reviews it at the end of the day there's an agreement or not um and that agreement would slightly modify the standards that would otherwise apply so how how would the contract zoning differ from asking for a waiver through the planning board so a

waiver for the planning board is usually going to be and I would have to look at our Provisions to be um EXA ly accurate about this but it's going to be limited to situations where there's really an operational hardship that you can't meet the standard either it's inapplicable or you know um like it's unnecessary to

build a cold a sack here because we don't intend further development at the end of the road or whatever it's going to be okay um it much more limited than contract zoning clows so um then the other the third way you can use contract zoning is as a mandate so for instance in Brunswick um I was very surpris I'm the town the town attorney there too and I was very surprised to realize that they didn't have any contract zoning provision in Brunswick um which for a pretty developed Community as unusual so they recently put in contract zoning and they are using it um in

particular to limit the way in which or the the proc process by which certain types of development particularly industrial and um I think one of the other ones is like um renewable energy facilities could be developed recognizing that they're you know sometimes an extra draw on the community in terms of impacts and resources and things like that so um they have in their table of uses a mandate for those certain types of uses that they can come in by contract zoning only so in Brunswick it has both categories any old um property owner can come in and ask to use contract Zoning for their development or in some cases it's actually mandated and then like I said um some communities for certain kind certain particular properties they would require the process be used so what I'm proposing here in the draft that you'll eventually see Workshop next week is going to be it's available townwide for any parcel for for any development

subject to the process here because we're a town meeting form of government It ultimately gets approved by the voters um so it's a bit of a clunky process in a town that's not led by a council but it's certainly a really Democratic process because the idea is supposed to be that the project has overall public benefit and we're putting it out to the public to choose whether they want that thing or not it's a lot of risk to the developer right they go through this whole process of appearing before the planning board and the select board board and developing this agreement and then at the end of the day it's totally up to a vote over which they have no

of so someone comes in and they apply for the contract zoning and it goes through the process then the the town's people still have to vote approve correct accept them wow okay yep can question yeah um so your proposal right now is townwide for any type of project yes anywhere that it's available yeah yeah so if like um we're talking about best right now and developing the standards for that but what about another use how do like if someone comes in is that when like a team would get together to develop the standards for whatever use that would be if we already don't have it yeah so the the planning board might recommend certain other categories of use um in addition to best that we think that contract zoning makes a lot of sense because it's just a you know kind of a scary or concerning type of development we want input in control over it um and so the draft you'll see we'll have a couple of uses suggested as

things where we could mandate contract zoning that contract zoning again that's going to be an overlay over all the other processes and permits that they still have to do site plan everything else um but then the second part of your question was um um yeah like the specific use whatever it is like say it's um I don't know something we don't have yet is there a team that comes together to put together those standards like we're doing right now for best I I mean like we're doing for best um if it's a use that we haven't even invisioned it's not even on the chart yet um we generally always have some flexibility particularly for commercial and Industrial developments to put a moratorium on um like was done to spend that time to develop standards and to have them apply to that use but we don't have to do that necessarily with contract zoning um you know if that use is not listed as something that's

currently allowed in the town then they would have to come in and propose a development and we'd have to consider okay is it going to be by contract zoning because it's something that's not otherwise allowed on that chart or are we going to make it allowed on the chart um through a moratorium an ordinance development process apply some standards to it and then either you use contract zoning or not so the one limitation in in that kind of process that is the case today based on some Law changes last year is if it were like large scale residential development we can't do anything retroactive um with all these other types of development commercial industrial we still have kind of cart blanch to apply standards retroactively up to 45 days after a project is even approved on a site plan but with residential they get rights under the ordinance that exists on the day they file the application so if the if the

development includes even one residential unit they put in an application even if that application isn't fully complete they're vested at that point so this process isn't necessarily as flexible for residential development um that said someone's coming in with a large scale residential development may find that Durham's lot sizes for instance are too large for them and they need smaller lot sizes um contract zoning being available that's something that we might be able to work with them on and get an overall development that works better that make

sense okay it's not it sounds like contract zoning could could override some of the requirements that we have already have in place for like you had mentioned reducing the lot size and that's something that's already in in our ordinance I would think that once and it's kind it sounds it's concerning to me I I wouldn't want that overriding all the hard work we put into developing the ordinances uh the other part is once someone has applied for contract zoning

what is the time frame that it would actually be presented to the town's people to vote on that so it would take some time I would you know um let me just remind myself of the process I was working with there's opportunity for in in what I've drafted for Combined hearings between the select board and planning board on this that helps streamline at least the process to get to town meeting but the select board always has control over when and how things are presented to town meeting so right let's say a developer comes in in July and quickly negotiates a contract zoning agreement the select board still may feel like we don't want to just have a special town meeting to consider this thing and have potentially 25 people show up we're going to wait until the next Springtown meeting okay and that that takes some time and again it's another huge huge risk to the developer on top of um the risk that the people

won't vote for it in the first place so I think that you're not going to see a lot of developers using this process uh in a town meeting Town it just there are too many unknowns there's nothing worse for a developer than time delays um and putting in all of the effort that it takes um to get to the point of an agreement just to potentially have it shot down so the the odds up front that that developer would probably know that they have to wait until our annual correct town meeting y so I I don't Invision it getting used a lot but your back stop to all of this is town meeting MH and town meeting approved that ordinance as it sits today if the planning board is against um the modification because it hates the development it doesn't see the benefit that overrides the restrict or the restrictions that are already there um you vote against it which is not to say that the planning board can put the

breaks on the whole process but if the planning board has voted against recommending a contract Zone and then it goes to the voters with that recommendation you know I think it has pretty poor chances yes I would think so yeah uh the the other thing too is you still have the comprehensive plan um which I think you have a pretty solid comprehensive plan here um and thorough

and if it violates the comprehensive plan meaning it's proposing an industrial development in an area that talks about its residential charms um I think that the planning board can still vote to find that it's not in Conformity with the comprehensive plan um I think that the select board could still certainly be even if they want it from a political standpoint could be advised by Council that it doesn't comply with the comprehensive plan and you know it that would in theory put the brakes on the on the project too

okay sorry can one more thing kind of following up um the process so say this is a large B that comes in you know we're developing the standards of what we're going to look at but if it's typically like a site plan review I mean this could take months and months to go through that that has to be completed before it goes to town right all of that is that um let's see our

you don't have that's that's an important question applicant could at some risk proceed on Dual tracks I think is is the way I would okay dual of us reviewing the and then and then they're pursuing the select board planning board process for the contract Zone they could do it sort of in any order they want but it doesn't you know none of this precludes them from having to go through that process but if it's the type of large scale development that typically is going to come in requesting contract zoning they are usually not going to want to spend all their engineering costs and attorney time and everything else to put that project through site plan review if there's this big unknown on the legislative thing hang out there understood thank you y but we could say large development whatever it may be we we the planning board are not going to hear you until the town approves your contract Zoning for that particular

effort or I mean I think you would you could look at it in concept um you certainly could not issue any final approval you know you could issue an approval that's contingent and conditional on contract zoning approval I think you could do that but I I think it would be better for everyone if they want to pursue a dual track to just go ahead and go through that process um okay because it's going to it might reveal some things about the application that informed the contract zoning process to you right um but we can talk about that as we Workshop it and what what we think works best for you all and the select board in terms of the the timing it is certainly okay to say you can't submit a planning board application until you've been through the whole process and gotten your approval we can have that in there any other questions always questions you have one oh I'm going to go after Brian again

okay um can you explain the difference between contract zoning and overlay zones or or floating overlay zones yep so um an overlay zone is going to be you know it can be partiel specific and just you know kind of freckled all over town or it can be a contiguous area um for which special standards apply and it could just be you know this is an overlay Zone that applies only to this particular use and we're only going to allow it on you know this track this parcel these several parcels and on those Parcels specific standards are going to apply um that are probably more stringent than the rest or it could be less stringent if we're trying to promote a certain type of development but different than what the underlying Zone allows um and and let's say we're

let's say we're doing all of this just for best there's only you know one or two solid Parcels in town where this kind of a project would work absolutely you could use an overlay Zone and say we're going to Overlay Zone these two Parcels this is the best overlay Zone and only on these two Parcels you can do a best subject to these standards um and those Trump anything else to the contrary in the zoning ordinance you could do it that way um what you lack in that process is the contract so you lack the ability to have that flexible concept of okay you want this from us what can we what will you do for us and return okay and with an overlay or floating overlay do you still have to go through the um town meeting process you would have to just to put that overlay Zone in place in the first place but then those standards are there and apply to that parcel or that use regard okay so it's what can you do for us is

the difference that's the real big distinction gotcha yep okay yep and and once you have contract zoning in place you know like I have it proposed where it's available to any developer then that is different from an overlay Zone too right because it applies throughout town they just have to kind of come in and show show you what they can offer you as a whole concept and you know the another reason why I'm suggesting and again this can be walked back but the reason I'm suggesting it townwide is because Durham is kind of a funny town in some sense um you got a lot of land you don't have a lot of um tax base and it's hard to

balance the overall rural residential thing with the kind of commercial or Industrial Development that you might need to promote in order to sort of have that b balance in a tax base um and so contract zoning is a way to sort of recognize that disconnect and

like find the projects that work for you rather than um create a larger growth District or change zoning and lot sizes and things like that so it gives that flexibility and then it kind of helps you as Durham grows and changes over

time which is kind of hard to prevent as much as everyone might like to um at least you have more of a hand in it follow on how much can you do for me um is there when do you when are would we overstep our the limit it is yeah because you are you

know your your boundaries under the standards for contract zoning are it's in the public interest and and so as long as you can make the case for whatever you're requesting being in the public interest um it's usually going to be about the physical development of the property um or physical development in general so you couldn't for instance say if you want to do this you've got to pay us a million dollars that's just going to help offset our taxes um it's going to it's going to be something that is related to the development kind of a need that's caused by the development um and something that they can help offset um in physical development sense so you know if it's a residential development is it improved sidewalks between there and the school is it um a new traffic light is it a crosswalk um

for an industrial development again it would usually be things like maybe it's fire protection equipment um for a best or a large Solar Development um in theory you know I've seen boards struggle with this issue of gez you know the Solar Development is packed in it's hard to reach um we just have to let it burn but we have a narrow window around it to be able to fight fight fire and prevent it from spreading so we need this particular type of you know ATV mounted sprayer um when you get to that point and you know you want to approve the application but also you feel like you have this fire protection need it's a bit uncomfortable through a regular old approval process in a condition to say you got to buy this thing and give it to the fire department but through contract zoning that's totally part for the course can we not offer or actually ask for a economic benefit on these things no I would say not um not not because of

