TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ May 1, 2024

I think they're all can you hear me Devon I think they're already on super thanks okay ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming to the May 1st regular meeting of the Durham planning board uh we'll start with the determination of a quorum we have five members so we have a quorum next step is the Pledge of Allegiance please

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 any amendments to the agenda um actually if we have time um I would like to talk continue our conversation about um services and scope that our third party Reviewer is taken on i g goral Palmer if

we have time not a not a pressing thing I don't know that this will take a lot of time but I will put that down there is number seven or 6B those third party now there's a rem reminder okay uh we have the amend I guess anybody have any problems with that I don't know that we have to votee to change it so it's written down there informational exchange on non-agenda items George I have nothing we're moving

I don't see any residents non-residents uh I don't see any uh continuing business none uh but quick and dirty we have to Ruby Farm View will come back at some point in time and I guess while we're on at George uh we think maybe Bowie Hill is going to come back come in with a sketch plan Bowie Hill has uh submitted a sketch plan application for phase two so for sure we will have the June meeting we'll have the bo Bowie Hill sketch plan and maybe

uh continuation of Ruby Farm excellent thank you other business planning board discussion of land use policy issues for next town meeting public com comment will not be taken um quick and dirty I think I sent out an email of what I how I'd like to see the meeting go but it I'm open to to changes but uh as we've

discussed the 7th of May the select board has called a meeting of all the committee chairs and vice chairs Juliet and I will be going to that and so what uh what I'd like to do this evening and the pack in your packet uh are the um

proposals that George put together and sent to the select Board of things that to be con to be considered I don't think any of them are are new I mean I think they're things we've talked about in the past year um and so what I'd like to do is are these things that that you think the should be taken on by different committees what the priority might and and is there anything else that you think should be uh included another uh

the seventh one or whatever it is is there something that you want to add to the list and then a prioritization and then a discussion about who does what so in the past we've done uh some stuff the Conservation Commission has done stuff they've been good partners so as we're looking at these things are there uh which ones might we ask the we can't really assign them but what we what would we ask the Conservation Commission as an example to do um back to the select board is I think they're going to and I think they are going to be more directive in nature this year rather than just wait for us to give them something in March so I think George can correct me he's had the discussion with with them and the town manager but I think their intent is after the 7th to tell the Committees based upon input from us from George I'm must I think the road commissioner fire chief Co they've all given ideas as

well I don't know if they've been involved in this process so I mentioned it a chief a discussion he said I've already I've already sent stuff so and I mentioned it to the code officer as well y so they may have uh may have Duff and then of course the select board may have their own ideas and um so last but not least as a

reminder we need to sign the made Woodland's plat before we leave folks uh and with that I think uh we can go ahead and get into a discussion uh George you want to go over your notes here uh and then we can kind of talk about what you've got just kind of your thoughts on what we're doing here tonight or what we need to do here tonight well as we've discussed in the past uh to get an amendment ready and on the ballot of or the warrant excuse me of the town meeting there has to be a process and that process basically consists of three phases the first phase after priorities are set the the goals and projects are established as we've just discussed um and the first step of that is to research the issue so for example last year with solar uh once the

you gave that direction and the Conservation Commission agreed to do it I basically pulled together some research of model ordinances and uh main auton had put out a kind of a white paper on how that should be handled so I put all that research together and then gave it to um the Conservation Commission and then they processed that did their own research and came to uh their conclusion and I kind of worked with them uh peripherally just feedback back and forth I did not attend every one of their meetings as they did this process and then uh in the fall and you would do that on each of these issues with different groups being assigned responsibility for the research phase then in the all the you come the groups come back to the select board in this case uh if they continue with this process uh and present the research and any recommendations for a policy Direction and then once that is said and

that could include a set of draft amendments or it could just include a draft of bullet points of here is the policy that we recommend if they didn't feel uh in other words before you go through through the process of all the Drafting and and public participation process uh you want to make sure that the policy Pursuit is supported by the elected officials because they are the ones that have the authority to put it onto the town meeting uh warrant so then