anything that's in the statute uh but I I just think that that's not how contract zoning is intended to function okay it's a planning process that's supposed to be about physical development that kind of thing I mean I've just never I've not seen it litigated so I would not recommend the yeah just give us a huge yeah um you know some let's say it was a college that wanted to locate here um you didn't have the the standards whatever they need or wasn't a use that's provided for if they are not going to be paying taxes but they're going to have a demand on services that I think might be fair game so we're going to request a pilot payment from you in L of taxes to help defay all of these public bur the kinds of things that you guys can consider under your land use standards right right I was just going to ask sorry to interrupt you so like in other states they do pilots like for besses and for

solar projects or they do other like environmental benefits that can be in an economic value we can we can do that in our ordinance right I mean you can do it just through the contract zoning process again all I really care about is is there a Nexus to the development and is it is it a demand that's caused by the development um and if there's not a rational Nexus that's where I start to think like me that's a problem yeah so I me we're just we're just extorting cash from you that's outside of contract zoning could we put in like Pilots could we put in these Community benefits I mean a pilot is never something that you can straight up mandate as a land use approval standard the reason you see those Pilots so much is because developers are super happy to offer them and it sort of greases the wheels but it's not usually because there's a land use standard that's requiring it I think some states might have those yeah it's

not one of them m is definitely not one of them but even even again where you see these like you know big Renewables developments for instance yeah you know if they're paying a pilot it is often because they are under some sort of land use structure where the public benefit or the uh public sort of draw on

resources is being considered and so they're offering up that Pilots to sort of defay the burden that they're putting on the community yeah so maybe it's considered that way but it's again it's very rarely in my experience and certainly not in Maine a mandate where you got to pay to play okay thank you that said I've seen developers do it successfully in some small towns and and totally get what they want even where the property wasn't necessarily exempt to start with you know any other questions on the contract zoning John could I make a couple points that relate to it uh part of the reason why and Kristen can correct me if I'm wrong but part of the reason why you can say the sky limit on the negotiations is because this is entirely voluntary this is not where you are requiring a developer regular from a regulatory standpoint to do certain uses or to do do it in certain ways so that kind of

takes off the impetus of the developer being forced to do certain things they are asking for this and as a condition you're offering you're offering to allow uh relief from the zoning restrictions in return for this so that makes it a much better uh negotiating uh process for the town and as a followup to that I think it's important the impetus for this was the uh Prospect of a largescale industrial battery energy storage system applying for a permit and christon has given us opinion that under the current ordinance that's a permitted use uh even within the shorel zoning and resource protection uh there are conditional use reviews that apply to those in those uh zones but throughout the most of the town uh anywhere along the power line the uh battery energy storage system even on an industrial scale if it's connected to the grid along the power line would would likely be considered an A permitted use as essential services so

that's what this does is it gives the town an added layer of protection beyond the standards the safety standards to to control where these things are located within the town because right now as as I said they're permitted pretty much townwide and and then the second part of that is also Al as an extension of this in the future your ordinance right now because there's just been so many small businesses scattered across the town historically lots of contractors uh small businesses uh you have your homebased business but then you have lots of businesses that are not really meet the home homebased limitations and your your ordinance pretty much allows commercial and light industrial anywhere in town and so the only uh leverage you have from a regulatory standpoint are the conditional use criteria for those uses which do apply um and you could probably the one that's going to be the most effective in controlling something like

a large commercial development that's proposed or industrial is the scale uh you can say this is out of scale with the uh the neighboring farms and and res residential neighborhoods however again if it's long power line uh that's the adjacent use then it's going to be hard to argue that you know a best or something else uh does not match the scale so it the purpose of this is to give the town maximum control over the location of large developments and this is an effective tool to accomplish that on that can I just ask for best specifically is the idea to just use contract zoning and that's it for the future or is that are we kind of like using this as a interim step to possibly developing an ordinance the way I understand it is it would be by contract zoning only and that's the way it would stay okay because of the nature of the use and you know the the desire to have further control over it okay the um the other

thing I'll say about the conditional um approval standards too is as you know they're really subjective because they're subjective and a little bit vague they're subject to challenge and so if you say if you do something like find that the best or whatever development it is is out of scale you're always subject to challenge that your subjective determination wasn't right or

that the underlying standard itself was too vague to apply um and therefore IL legal or unconstitutional and so you know it it does provide a little bit more armor to say we can apply whatever standards we want and some sense to this particular development so for best for instance um the way this is going to be structured is as you know you're working on standards that would apply no matter what so those standards are going to be the land use approval standards by which the best gets developed and then on top of that they have to use the contract zoning process so they will you know make whatever proposal they're going to make about where this gets located public benefits whatever they're going to offer and and once they get through that process most likely that's the trajectory they use they then come in for a relatively standard land use approval from you but now you've got these use specific standards that you'd

apply because it's a best and we're still talking um best batter is larger than a typical house would need right we'd have to probably figure out that size but I think we've done that they I think we have in the packet yes it's up for discussion what size so we can we can have that discussion going forward oh one more thing sorry the moratorium is in place right now is the idea that if this contract zoning gets approved we wait till the moratorium is lifted or maybe ex whatever and then this thing would take right yeah so the moror is going to last however long it lasts yeah um it's either going to expire or it's going to be renewed depending on how this all goes in theory one could keep the moratorium which is ordinance but pass contract zoning yeah um and those amendments and someone could still come in and say notwithstanding the moratorium we want to use the contract zoning process and develop this project

so the moratorium would be null yeah I mean if if given that there's a moratorium they would be able to get the public support for that project through and by that point um I think it's well likely that our process will be complete moratorium will be lifted we have standards we're comfortable able with project can go forward if it um passes the contract Zone any other questions I I do

scope and your contract but I'm not a fan of just limiting this to best um why wouldn't we um apply this to commercial or residential developments as well I mean I think you'd want to find a size or a particular type of commercial or Industrial Development that you're trying to apply it to if you if it was just like someone wants to put in a gas station um do we really want to have them go through a two-year process potentially to get there if someone wants to put in a I don't know a small in or airb or BNB um you know do we want

them to have to go through that process it's really intended to be you know I'll actually but did you not maybe I misunderstood you did you not say that the way and I realize it hasn't been presented yet so I don't want to lock into this but the way it's sort of going now it would be open it would not be specifically limited to best it could be foring or could be available for to any developer for any type of development but I thought what you were getting at is could we mandate that it be used for any commercial or Industrial Industrial Development yeah like I noticed scabo has an ordinance a contract zoning ordinance specific to residential development Cumberland has one specific to commercial development and I know the select boarders asked that we strictly look at best or best I guess is what it is um and I'm just I think that's a mistake I think that we should need to keep it open to

all development well so that's the that's the idea is once you have the process um in place in the ordinance it's available as a tool to require by mandate for maybe it's the new development that comes in that we haven't planned for maybe it's a certain category of use again I wouldn't apply it to any old commercial or industrial use and I I would suspect that those ordinances I don't I'm not familiar with either of them or you know if it's a certain scale of residential development or a certain type of commercial development or C certain location maybe um I've never seen one where it's just like all commercial or Industrial Development has to use that process but keep in mind too that those uh Cumberland is Cumberland a council town or select board Town not sure but Council their Council yeah so in a council type um government a lot more streamlined too you know so you're putting a lot less burden on the

developer so I think what we're saying is the best will be mandated contract will be mandated that's the only way we could do it yep but other types of development we do have ordinances for but they could also do contract zoning if they wanted it's not a mandate correct like this if you could and and if you could mobilize quickly enough with a development that is unforeseen you can mandate that process as a quick yeah you know shoot you know the old process used to be moratorium take a whole bunch of time to develop standards um and then once that gate is lifted they can possibly come in um contracts zoning would be a way to now we don't necessarily have to do that because it's just this one development we're concerned about we're going to make them do contract zoning and but the framework for contract zoning assuming it passes the town is there it is that could be used so we don't have to come

back in and approve contract zoning at the town we then have to as a town decide what other you know a Lead Mine a tanning facility a home subdivision whatever it may be we're going to apply it to that but the basic framework is there and then we can

if something comes in and we need to put a moratorium in but we don't have to go back through the let's approve the the framework for contracts Zing yep and you know let's say the select board next week after workshopping this says we're not ready for it to apply townwide um to be available for anybody for any use we want to dip our toes into the contract zoning Water by mandating it only for these couple of uses see how it goes see if we like the process absolutely we could do that you know all it would take is one line that says contract zoning is available where so indicated on the table of uses and then it's you know it's there it's available for a particular type of use from time to time we might add it in as a

information in the package that was on the our package rather there is a change to the table of uses that specifically refers to both I guess both solar and and you probably prepared it so it would now if it's approved would require solar Farms to go of a certain size to go through contract zoning and best of a certain size to do that so corre if the table of use is approved so that we're kind of already starting with that so so actually are we considering solar as a mandated large scale solar that the amendment that um was just referenced to that table as it sits today with the proposal would mandate one and a half Meg up solar projects to use contract zoning as well okay that was in the packet yeah um so is this you're going to be presenting this to the select board next week is it open to the public okay yeah okay puppy comments

on it though yeah that'll be up to the select board about how much they are going to open it up to the public okay I'm sure if planning board members are there you'll listen to some feedback I wouldn't put a lot of money on that we don't let them talk empasis on the word some I guess us Joe at the beginning uh I did but not not anyway before let me pull my foot out of my mouth and say are there any other questions I may need to do the same thing depending on how next week goes yes are there any other questions on this I think it it's early early stages so the select board sees it next Tuesday uh it is either televised or you can show up in person I'm sure uh whether verbally or otherwise uh but right now we I think as a town we need to see what's going to be proposed and that's that's still to come so and if you want to do some independent research between now and then um there's not a lot of

distinction between these contract zoning ordinances you can take a look around at what you find um and what I would also suggest that you do some Googling for the agreements themselves in various towns so once they get approved um they actually an amendment to the zoning ordinance it's sort of like you know for this parcel the ordinance is amended according to this agreement so they're usually appended on to the land use ordinance um you know either figuratively or actually and um so you can sometimes find them in codified ordinances in the bigger towns uh sort of tacked on usually to the very end of the code um or if you just Google you can find some too so you can see the kind of things that people offer up as public benefits for instance any other questions on contract zoning or I do regarding the table is that

right time to talk about the table I think it's probably better to do it down the road I mean because I don't know that it's fair this the py board hasn't uh seen it but I guess general question be are we talking about this afterwards right standards and stuff or no well I would think we would be recommending to the board that we want this included in the table yeah it is in their draft so is that what you were going to ask yeah ask you a question the question is should we should we re replace the solar

energy let me look at this solar energy systems with Renewable Energy Systems you mean to cover battery too no to cover winds Thermon exactly windmills I mean there's a bipartisan infrastructure law that's out there right now with there's $300 million that's assessed to um scientists and Engineers looking at wind farmed and Thermon let's let's hold that those kind of detail renable energy let's hold that we'll we'll discuss that rather than not a bad idea the other one I'd throw in there is biog gas um those does that not fall under um renewable energy it it could depending on how we Define it but for instance in Brunswick that was the trigger for contract zoning was bio gas um facility out on the landing so John I think that discussion does more apply to the contract zoning than it does to the standards okay if you were going to Loop in those renewable energy types into the requirement for contract zoning then

that's not the standards it's the use do we want to go ahead yes and include this discussion now with the town attorney here ass comment about who's paying her bill but I will not do that we are but please I'm also on the budget committee so you know Jerry and I are talking about a retainer agreement which I'll make a plug for because that lets me stay here however long you want the same price um well that's nice when you're thinking about that on the budget committee we is what comes to so did everybody look at the um table of uses that has been the draft proposed table of uses so I'm not sure what the discussion so right now there is a change for Z so recommended change for solar and then also battery Energy Systems um and um so do we make it for um just one

is what I think the question is do we just make it land use um renewable energy versus solar and um battery Energy Systems WR it that way is that what the discussion is can I actually just say something I um I didn't real uh I didn't realize solar was being pulled into this mandated um contra check zoning um when we got here because batteries right we've heard of a lot of issues with battery projects um and the concern with figuring out what those standards are um we already put out an ordinance and got it approved for solar so um how do I say this do we feel like

it's necessary to add solar in right now like or can we just focus on battery right now we've got the solar ordinance maybe look at adding solar into a contract zoning mandate possibly after battery like what is the what was the impetus to adding solar into this contract zoning mandate somebody I mean since we weren part take first crack at it um you may recall during the public process on solar one of the issues that came up in the conservation Comm commission was working on looking across town where they would be appropriate where they wouldn't be appropriate and again I think we're all talking about the large scale projects not a small scale project we're talking one and a half Megs right yeah and so and you know where that threshold is is cut off uh to require

contract zoning is certainly subject to discussion and decision okay uh right now it's proposed at one meat or one one one oh wow okay uh so you know that may be too high or too low depending on your perspective uh and the other point I would make is that during the testimony that came in during that public process there were people in the industry that were saying uh this these the solar standards that we adopted uh they're too stringent for small projects and they're not stringent enough for large projects and so that was all part of that process that led to the Conservation Commission which had been working on it before trying to decide where to locate or prohibit these and contract zoning would be much easier and and more effective and controlling uh and the other point I would make is I don't know if you saw that green Maine uh had a very big political crisis uh in land use crisis when someone proposed a 500 acre uh

solar farm we have a limit don't we in our ordinance for solar no we didn't put a limit in there no okay so oh the only limit is is uh whether they have to do a conditional use and site plan review and apply all those standards so there's no limit on size currently in the ordinance okay I think maybe this is a separate topic than for right now but I would like to continue this maybe with a Conservation Commission and the planning board to talk about adding keeping solar in here especially at one megawatt and above that's a pretty in small well I think yeah the Conservation Commission can weigh in on their own but what's before now is to give and again this is for if cor me we're on the draft table of use is ours to work on or the well

the the key to that is triggering that contract zoning will be required for those okay um and the contract zoning is really what you're discussing at this point yeah so I I don't think this is the time to to do that uh that's fine so any

other questions that we need to discuss with the town attorney and your your time is well worth our our our dime um I do have a definition for renewable energy generating facility that I've used that would include I'll read it to you just real quick a facility for generating electrical energy from wind solar or geothermal means or through the burning of biomass or other renewable resources um and then we could tack onto that it includes solar facilities and bests you know as defined so that they're just category that comes in there and then we could have on the table of uses that broader definition of renewable energy generating facility that may be a way to to tackle that fantastic no I think there are other options other than solar to um where where best could be used and

and I think Renewables would be better use of the term rather than so okay all right thank you I'm not asking again about you have any other questions um you know filtered through George I think they can be brought to that workshop and I can try to touch on them as part of everything I go through with the board super thank you very much it's been very helpful good meeting you have a good night you too thank

lead on that is in starting I think next Tuesday for the select board or is the select board so we're done with the 9A and now on to uh the the standards for V and uh George I think we start with so this is the one that we're we're responsible for to get it ready uh in the near or midterm whatever future so George has done I think a good job of putting some standards together based on other towns based on discussions and feedback that we've had on this thing so George I think you've got a presentation that you'd like to do yes I didn't include it in the packets but I prepared it for tonight for uh for us all to look at and discuss um you let me make a couple of introductory points that I think were important the first is that this is really an extension of the uh work that we did with the Conservation Commission on solar energy systems because this came up during that whole process and uh

the Committees really pretty much determined that uh it was really important to get those solar uh standards in the ordinance and this was new uh we had not done research on these types of facilities so uh but I my view is that this is really an extension of the uh the work that the town has done over the last two years on solar energy systems and energy systems uh the second point I would make is that the picture in the slide there is the project that was just approved d uh it's actually almost been two years now but it's under construction right now in gorm uh and that is 5 Acres uh of uh battery energy storage units and that I think is 175 megawatts

uh and that is under construction right now when it went to the gorm planning board based on my review of their public records uh the only standards that the planning board had to use to apply to that were site plan review standards which are very similar to yours um and so they pretty much had uh no leeway on

a lot of the issues and then the other thing we've learned over the last year that we've been looking at this is that uh across the country particularly in New York uh there have been real issues with fire safety on these facilities so uh we've been those standards have been rapidly developing in response to problems that they've had with these and so so what I did was basically take the we had looked at together at the New York Governor's report on what needs to be in best ordinances to make these things safe and workable uh so we've Incorporated that information uh and in my review of numerous ordinances using the town's uh inprocess codification resource uh one

in Carver Massachusetts that I used as a template seem to reflect those uh New York uh task force recommendations for the safety aspects in terms of uh monitoring suppression uh emergency operation systems um so that ordinance of all the ones I looked at seemed to jump out as this one is ahead of the game and that was the one that I chose to start with the other caveat to all this is that I am not anywhere near an expert on these issues uh and the town has not funded hiring a consultant to do this work so I'm providing my best uh ability limited ability product to you and certainly uh there's a lot of room for uh looking at the details thresholds those sorts of things uh as well as some of the details in terms of codes I have run this by the fire chief and the code officer and I've had some input from them on it so that's kind kind of the background for how we get to this point here tonight so with

that I'm just going to have just a few slides here and then we can open it up for your discussion uh so again the key findings bringing us us up to this point was I mentioned the gorm uh project the town attorney as I said earlier on contract zoning has uh advised us that utility scale best meets the definition of essential services and is a permitted use throughout the rural residential and agricultural district and is a conditional use uh in the uh resource protection and the Shoreland zoning and as I've told you in the past and I think uh Kristen the town attorney indicated to you tonight your ability to withstand a legal challenge under your conditional use criteria uh is not a very strong position compared to having specific standards like we talked about then I also mentioned in my opening uh comments how there are significant safety uh fire safety noise and environmental concerns based on the

track record across country of these things and you have no regulations to address those issues and just as a reminder you just did discuss tonight there's a moratorium currently in effect it was enacted at the special town meeting on November 19th and it extends for 6 months and it can be extended by the select board for another 6 months and uh the select board back at in December um directed The Town attorney to draft the Amendments for contract zoning that you talked about just a few minutes ago and they've asked the planning board to help prepare these best performance standards just just one quick note I think on your last second last bullet there yeah it's we're actually under I think you said it but the ti there's a you said six-month extension is actually six-month moratorium we're under a 12-month moratorium with the possibility of a six-month extension no I don't think that's accurate six month

moratorium with six-month extension approv approvable by the select board without going to back to the town meeting though okay for a total of one year and that's that's limited by Statute you really can't go beyond that uh okay so uh just to get everybody on the same page of what these things are uh this drawing or graphic shows relative sizes so the green box there is a typical residential uh unit that's measures approximately 4T by 2 and 1/2 ft wide uh we've talked about Teslas uh so that's a that's pretty this that would not be regulated by what we're talking about uh other than some of the electrical safety codes fire safety codes uh and then the gray box is more of a midsize commercial uh that also would really not be subject to contract zoning uh then the large

orange it represents the approximate size of a pretty much a storage container Siz box that contains uh and that could contain up to one megawatt uh of of capacity within that or megawatt hour whatever the proper uh terminology is so uh there's a picture of one in terms of these is very typical of of the type of units that there are and just to get a sense of the one megawatt uh I did a little bit of research and found that the average in my own electric bill you average 30 kilowatt hours a day uh for 900 a month uh the typical size of these units these boxes are uh about 300 plus square fet

and uh one of those will according to the research I did generate uh 1 megawatt hours of capacity and that translates to being uh able to to uh Power 303 homes for one day so just to give you a sense of that so this current uh contract zoning piece of this is going to limit anything beyond that would have to go to a contract Zone uh and so that's that residential scale uh

and as I said most systems would would be able to go in without any of this so as far as the standards are concerned um this diagram that I found really identifies what the codes are that apply to different parts of it so up on the upper left with the uh icon of a power line you have uh those codes apply to the connections to the grid and then you have the overall installation to the right of that uh certain codes that apply to the overall installation and then there are codes that apply to the uh fire and gas detection requirements systems the fire explosion suppression uh codes that are referenced uh and then the battery individual battery racks and the battery packs within them they all have to meet certain ul and other say uh uh standards

uh the communication system because that's been a real big deal in terms of New York's experience and others is that it's critical that when there is uh uh over Heating in these things the system needs to notify the operators and immediately shut it down and each one of these individually should have that type of uh type of ter technology and and uh