that so that takes place typically over the summer uh starting now until the end of summer in labor day and then you should begin there to have a public participation process that would go from Labor Day through the holid before just before the holidays uh you know probably uh mid December is the

latest that you can schedule anything uh and so you try to get your public participation process which could be public forums could be a survey online survey uh could be Outreach focus groups could be any number of how you want to pursue public participation to get public input on here's what's being considered here's what would be proposed at a town meeting gauge public support or opposition to this proposal proposed initiative on these different topics and then starting January 1st the select board basically has to finalize what is going to be the the town meeting warrant which includes the budget uh and then you have to go through a legal process to do a a formal public hearing posted with uh with legal ads to have it comply with the state legal requirements and I mentioned the select board establishing what's going to be on the town uh meeting warrant and part of the difficulty of the town meeting

process in addition to only being once a year so you get to do most towns are doing ordinance work all year round and they have town councils that have the authority to amend ordinances or adopt new ordinances here you get one annual shot at it uh which is partly why why Durham has been behind so much is because if you only do it once a year and then the other limiting factor is then you've got 40 budget issues and

typically you can only get half a dozen or less land use policy issues discussed and decided at a town meeting so those are built-in limitations to this system of town meeting form of government it's what you've got and it's what we've got to work with so again just to sum up there's a process that we have to go through uh the great thing is we're way ahead of the curve where where the town was when I first started five years ago in terms of we're having this discussion right now just after the town meeting as opposed to in the fall when we're they're trying to figure out what we're going to put on the the town meeting warrant and folks are like sort of interruped but they're like yeah you know this is like being consistent right year after year now like yeah so that's good only thing I would add to what George says is command Juliet put a lot of time and effort into the solar stuff with the she did helped with their

research and yeah and gave them a lot of good information so now in terms of the what I put together as a starting point for the discussion for both you as well as the select board is these are all as John mentioned pretty much carryovers from prior policy discussions and things that were tabled like cell towers uh held off in order to de deal with uh higher priorities the solar in here and the uh refinement of the resource protection boundary are kind of extensions of those earlier discussions U and then there is one new one in this and that is the Agriculture and that has come from two places number one it's come from the comprehensive plan uh which the comprehensive plan set policy recommendations for Agriculture and Forestry as required by state law are under the comprehensive planning laws you have to address those natural resource-based in Industries in your community and so we included a series of

recommendations for and also we can recall that from that comprehensive Plan update agriculture was like the highest public positive support of all of the issues that were put before the people in the process of the comprehensive Plan update and so it's supported publicly obviously comprehensive plan has recommendations for it and uh right after that and ever since that uh pretty much that I've been communicating to the agricultural interests in the community one of which was on the comprehensive plan committee that really for this to go forward there really needs to be some kind of an advocacy group within the community the comprehensive plan itself recommend or references and recommends an agricultural commission which could just be a citizen Advisory Group or it could be a formal group which seems to be the direction that it's going uh a group met last week with the uh select board on that topic of forming an

agricultural commission they're kind of calling it a working group because they're not really sure what form they wanted to take I guess there were only like four in the whole state of agricultural commissions and Main Farmland trust is uh trying to get

groups and communities to do that and it would really be the parallel of what's been going on for decades which is the conservation commissions who have really focused on environmental and open space issues uh there's been very little organized advocacy for agricultural issues and so that group uh will uh they

met with the select board the select board is is supportive of it but they want to really uh clarify what this group is going to be and what they're what they want to make sure that this group whatever form form it takes uh is on sync with the other groups the boards and commissions in terms of understanding how the system works how the process works that I've described as opposed to coming in saying oh just make all these changes and you do it so uh that that is new that's an

added uh process to what we've already been working with okay any questions and they presented the select board their Charter and SB is going to review it and and I guess give them more feedback as and the agricultural folks will be at the May 7th meeting so um I've got a question on