ability and then there is the uh Power conversion system uh that again has a UL uh certification that has to be done so what I did was I took this diagram and took the Carver uh uh model and basically plug these in as well as the main building code and other codes as opposed to the Massachusetts which is what the template was made from so um I did circulate the draft to you and we've already been getting some feedback on the draft I have been circulating it to people in the industry asking for feedback uh and we've gotten some other public input as well sorry George what what did you circulate I circulated the draft the one that sent us that's right standards and we've gotten feedback on it which uh depending on when you decide to have your public uh input information uh session uh we'll basically make that part of the of the background information for that discussion and for those who are listening at home all of

this is on the uh the website yes that presentation is on the website as well as as well as the draft uh and some other background documents okay when can we talk about this stuff rightor okay okay I'm done so what I would what I would like to do now is start the discussion with the planning board and hence the no public input this evening but go through the draft that George is providing what like he said it's very similar to what we've done with solar and he's looked at other things get our comments together and then um it's probably as good a time as any uh I would like to I don't think we get through this we don't finish this certainly by tonight so the next meeting I propose is a week from today uh 6:30 here uh to continue the discussion and at that point George will take our recommended or ideas on this evening make some changes put it back up on the website and then have public in what I

would call public input at that meeting uh next Tuesday um and then take that uh public input and uh see where we stand at the end of the day on the 15th so now is the time I think in I guess in my mind the best way to do this is rather jump all over the document kind of go through the eight or nine pages whatever it is there and see what comments we have uh on the individual sections so that this would be the opportunity uh to do that can I just ask some processed questions sure this

uh do we need standards developed by the time a developer comes in and says they want to do contract Zoning for a best do we need to have these standards developed at that at that time we probably should right yeah my so once this 12 months is over right we should that should be our goal or or before or before have that have that ready well the way I would see it and more to follow after the select board's meeting they would file uh requesting a uh contract zoning if they have in locations so on and so forth that would get approved at the at a time so let's just assume that it contract zoning passes and these standards pass so they would come in they would file for contract zoning uh the town would approve it's an assumption the town would approve that particular project that contract zoning and then the planning board would have the authority to approve the site plan so the town is approving the the

framework for contract zoning the town is approving the standards uh that we're going to talk about here shortly and then that down the road the town would approve and these are all assumptions contract Zoning for that particular project and then it would come back to the planning board if they were going parallel we would be working on the uh working them through the standards and when would the town vote the the town it's at the to meeting meeting but after we're done reviewing or before we are done and after the select board is done when when does that meeting happen well it's how whatever the select board writes it up so they but you got to approve contract zoning first before we can approve the the I talk about the project now the individual project yes so we need to Pro the the overall contract zoning thing for our town yes that's one right and then we need to approve the standards yes yes and then

so somebody those two things are approved I come in with my uh my best and I res submit for a contract zoning and um that is negotiated with whatever process that we come up with it uh and then the town meeting approves that contra cont Zoning for parcel a and if they want to gamble and they want to come in and start working on the standards with us then they can do that if they're trying to save time at the risk of doing everything we require them in in planning and engineering and everything else or but we cannot approve the project site plan until the contract Zoning for that particular project is approved and just to separate the discussion of any project uh just looking at the ordinances alone uh the the town currently has no standards to apply it's currently a permitted use so to me it's critical

that the regardless of what happens with the contract zoning the town needs to put standards into place before the moratorium expires now the the town attorney has suggested that this will address the safety problems but it won't address the scale problems or the location problems uh which could have a big impact on the town not just the specific project but the the area and so to me the although

they're talking about contract zoning actually the way we're looking at putting it on the uh town meeting warrant right now is to have the uh battery engine standards first I think and then the discussion of the contract zoning so irrespec of what happens with contract zoning the town will have at least that much protection which is smart it's very smart so can I ask another question so now we're we're considering putting solar as a mandated contract zoning so we're right now focused on best but when who's focusing on solar when are we doing that the the way it's being proposed to the select board is this thing that was on in our p packet of the tables of use yep that will be considered along with the um I guess it's a separate deal but that is another change to the ordance and the only thing that that involves solar is whether or not a project of a certain size go to contract Zing because as

George said uh my biases here right now as long as they meet our standards they can put a solar project anywhere right but what I'm saying is right now we're working on standards for best where are the standards for solar are we just going to they're the same we're not changing the standards for solar okay so we're going to we're going to look to our ordinance you're going to continue you're going to continue to apply all the standards to solar that are currently in the ordinance what this is going to do is set a a scale limit that anything over one megawatt or whatever you decide on okay will only be allowed by contract Zone got it okay okay so we already have Sol

helpful I still don't quite understand the pro maybe you all do the process of approving contract Zoning for a project and us going through the standards and site plan or whatever well hopefully the standards and the contract zoning mechanisms will all be in place whenever a project comes and so then the first step in the process would be to go through the contract zoning process and then if that gets approved then go through the the site plan review process or Andor conditional use and that's where the standards will be applied but what if it's denied can we deny it in the site plan if it doesn't meet these St safety standards yes after it's been approved through contract zon even though it's approved by contract zoning you'll still be able to deny it if it does not meet the performance standards thank you does that answer the process question yes thank you so much okay so going back to the standards

and starting that discussion um are there any uh just kind of go through them um the purpose I don't know how much we we may not need to discuss any of these like 5.71 but are there any questions on purpose has the Alan plumber our CEO chimed in on any of this yeah what I looked at with him in particular was the electrical aspects and um I think it's important for everybody to understand that the code officer uh he's a his primary review is a residential development uh if there's anything commercial it goes to the state inspectors so he's not really up to speed on Commercial much less something of this type in scale so again town does not have any Consultants involved in this uh because of we don't have the resources but the code officer is not really able to provide input on these uh

uh electrical code standards that only apply to B battery energy storage systems he's completely off the hook our CEO well in terms of any review any he he has no he has no capacity to do that review he doesn't have the qualifications of the training are we talking the standards or are we talking a project think he has to do the building permit right most of question talk about review the standards I mean if he's going to issue who will issue the building permit for one of these after it goes through the whole process including yeah the peer review of all the electrical stuff this project you'll have a consultant at that point because the developer will pay for it so you'll be able to under the peerreview system hire a consultant to look at every aspect of that and make sure that it needs those codes and then the code officer when they come time to Construction Construction he'll call in the state inspectors and they'll go

through make sure it's done according to the approv plans applicability um 5.7.2 and I will start off I I do have a uh confusing to me George uh you list different types of batteries and the capacity of greater than 70 70 or 30 whatever um at this stage we haven't really said that it doesn't apply to what I would call the household Tesla batteries whatever you want to call it um is that an issue and then the other one is uh uh it covers four types of batteries you know sodium I think is a is a relatively new one do should we put in there some and other you know other technologies that could come up I don't know I think number six number six is intended to address that other battery technologies so can I ask I'm I'm so sorry well let me just let me finish with my question but the way I read that George you says are not subject to this section so other battery technologies with a capacity greater than so that do

not meet the thresh are not subject to it I guess I want to say they should be right and but but it's saying that if they do not exceed those capacities then they're not subject to it which does allow smaller small no no I I okay I got you on that I think that answers my first question but do how do we so that if somebody comes up with a new technology new technology sodium is relatively new should we put some kind of caveat in there that uh rather have to go back to the town to change that this this piece but that covers it under number six doesn't it because it's specifically saying other the battery technologies that do not what George the way George I think just explained it is that six covers the te what I call the Tesla batteries or the car home car

look carefully at but I don't know that you can say and any other technology that comes along problem we will have to amend the organs so somebody comes in with a I don't know a gold battery um they then have to wait to go back we have to go back to the town to get that approved potentially I mean these are across the country the ones that are really being used and only a few of these actually got like lithium ion is the big one okay I would just like us to consider terms of the technology and the you know the effectiveness and costs in 2025 that's true yeah but in 2030 it may not be true

I'm with you here can I ask where do we get where do we get these Carver Massachusetts which came out of research all across the country like recently yeah I just wonder I like it's so specific right like um and things are changing so often is there any other way that we could this is trying to catch them all yeah I know but like it doesn't catch gold or platinum or so I think that I think six really leaves us open because if someone comes out with a new battery technology tomorrow that is not listed in one of these we're saying any other B any other Battery Technology that is not listed in one through five you can put it into your heart's content it's the way six reads to me to me are allowed by right in all zoning districts it says subject to

allowed and are allowed I guess I would I would like that I don't think six says that but that's yeah I think there's some problems with six and we need if he would yeah I we can George you'll take a look at it for our next meeting well no so what about why don't just say 10 kilowatts and above regardless of the

technology well it's confusing that in contradictory where you have uh above 10 kilowatt hours that meet that uh meet the threshold capacities that do not meet the threshold capacities or above I'm not sure exactly what that what that means so let me let me look if he would play with six before then that's we're going to have another opportunity something we need to look more closely at okay okay any others on point two um that was a right uh that was I think you want to talk about that was a a A6 George 5 7.2 oh I'm A6 yeah but what I'm saying

is you're going to go on you said section two I think you want to talk about 2B correct yeah which is the tear the tier system okay well I'm asked if there's any questions about that I don't have any did anybody else have any um well I'd like to look further into what the teers talk about before we get into but if maybe we could come back to B George that's right I I think it's good to to just get it on the table now okay let's look at so basically if it's a half a megawatt hour um then basically doesn't have to meet the contract zoning or or those sorts of things and in terms of some of the site plan review standards so anything less than half a megawatt uh is is basically not subject to all of the decommissioning and all of that stuff that's in here and not subject to the mandated contract zoning correct yeah okay um the and I probably confuse you by saying contract zoning that this has nothing to do with contract zoning

well but if contract zoning does pass this is going to be mandated except for tier one these thresholds won't apply to contract zoning these will only apply to the systems that are approved under contract zoning or as permitted uses if contract zoning doesn't fly okay so just set the contract zoning aside for a minute and think about okay so just what applies here as you go through this whole draft is similar to the solar uh if they're going to propose a solar energy system they have to have buffering they have to have fencing they have to have all these things this says like somebody has a small commercial uh they don't have to put in you know 50 foot buffers and 100 foot setbacks unless it's commercial uh so the the

tier one is small relatively small scale and it doesn't have to meet all the decommissioning plans and all of that stuff on once you get above that into the tier two and the tier three then you get into a lot of these safety issues and um fencing and all of those considerations that are laid out decommissioning plan and everything else that's in here so the tier one tier two and tier three uh is like the solar uh

cons does require a conditional use site plan review that's what this is intended to to apply and there's not many differences between between tier two and tier three yeah that's that's correct I think there probably greater requirements for tier three but we can look at the as we go through it okay so what you'll see down through here is you'll see tier two and to tier three uh pretty consistently through here yeah they're like combined yeah they're kind of combined yeah okay uh 5.7.3 General

comments that do review on um any of these things George has all this been reviewed by the fire chief he's been looking at it yes thought he did he has been but we would ask him he en codes to take a look at it after one one of the issues that he has raised and he's not the only one is you know is the proposed Road width and surfacing appropriate you know should there be more substantial to support the weight of the loads of their vehicles so that's something he's raised okay and they would look at any changes we make going forward yeah I mean just looking at the access road width I would I would agree that that might need to be wider 12T I think what this is designed to say what do they need to to build and service this thing compared to what does the fire department need to protect it yeah but we can require more so did Chief give you 16 foot or 20 did he give you he hasn't given me that yet no so we

need that we get that before next tues get specifications for what he needs for a road to be able to service uh in all weather surface I guess my thought would be that that that should be built to a town standard just because I realize that there not going to be a lot of traffic on it but when the traffic is going out there this is a major deal so whatever the fire department needs to get there right so you know a a dirt road or Stone Road that's not maintained I would just say you know we should make it be maintained to town standards which is our argument subdivision yeah yeah and then I think maybe in those standards we talk about like uh turnarounds hammerheads and things like that probably or do we need to specify that in here we may we'll we'll talk to the fire yeah um in the past we've talked about capacity and whether or not our fire department could service any of these facilities if there was an issue um so

and we also talked earlier about scale scales of these facilities so if it becomes out of scale for our fire Department um who would we ask for recommendations on specific to roadways like if they need to they have Outriggers for instance that's where the contract zoning is helpful because the the select board the planning board as you're going through the contract zoning if someone's proposing a big scale project like gorm uh you can require them to submit a Consulting uh escrow

and you can hire whatever expert you need to review their plans not to develop their plans but to review their plans to make sure that uh whether it's the fire department capacity there are fire officials I watched John you clude us into the seminar in Massachusetts where the guy from The National Fire Protection Association uh came in and really did a great presentation on how to work with local fire departments and there's lots of information the chief is looking at some of that how do local first respond ERS uh what do they need to know about these things and what equipment and systems do they need to properly protect them so uh that contract zoning piece is

helpful on that but even if it doesn't pass and you end up with the standards you still get a peer review uh escrow and if you need to hire uh an expert to evaluate the fire safety plan for this thing if a project is proposed you'll have that resource available to you either way okay thanks George just comments on

still on that paragraph e um in the Solar thing we instead of Durham fire department lock we call it a nox boox yeah we put still some terminology things here yeah and then I noticed that too access to all four sides of each enclosure should be provided were practical I think it should be required I mean I think the fire department should be able to get to all four sides or if it's a circle or whatever but not you know not wor practical it might depend because if you look at the uh going back to the gorum project so

you see that basically uh within the project itself they're going to have they're going to be you know depending on what the subbase is for all of this area fire trucks if they can get in there would be able to and they're going to need to get in there to access the individual units that might be problematic so again what we should do is talk to the fire chief on that issue as well just to see uh what his needs are and make sure that his department has the access that he need yeah I don't understand why like that that this plan is pretty funky why would you have trees buffering that's what that is about yeah we have a we have a discussion and we're going to get to that in a bit here I I agree like clearance there should be almost just clearance it's going to be hard to buffer these things but we could buffer from further out like it should be cleared okay let's let's we're kind of jumping around here we talk about

buffering and other down the road so uh I'd like to stay so my question you keep mentioning the chief is it possible to can we request the chief be here uh at some point he would have come tonight except that he anticipated you're going to be spending quite a bit of time on contract zoning so he'll certainly be available for the 50 yeah I mean if if we written written the stuff we discuss we I mean he's very good about emailing and doing other stuff so I you know I know he's busy and I don't want to and I'll report to him what we have discussed tonight if get his feedback so I'm try to get to I think one thing you did say there on E when it said it should be provided I think it must be provided when practic yeah well I would even I dropped the must practical I mean I I just they have to be able to get to these things yeah and and I don't want it open to some kind of definition of you know put the ladder up

and spray on it or something okay any other things so moving on the permitting requirements for tier one I mean it's basically just any questions on that that's basically I keep calling it the Tesla battery but you know the car battery whatever it may be and it would actually be one of those boxes half that size yep so that

it the utility connection one um for solar we did give it to the developers discretion well no I shouldn't say that sorry the utilities discretion on whether or not the equipment was above ground or underground we did say you're jumping ahead of us oh I'm sorry yeah we're on permitting requir oh my God I'm so okay sorry sorry sorry I try to keep from bouncing around too much to keep it going so okay so I gather there's nothing on point 4 five 5 point now so

okay because there's no permitting requirements for tier one anyway so anywh who yes tier two and three um yeah a utility connections like I was saying for solar we let the we said we wanted them we preferred them to be underground um yeah and this language says unless uh topography and other conditions of the site is verified by the town Consulting engineer and the utility require it to be above ground kind of same same language y okay great thank you sign each I mean is that good on utility connection

at the project the safety signage that's not covered in the regular sign standards yeah uh tree cutting Juliet yeah um is there anything that under that ventilation tree cutting is there thing that describes uh regular maintenance of that

when we it sounds like we talk about it initially then we don't talk about it again maintenance of what vegetation and tree cutting yeah I think I pasted in some of the language from uh looking G the solar the same whatever we're on 7 point whatever on G page page 24 of the package yeah I'm looking at screening and visibility yeah yeah I took the provisions for that from our current solar and put that into here

okay Julia you had a question about not well no I I read it through um so we're saying 30 feet that should be plenty that's the clearance from these things right that's pretty much the standard as I understand industry standard it's pretty high but I think 30 is um it might be safer I don't know but well one of my great concerns is one of the discussions we always have is maintaining the rural character right and so I in my mind there needs to be a good buffer to these things because wherever they they're going to I mean they're big and noisy and if they're visible so there's two things we talking about we're talking about buffer we're talking about clearing of trees around it those are two separate things in here we say 30 ft shall be cleared of veg so that's just talking about the clearance then we can talk about buffering there's yeah so remember these have 100 foot setback so if you think about it if

somebody who put this along the road U so they got a 100t setback they got a requirement for a 50ft buffer and they've got to have a requirement for 30 ft from the units themselves so they might have 30 ft from the units then the fence outside the fence they have 50 ft of buffering by the time you get out to the road or maybe closer to the road you know you're they going have to fit all that within there within that 100

ft so under D we don't talk about buffering yet right no no it comes up that's you're right I'm sorry no I just want to make sure I wasn't missing something so yeah I'm just saying the 30 ft I think you know is is a lot um so if

there's a battery that someone wants to put in the woods they're going to be clearing quite a bit of trees so but if that's fire safet if that's what we're hearing from folks then okay all right um kind of going back a little bit

on I wrote it down next is we never talk about height of of fencing and height of buffering yeah should we talk about the height of the structure what's the typical okay so there's two different uh ways these things are done uh one is to like this these units are like 9 ft tall uh but

sometimes they're put inside buildings I don't know that they stack them you can stack them you can you can stack them but in any case they're typically done inside enclosed buildings like a lot of the uh like cousins island has some of these uh inside one of their old buildings that they're not using I think so well I don't I'm not sure Goram is and I know Rumford is neither one of theirs are inside buildings no no no but they're they're no more than 9 ft

foot or 10 foot height limit height I don't know about that um I mean what's the right with solar is 15 I'm not saying Nine's right can you go back but if they stack them standing there yeah what was that I think that was 9 ft but they can be taller than that do we have a problem with the height of them I have a problem with seeing them ohce I mean if you stacked two 9t containers that's 18 ft and I'm not sure some containers I think maybe more than 9 ft well then why don't we just say they have to be if we're concerned with the visual then that's how we mitigate is they have to be screened if someone wants to propose a 20 foot thing but they can propose screening they're going to come in with a 20 foot tree or maybe no maybe it's already existing it's already screened yeah if it's got a force well then you'd have to say something like you know where's the effect of uh must cannot be visible from

and that may be in there but I think I think in other ordinances they talk about the um underlying principal height restrictions in that area for the which are typically 30 foot so whatever we for structures we like 35t okay we're not talking about a house though we're talking about you know these things are butt ugly I mean I don't know how to say it nicer than that these things are ugly so so maybe we increase to setb from the road to a mile and limit the development to an acre it's possib you know I mean I I'm not sure about limiting the I mean if in my mind depending upon where you put it uh you know if you want to maintain the r character and I recognize that's unach you know a per that's in a perfect world that's probably unachievable but I am concerned about two containers stacked up being visible from the road why don't we just like they need to they need to be they can't be visible visible from

the road yeah they can't be Vis yeah visible or at ad joining properties from yeah yeah I'm I'm okay with that they'd have to in my mind they would have to put some kind of um George you know I forgot but you know you get somebody to draw you put the height of the building you draw an angle off visual impact analysis so you know somebody us one Rec

that's my I'm not trying to you know stop these or whatever but depending upon where they put them the the potential is because we talk about gorm we talk about Rumford those are industrial parts right you know next to one of them in Rumford is a natural gas power plant the other one is in uh right

next to the the paper plant Paper Mill and the and a dam uh gorm if you look at the picture it's in an industrial park we don't have that so that is a concern I have and how do we if I'm driving down talbet Road uh I don't necessarily want to see these things okay maybe a mile is a stretch so about a half a mile off the road and still limit it to an acre in overall size I'm not sure that's we can

we want to limit it to an they're bigger than that I think I'm not sure an acre works or a mile I'm just trying to come that's an that's an option if that's the way we want to go I'm trying to come up with something to to say you know you can't maybe you can't stack it if it's 9 ft you know you this is what you're going to have but wouldn't you address that's a 5 Acre Site we just saw around there that's it's pretty big well I think even the ones in rum for weren't that big but they were probably an acre plus C and everything else let's let the developer worry about it and come to us with the plan let's just say they have to be screened they can't be visible from the road or joining I'm fine with that uh joining properties yeah well if they decide to put it next to somebody's I don't know that they would but if they're if they're somebody's house or if you put it in because one of the other comments I've

got down the road is we don't okay right now it's agricultural but somebody wants their kid wants to live you know on that property they now have a have this next to him I'm a big fan of berer Beware don't get me wrong but there is that uh okay well we're going to go in this order by order we had been talking about vegetation okay and tree cutting and we jumped ahead we didn't look at setbacks we didn't we're still we're still we're still there well we still but give me give me a second then you get into screening and visibility this is what you've been talking about yes so I would think that if you want to address it and fine-tune that you would do it under that item under which one under G we get there yeah okay well I I asked okay let me start over on this are there any comments on setbacks

around any comments on the set okay then takes us to a fencing thinking the only thing George is on the solar we talked about I think it was 6 in at the bottom to let animals uh Traverse the site groundhogs ground hogs so they can dig underneath yeah hey I'm perfectly happy for all of Durham's GS go to a best site but uh I don't know did it for solar the differ yeah I think there's a fundamental difference between solar and these things because this is like an industrial yard it's not a field and the

solar completely vegetated okay is that is that the consensus asking to say it could be in a wildlife habitat right that goes back to the contract zoning so you'll be looking at uh those aspect environmental aspects of it as part of the comprehensive plan review the contract zoning review I got but how do they know in that review if it was you could make them do two separate uh pads

or and then have a wildli quarter between them that's negotiable the my only thought about you know it's someday when we're all dead and somebody comes in and nobody's ever thought about Wildlife movements before it's not a big deal to me I'm fine with not putting anything there I just was comparing it to solar and it was there for solar if the consensus is we don't need to put it in there then I'm okay with that too yeah I don't think we should say anything about it it's that consensus uh no I don't think it hurts to put it in there that to leave that should be considered to leave a buffer or clearance the same type of fencing that we put around we're requiring around solar so we've required an a fence around solar right and I think it was a 6 in with a gap at the bottom yeah it was a 6 it is a six I looked it today it is a 6 in was thinking about an a fence for these but I don't know if we

should I I you know they're made of wood right so I don't I think we're going to have to this is probably going to need this is a high yeah and then the Gap like there's no reason Wildlife if it's in a wildlife area like you were saying we we could provide a corridor but we don't want there's no reason animals should be in this area there's no benefit for them in there at all versus a solar field that could have you know agricultural species growing in there and grass you know they can so we can limit these to an size you keep going back to that yeah because we're not saying how large this could be it could be as big as a s an acre is pretty big for a battery system to tell you the truth that one's five acres but this is like I this isn't like I hear you that's

do we get I think we get there somewhere uh on SI all on the table yep so um I'm moving so it sounds like why don't we just not mention it and then like with that the they propose it and makes sense sure I'm I'm fine with that consider it then I think we're moving from F to G screening invisibility I think we talked about that this I think is a you know do we put a Max height on it

shall be required around the battery system consisting of a landscape strip at least 50 ft wide around the entire perimeter except for places that have an equivalent existing buffer correct and we're also saying 8 ft above ground level where that's n and a half right so you might see the tops of them I don't think the T here even either for solar is that they have to be completely screened from public views you want to mitigate that view impact other thoughts I mean if those are 9 ft you want to change that view to 10 ft the 8 ft to 10 you're talking about bringing in vegetation that is certainly mature yeah um are you you know within a certain number of years or whatever yeah just to be clear typically you do not install 10t buffers in 10 foot tall yeah it it

requires just for the health of the plants you're usually what they do is they put in a mixture of like 6 foot 3 foot and then it grows over time they grow about a foot a year so any buffering you do is going to take some time to develop to be effective that's what do we have for solar for the width of the buffer strip 50t we get 50 ft for solar all right um in solar we talked about a lands and I think in this one a landscape architect doing the screening and visibility design landscape buffer

design oh yeah we should I think that I think that was in there for solar and it should beis but no more with solo which would be good yeah that's I'm I'm trying to in many ways be as consistent with solar as I can yeah part of the benefit of that to the developer is that get a landscape architect come in look at all the different view shs like they do with the towers they put up balloons and stuff for those uh and they can provide the board with with an argument to say no buffers needed because it's not yeah I mean doesn't have a view impact if somebody wants to come in and say hey there's trees there I don't need a buffer then the landscape AR or he should say they're going to put in six you don't have to buffer from the power or yes or something like that um

going to make it addition to that I'm any other questions on screening and the end as far as the um when a buffer is not required based on results of a view analysis or you know working with the adjacent land owner yada yada y like that part uh noise the 45 and 55 and 45 come out of our ordinates they're the solar uh no just our noise or so that's what we have for solar then too right should be yeah okay okay

um batteries that's what this is well let me back up just a second CH I'm sorry I did have a question on that um the the verbiage you have here is requirement limiting any increase to be less than 55 DB I should it not say 50

not an increase so if it's now 40 um or we saying it's zero and it can't go above 55 I think this language is intended to say it can't goove 55 that okay that's what it that's what it should say yeah not not an and the good the good thing about that is right now the ambient what they call the ambient is 30 they can't go up 55 on top of this says they can this says they go to 85 no it says uh limiting increase has to meet the limitations of section so I would just get rid of increase section 520 inside section 5.20 sets the limits at 55 and 45 but you're the next sentence it says limiting any increase I would just get rid of any increase because we don't want somebody to think that it's 30 now is you can go to 85 yeah okay uh I don't agree with that interpretation but I think we need to clarify that let me win one tonight George I'm with you on this one John there we go uh I think that I think that

says you can add 55 to whatever it currently is um okay so we can just strike out of increase sure that it complies yeah okay batteries seeing none J de sorry the just the topic of it should would just say storage or something instead of just like storage of batteries or I failed batteries or something it says failed battery no I know but the kind of the heading part yeah the heading yeah battery storage yeah yeah just because this entire thing is about batteries gotcha any other battery comments what's a module it's relating to a solar but maybe it has something to do with a battery if it's like you would think and George may know it better than I do but is it if there's multiple batteries in TR I think that's those trays that go into those big units okay they've got all they've got like I don't know how many thousand cells in each one of them or something like that yeah maybe that sounds great so once the battery fails

the module more than likely fails too I think so I don't think they keep you know or they they could either they replace it right um moving on to De decommissioning plan MH this is probably similar to what the solar we had in for solar the decom plan uh it's less number of days and solar's I forget what it is this only gives them 20 days which I'm fine with to notify yep the code they have to notify the code officer within 20 days so what what if what happens is if there's a violation of

code officer in within the 20 days there should be a penalty there's a decom bond required right I wonder if there is but I mean we if VI if they violate the ordinance it's like any other or violation you take legal action and assess penalties as part of that process are we arbitrarily assessing penalties or do we have specific dollar amounts that we apply to

that the select board when it goes to court can get up to whatever the statutory limits are okay for land use violations K okay great thank you yep are we good on the decommissioning think I couldn't find it but it is there I think there are I read somewhere where the state now has rules about decommissioning that at the state level am I did I dream that part of Rec maybe that document that John S might it might have been there today but but that was the question they're still developing trying to develop model ordinance okay so if there's no State rules then then I didn't you know whichever one's the tougher one uh so that is so we're moving on then to K which is the funding of

while I go to the restroom uh inflation yeah is are there are the words strong enough to say that if this is a 20y year life cycle is how do we account for 20 years of inflation well it says continuously maintain a fund in an amount determined by the

continuously covers inflation and what is the time period for continuously maintaining there might have been some language in the Solar on that that we could yeah I think there's escalator in there yeah was every start five years yeah and I would agree with that because these can be 25 plus years right who knows right above that an eight where they say a listing of any contingencies for removing an inact intact operational

energy storage system so so we're asking them to provide us with a list of contingencies which I'm assuming is monetary contingencies um so you you have that list in hand what those values are which would relate to K yes yet they have to provide the decom plan which includes the decom estimate which should include like yeah 2% escalation or whatever mhm but yeah maybe refer to the solar I think we did talk about it in

no you're the BP you take away move right through this have it all done by the time he gets back prob he'll be so happy stacking the chairs now so just just to just to ride him when he comes back in offer a motion to a that maybe he's watching yeah you need to do that I just turn the lights off and

questions on that three a one or three line those are two different things where are you 5 H3 6A are you on H3 you talk about one three line electrical diagram yeah in the draft it's uh section 5.76 I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I apologize guys so we're

done I move to a Jour just kidding J it's not April 1 oh sorry guys I skipped L do we need to talk about that proof of liability so it says in the amount and type General acceptable in the confirms what's your peerreview consultant million dollar5 million peerreview consultant can any other issues that you need qualified opinions got a wait on that don't let me forget to discuss peer review but okay are we good on insurance think we are site plan application

for solar same thing are we required a three line didn't we yeah yes yeah I think we did three line yeah so I think we should so eliminate one yep and just say three line safety data sheets LGE scale fire test a lot of this came out of that New York yeah experience yep and I would trust Chief I mean I do know Chief is called like people he knew in Massachusetts and others who've had best systems to and see how what they're doing and what's working for them so yeah commissioning go ahead no I was just which commissioning

who approves it plan and then a couple of places that uh the inspection by m main licensed professional engineer um do we care is it the developers is it um our guide on a uh escrow or how are we doing the applic to give that certification okay yeah and you can peer review it I'm

good with that anything on fire safety compliance plan onm location the the onm manual should the CEO have a copy should the fire department have a copy and is it a hard copy or is it a PDF is it a flash drive who owns that good questions who who should the the intent of it is to have it be for the people that are operating the system got operation and maintenance and you will have it as part of your record the town staff and officials to look at and and impose if they're not following it yeah so I mean an enforcement it's not hard to make copies in in any of the forms should we require them because at some place and I've lost track of it we do require certain things to go to codes fire and town manager should we should this be the codes guy that gets a copy of it the on M menual copies to code and Fire and Fire and I don't know does it

matter you can maybe ask them if it's you know problem with paper copies is they end up on a bookshelf somewhere and so do this I suppose but digital copies end up in no man's laying on servers and people forget where they are so you're you're recommending a hard copy I I don't know the answer to be honest with you should we just ask them what they want I mean yeah just just ask Chief and codes one of

depending upon the location of the best it must meet NFPA 855 the stuff I've seen U I read about NFPA 855 is kind of like a Bible on a lot of this stuff um you you reference it in several places but uh well I think the intent is to say that you might have a best being used by a solar farm okay yeah uh engine must be signed a seal okay um any on I who signs the

plans which one J J excuse me I'm sorry no uh K Emergency Operations plan this is the one I think where they have to provide to the fire department code officer and town manager's office MH uh which I like that because it's obviously um and that really is for the First Responders as well as the only other one I thought about is you give a sheriff one but I'm not sure they care I'm sure they care but they're probably not around long enough to or around enough to worry about it this is a big one k is a big one for two things one is that it is requiring contact of some who will be available 24 hours a day the second thing is that somebody needs to be able to get to the site within two hours um which is yeah so that's um that's a tall order it's uh MH well it's a tall order but they're the ones who who need to kind of guide people this thing's melting down or doing whatever it's doing yeah I'm just

saying that this is and they W be need to make the case to the planning board that they they've got that set up million facility it's to their best interest to have that do we talk in here about training at all I think it does okay we're not

there the oper ation and maintenance plan and at the end here it says that a permanent copy shall be placed in an approved location accessible by facility Personnel fire Cod officials and emergency responders we've got that covered as

in this like the second sentence it says they they have to give it to the local fire to enforcement got it okay okay number eight may have skipped too far there but that's a good one too is there anything from K main paragraph down to eight

emergency do question no no question just comment that that's a it's a good one um big one too it's pretty much saying that we need training procedures for that training yes any other comments site uh yearly site inspection

they give it to do should they provide one to the fire and codes submitted to town submitted to town yeah don't whatever the correct verbiage is in here if nobody objects um the escrow we do not discuss the need requirement for an escco did I miss that talking about peer review escrow peer review yeah okay so that would be covered under the site plan review application so the site plan review application plus this is what covers well the site plan review application gets them before the planning board through the planning board then applies these standards to the review so they would they would under article 8 they would be uh going through site plan review they would have to put up a peer review escrow and the select board could in the fee schedule make a different escrow requirement for these projects so the our existing site plan review process tells them they have to provide the escort correct okay as

long as it's there somewhere changes days it's going to happen but sometimes closings you know happen and I mean I don't want to get rid of it but it's 14 enough I think it's important just for the safety reason gotta right but 14 days is is is enough time that's my question well no I'm sorry is it it's too much time no I'm saying is it enough time for the developer to get get the stuff to the co guy it should be I think 14 days isek days is plenty they should have everything all together this is within closing it doesn't say before closing or within change of ownership so it doesn't say before change of ownership so the way I read that is I buy it from you today I've got 14 days to let yeah I agree my question was that enough time yeah I think okay uh now we're in

safety and any kind I guess George I'm kind of relying upon you I know you've done a lot of work in all the uls and and and and nfpas and all that other stuff um the only one that I think is missing is that and does NFPA is it 855 should that be included here I don't know that it matters we we we mentioned it a half dozen other times so well we do say four certified under the applic electrical building and fire for me yeah okay

yeah Side Access I've got a question actually for the safety thing so the UL 1741 um they're changing right as as the technology changes the standards are change the you know these guidelines are changing so I guess it's you know how do I say this if in a couple years a developer comes to us and says actually we're under ul1 1900 now um it's better than 1741 there's not a concern there right well usually I think what they would do is update 1741 wouldn't

um possibly but do you see how UL 1642 is for lithium 1741 is talking about inverters mhm there's like different ones for different things so you could be right I just know that there's multiple versions of or not versions pieces of 1741 so I

I'm just saying changes in general there could be changes right it is what it is right I know that this is standard language that other yeah other ordinances are listing so I think it's fine there's just a question I had that if it and I'm anticipating you will have a peer reviewer on this that can look at those issues yeah okay yeah and they could be the ones like oh no should be this you're going to need yeah okay site access I mean were there any other on the ul's no site

components the previous page oh and that has the uh copy to the so we can do I don't think we need it both places I mean I would leave it in the other SE in the previous section I feel like oh I think L is they have to give us a plan and then D in the next section is they have to do it do it you're right yep thank you so it does not repeat and that does require the submission to the town I see I see I see

it I had a question um you say 90 days what if uh which is probably you I don't know if that's enough if there's a fire on the site and they can't restart for 120 days do we have make them decommission if there's a fire yeah it says is when it ceases to operate consistently for more than 90 days so there's some reason they have to shut down and because of a fire or whatever it may be and it's going to take them more than 90 days to bring it back online or if they're I don't know if they have to 20 years from now they have to change everything out they shut it down this says Hey Day 91 start decommissioning I think it depends on your definition of operate because if you're on site and you're repairing from

a fire or you're replacing units it's not abandoned okay it's an operation I mean you're doing something the site makes you convince me and this gives the town the authority to go and invoke the bond well I think I I think there's a good reason to have it is you know they're you know so somebody does get up and walk away goes bankrupt and just leaves or whatever the town gives the town some power to do part the short time frame is the safety issues okay uh definitions so wait back to that though so what if the project there's a problem and they had to pause it or there's a hurricane some you know something happens as long if the town uh invokes the bond they'll have to get permission to go on the property oh no I mean before the the bond is invoked I mean just if there's a pause in operation of the system what I'm saying is the remedy to that happens if that they we do perceive that it's abandoned is to try

to deal with the abandonment yeah so there'll be there'll be Communications going between yeah but I think I like Mark's definition or comment which is if for some reason they're they have to shut down whatever it may be um but they're there doing fixing the problem or doing whatever they're doing then they're still operating it they they may not be generating power but they're still operating the abandonment and I like his his definition is they do nothing they just drive you know take the copper out of it drive away so I'm good with that okay okay okay okay that's that's cool I got it

that do we have a timeline in here did I miss it is that it timeline timeline for um hermit uh what am I talking about um they have X amount of months to build this thing after site plan review okay okay so we don't need to talk about any of that in here that's included in the base okay um okay so George I youve have you captured all the Y comments from everybody so the plan going forward is

we will uh George will put this make these changes um and then get it out in time for uh our next I guess we need to vote on having a meeting on Tuesday or can we just vote to continue this meeting either way because the the next meeting we we did get one of the developers not not solar or best but uh dear Creek finally has finally got everything together uh my thought on that is they missed the deadline for a January review we would review them on the 5ifth sixth whatever fth of um February so so we can

continue this can we continue it given the fact we haven't given the okay to do public this is publicly advertised no but I mean if we said no public input do we need to for tonight for all of the stuff we've worked on we've said no public input should we okay but we either way maybe just schedule a special okay so is there anything else we need to discuss this evening because I think we the other thing we need to do is vote on having a meeting on the 15th of January

6:30 p.m. right here George will make the corrections get them out on the web and we will do the next uh the next meeting where there will be my IDE is take public input um on stuff and then um I know George's you know we got an email today and George has gotten some other stuff um and George if you get as much of that to us ahead of time as possible so that we can um y you know we're not to be trying to read it and find it and all that other kind of stuff do we want to talk about the proposed Plan before the meeting next week before the selectboard meeting next week the proposed um sheet that shows

solar and battery sizes and things like that you mean the table of uses we can it's the next item on our agenda great start following the damn agenda so did you schedule the January 15th meeting or are you going to hold off doing that decision uh s let's vote to we need to vote on having a new meeting on the 15th of January I move that we have a meeting on the 15th of January 6:30 p.m. here at the fire station at which time we will continue our discussions but also take public input written or in person I'll second that moved and seconded uh any further discussion seeing none uh raise your hand if you agree and please let me know you know we need a quorum obviously if there's some reason you can't come on the 15th okay so then the last thing is

um the T the table of use which I read this as uh what they've done is uh and the attorney working with George so they they're going to change the solar energy system uses under the table of land uses um so that large scale uh solar energy projects require contract zoning uh and then also all of the battery energy systems were it's applicable so it's only sticking with battery energy is only applicable in the uh rra it's non resource protection aaer

RP Shore zoning LP Shore zoning so um that's covered and then the solar energy I like I like this because I know and the conservation commission's been working on where how do we restrict this where do we restrict it to this gives it the town the ability to say yeah we really don't want you to go on John Talbot's farm and um but we want we do want you to go on Allen's property um so it gives that control for solar which right now correct me if I'm wrong we don't have any somebody come in and say I want to put it on tet's property uh and we don't really have as long as they meet all the other standards we can't say no correct and so this gives the town the ability to uh negotiate and can still say no you know they say we're not going to give you a contract cuz that's environmentally sensitive land even though it's not RP at this point or whatever it may be so what that's doing is putting it to the

town to vote right yes so saying I don't like John so put it on his property or don't put it on his property but I do like Allan so no I'm I'm just sorry that was that wasn't good to say but um just mean like it's very subjective almost right no no

no because and that was probably throwing it off to to talk about personal properties yes it really is going to be based on the comprehensive plan it is exactly comprehensive plan talks about critical rural areas which are Fields over 50 acres I think it is and and other you know so those are all in the comprehensive plan to say where it should go and where it shouldn't go and if it's you know maybe will be impacts on neighborhoods that would say no a gorm scale project can't go here because it's there's a residential neighborhood right beside it and who's going to be doing that analysis the select board and the planning board are going to be reviewing the contract zoning okay y before before it goes to town meeting and if they need Consultants to help with the analysis they can do that okay so it's no different than best

key thing I think here is you you could have a differential you could make it bigger for solar uh you know more than one one megawatt uh that may be too small for solar I think Kristen just took that as the as kind of the threshold for yeah and then applied you know just roped in the the uh solar Farms yeah we'll be

looking at our standards though our solar ordinance yes yeah but I think that that you should consider uh putting input into that one part of this not the contract zoning as a whole but the threshold for solar Farms versus uh uh deaths because they may they may need different thresholds what do you mean you mean size yeah yeah so in our Solar ordinance we talk about square feet remember when we all discussed this and Kristen's recommending megawatts which I had recommended talking about was megawatts but in our ordinance we talk about square feet so 20,000 square feet is and I think the difference here is we're talking about limiting the scale of projects we were just talking about what level of review they have to go through on that side which is similar right it is similar is similar so I'm trying to think in my brain 20,000 Square ft is what how many acres is that's that's a half an acre that's half

an acre so you can put only have to go to site plan uh site plan review for that so you can I would say I would recommend if we're you know trying to follow what we were talking about in the ordinance that's You could argue that's a two two and a half megawatt

able to fit that in possibly so maybe I I would say may I don't know what you all think but one megawatt is very small um I'd be okay with a 2 megawatt for solar for solar solar yeah other thoughts and that would align with our ordinance if we say one megawatt right now and our ordinance is 20,000 squ ft it's a little doesn't quite Jive I guess my question would be is there in the solar ordinance we break them into three categories MH do we do that by square footage of solar sare foot remember oh yeah we talked about that I don't that's right yeah so that but that has so do we want to keep the same so large scale has a meaning in the Solar stand 20,000 square feet should above should we have oh I think we're talking about something a little bit different uh in terms of the U the solar currently it's really only what standards and process the planning board applies to the review of the project here we're talking about

saying you can't even review it if it's above one megawatt you follow me oh yeah contract zoning is controlling uh that even proposing one of these systems no I mean understand that but I guess we've got two different but it's solar is solar so we have two different different definitions for whether it be megawatts or a PRS thresholds thresholds so should we use the same definition for large scale that we use yeah actually that make it easier that would I like that idea so we could still make it we could still say large scale 20,000 ft or or have a separate number here you know 40, ,000 ft oh no I mean so do you want to make a 1 acre solar farm have to go to a contract Zone to town meeting vote no okay no that's what I'm saying 20,000 square fet is larger than a megawatt I think right is Kristen um remember when we we

had all talked about this between whether using megawatts or square feet we decided to go to a square feet but Kristen's recommending megawatt did she have a concern I think that's because this is being driven by the B by the best which doesn't have an acreage thing okay I mean I'm good I'm good either way but I guess we have when somebody's looking at our solar ordinance there's definitions for small medium and large right and so but now we're I guess what we're saying it can be large but if it's a large underneath a megawatt know a different scale for a different purpose this is just triggering town meeting vote as opposed to triggering you got to do site plan review you got to do conditional use review okay I guess I hear what you I think let me just talk through this some my so somebody wants to do green was 600

acres I don't know how many megawatts that was but it's a boatload so somebody comes in he's going to look at Large Scale somebody wants to do two megawatts they're going to say okay I got to I got to go through contract zoning if somebody's going to come in I'm just going to put in a half a megawatt I don't have to do contracts on even though it may be on 20,000 square feet and I'm okay with that I say because we just got this ordinance passed and we're talking square feet and we talk about medium scale and large scale projects in our ordinance we need to follow our ordinance because we're going to use those standards to review standards review this is again just this just says contract zoning or no or no contract Z Ian it it will get approved for for two megawatts for instance I don't know what you mean I'm

large scale those two definitions are in our ordinance that we just passed that says medium scale and large scale and they have sizes attributed to them but the question so the question is if somebody what what was this the threshold 20,000 ft for large scale M I don't remember yes surface area of 20,000 ft do we want them so do do we want every 20,000 squ foot project uh to go through contract zoning are you saying it's too small do you think it's too small 20,000 Square fet yeah okay yeah I'm okay I'm just saying I like Georgia's idea of just saying a number yeah saying get rid of medium scale and get rid of large scale and just say a number well medium scale has to be there because they need to know what you know what the requirements are for Med they're going to do a medium scale project but I thought you said CZ isn't until it doesn't well then why do we have it in here because the table

right now has that in it and so we have if somebody wants to do a medium scale underl language is new oh whoa who I see what you're saying this is existing and we're just adding in the C okay okay okay so we're just okay with as it's whether it's one megawatts too small should be 2 megawatts I I'm okay with the verbiage just what's the right yeah I see how about then with a is medium scale B is large scale and then C two two megawatts and larger or something can we do that I think this just CZ also required without a c leave it as B and then where it a CZ contract

zoning also required um so if it's under a megawatt as this is written they don't need to contracts own it correct correct and then I'm okay with that but if it's greater than one greater than or equal to I'm not sure what that is but greater than that or whatever the right number is two three so this is this is separate this is separate than this that line okay I was confused so yes and then do we want to change that to two I have no no I have no idea I don't I don't I don't personally think so but I don't so I don't I missed I wasn't here for a lot of the discussion for um solar that was before I was on the board um I in my head I can't

picture how many solar panels is 20,000 Square fet and according to the internet for a megawatt you need 3,000 to 4,000 panels and that's a lot well let's do this where um Julia yeah can we ask people from the Conservation Commission or select board to speak up if they have something that could help us here make a motion of that something do you all have something you're I mean sitting there Whispering do you have something you'd like to uh so 40,000 square feet 43,000 square feet is one acre one acre is allall field the end zone so if it gives you a visual half an acre is 20,000 ft properly the reason the square footage was utilized with the um solar ordinance was because the thought process was as technology improves you shouldn't be punish because if all of a sudden you can put a 5 megawatt project on half as much acreage because your panels are much more efficient that shouldn't be a punishment

you should have a reward for keeping it compact so that's why we went with square the the community went with square footage of panels as opposed by Mega hours understanding that it is a different approach but that was due to the desire to keep the rural nature and impact small thank you I I remember that now okay and and Michael and I lived in breathed the solar ordinance for like 12 months so and did a great job so then the question is since we've broken the cardinal rule what what should be I'll return the favor next week thank you thank you U I was going to watch on television uh text me the what should be the right number one megawatt 2 megawatt and do we want to talk square feet still yeah I mean roughly 10 acres is a megawatt just to give you a ballpark you know 5 to 10 acres as a megawatt depending on okay so I don't know what the right answer is well that's that me 10 acres is a lot

but we're talking space right like you were just saying it's not really about the size it's about the space so I would that I think generally the reason we have gone with space is also because it's more approachable for people to understand you're saying this community do you want to approve a 4.6 megawatt development no one knows what that means but if you say do you want to approve a 5 acre project which is roughly the size of five football fields people can visualize that and then get get a sense for it then I'm leaning to go back more towards the square footage was aware that our solar ornament went with square footage instead of megawatt so I'm sure it's just a I like being consistent right and like with this explanation this reminder I I would also vote with square foot and then I I mean I guess I'm well these guys are going to these guys the select board uh are the ones are going to correct me if I'm

wrong you're going to take the lead on this table or should we just finish up what we're doing uh I think it's be a collaborative process but we want to hear your feedback um you know so i' go with square foot one question is whether or not the battery energy storage system should have a threshold because right now there is none just says battery storage Energy Systems well didn't we say everything above home use or something the battery so I can't I can't I don't want to speak for the entire sare without there being a vote but my implanation was that the intent was for cont zoning to be applied once you left the residential use component and so there was a little concern about what size you need to residential maybe you want to have a discussion about residential and then like commercial so if someone wants needs four batteries because they have a garage or something but the intent was if this was a utility

scale if it was putting energy to the grid it should go through um contract stoning as opposed to self-c consumption and we have we do have a definition for tier one two and three and so is it tier under let's stick with the okay let's stick with the solar first so what's the right size size first of all I 20,000 I think we should stick with square feet what do you all think about that I think you should stick with square feet I do too yeah okay great so look so we decided to stick with it what's the right square footage that's a good question and we don't need to decide this tonight because I I only put this I'll put this out there because a we say a 20,000 square foot surface area for panels is our is our limit is our threshold for a large scale yep so we're saying half an acre just in surface area for the panels once you include buffering and space between we're we're not and all that I mean you're getting closer to an

acre if not bigger already well here's my thought is we have a definition for large scale right in solar so our recommendation to the select board would be we use that definition which is 20,000 Square ft so just go kind large scale is 20,000

Square commercial Zone yeah so so anything above a half acre has to go to a town meeting I I agree with you it's a very small project 20 it's a very small project but um you know so it doesn't I mean we can pick 40,000 I mean we just use a square footage so you know what's the way we are the way we are measuring these is different like developers coming in here and saying 20,000 sare ft to me it's means the entire project is like if we looked at that picture 20,000 ft including the rows including the fence including the Transformers that's small but it doesn't the way we're talking about is actually we're compressing everything in so really it's it's like 40,000 square feet I think like a real project size you can use a different scale for this the contract zoning threshold so maybe going back to what U Joe is saying think about in terms of Acres okay green just got hit with a proposal for a 500 acre solar

farm so maybe think about you know is two acres where where do you want to trigger a contract townwide contract zoning vote you know one acre two acres when we talk about Acres we're talking about the entire project area the entire project like the gorm project was would be easier understand well and my thought is we're not going to get there tonight or we're not going to get you know if we want it bad we may get it bad tonight so no we can pick this up again next Wednesday yeah think be thinking about the concept I like that idea and then but going to battery battery energy storage systems the way this reads it it could include uh Tesla you know a car battery operation so I guess threshold what's that I would put tier one tier two you know for however you want to say that to you sorry I also like how someone mentioned the is behind the meter or front of the meter right terminology behind the meter is you are

feeding something local I I don't think it matter a commercial I I don't if it's if it's going to be a big battery energy storage system it doesn't matter you know if it's here in the Met here you're right a behind the meter system could be big it could be a big indust we don't have any but it could be so if that's the concern then that I guess we couldn't go that route yeah I I wouldn't break size of the battery size size of the facility to be continued okay so I that's what I'd like to everybody think about is have a tier one tier two for battery battery battery energy systems and let's come up with a and your help would be appreciated on and actually can I just say one more thing about I what what brought up 20,000 sare ft in general I think if you're smooshing the panels together expanded is 40,000 right that's about an acre so so we could still kind of follow along with this if we wanted by saying an acre or if we

wanted to go even larger to two acres or something but one acre could be about the same as the large scale definition I think I think would just need to have the right come up with a good answer for next week and I'm not sure the I'm the guy that you know if you all would just come up with an idea if you want to give us input or come into the meeting whatever so having said that we got an awful lot done today thank you very much for being here on a cold night and beating through this we're going to get public comment including somebody's probably going to tell us the right sizes um where do we think we are on in terms of getting this thing done and timing I mean I can we get it done by the April

April whatever when would we need it by March it would have to be done and to the select board I think my thought would be tonight on whatever next 15th we get public input tweak that George gives us yet another version on the February whatever our meeting is on February 5th we would come to grips with u the final draft that we would submit to the select board right so we would send it to them they would act on it in one of their meetings uh we send it back to us we cannot have a a formal public hearing which would be our next step after we send it to them we cannot have a formal public hearing until I don't know 5th of March 7th 30 days before so 5th of March 7th of mar so if we can get there where we have our final draft voted on on the 5th of February I mean I kind of think we're we can do that but so we can wait and see where we we stand next week but my plan thought would be we use the 15th strictly for

for best and then on the 5th of February we do have a project which hopefully will not take us it's not a full project they're just asking for some waivers or stuff thoughts on that and I don't need a decision tonight I do need a motion we kind of we wait wait we kind of need to bring this to town meeting this year don't we yeah and that the schedule we just laid out takes it to town me so so we it's almost like we have to yes if we want if we want to do

I second that motion okay we've had a motion in a second all right if you want to leave raise your hand we're done thank you turn your mics off thank you very much thanks for coming guys