the a um is this a group that if they are formed you would somewhat supports like kind of how you're you know you visit with the kcom a little bit you know like just to get them up to speed and like well that's I've already done that actually I've met with them on a few occasions um incl including their initial they wanted to hear from me about what the comprehensive plan is and what it recommends um and I talked to them about this process of how you could pursue it but one of the the important factors in that whole part of this is the fact that the main Farmland trust has offered to provide support services through their staff uh and that's a critical factor in all of these is that you know I'm still part-time my hours have been expanded but we've seen kind of an uptick in planning board development applications that I'm the person that has to do all that uh so um I think we can I can work

on all of these initiatives with limited capacity some more than others like if the planning board takes on a couple of these uh I would probably be more engaged with that than with say the and then after that the priority would probably be the Conservation Commission in terms of solar as well as the uh refinement of the resource Protection District boundary um and then but we pretty much I would look for and I'm sure Jerry uh would look for the main Farmland trust to work with them as a

primary uh support and then from time to time I would you know if they had questions for me about you know what interpretation of the current ordinances I can certainly be engaged with them and would be engaged with them on a limit basis but would not be able to do the heavy lifting for them as I do for you folks um I have a a comment I don't it's regarding the I think that's great regarding um formation of an ad Group whatever it's going to look like um I wonder and this is just a thought the solar and storage pieces I think that

the a group um is going to have once they're up and running it's going to have really good input for the solar so the solar piece is for um sighting of you know where do we want solar where do we not want solar and I think the a is a big piece of that um so I just wonder just a thought is if we should push the solar update to next year like we already have the solar ordinance in place right let's get the ad group together maybe that can be one of their charges this year is to kind of like figure you know they've got a lot of stuff on their plate but but you know think of solar as well and then they'll be ready you know more next year to engage with if it's the kcom or if it's us on you know so maybe a delay in that we already have the ordinance right so that's the most important piece um so there's that to think about and then also storage is similar so um it's not as big of a footprint if you're talking

just Standalone storage projects but also sighting right so I wonder if and I um I I don't know I don't know if we need to pass the ordinance if we have some people knocking on our doors already but if we want to wait on storage as well and lump that in with the EG and then just pass the ordinance at the same time so just a thought let me let me jump in on that one if I could so one of our missions tonight is uh Conservation

Commission will obviously have their own views on whether they want to go you know what they would like to Prior toies of these of any of them actually if they feel like hey that's ours and we want to move forward so one of our goals tonight is to say okay um let's prioritize it so we may just

say well we don't think the solar systems part two is a priority at this point because we want to wait and bring agricultural on board although they certainly would be open to to participating but but I get your point so that's that's part of the prioritization which is do we want to punt any of these down the road is there if we had one or two things what George and I had discussion today but it's probably good a time as any and I think he started to cover it which is depending upon who does what on these he has the capacity that we could take we be the town could take on all of them you say that one more time so George has the capacity to assist in one way or another on all of these depending upon how much assistance he gets from conservation or from us or somebody else in there um if he's got to do all the work then these are probably maxing him out and if we want to add something that

we being in the town I guess wants to add something else particularly that might be um controversial uh if it's not just something simple like the fees so we need to prioritize it and then including the stuff that you want to come up with tonight and we your recommendation could certainly be this board's recommendation going to the planning board is we'd like to we the planning board think we should wait a year and incorporate agricultural conservation come back and say hey we want to get this going now and and then that's the select board says uh drive on Conservation Commission yeah I think it would be good to talk about at the meeting next week yeah and I think I think that's we can make that part of our priority as we're talking about this and you know the psort could say I don't want to touch re what is that refinement of the RP which is not even going to touch that i'm just happen to be reading that here

uh or cell or something like that and because like I don't not sure what they're going to have but our our goal tonight is say Okay of the five plus whatever we want to add what are the priorities what do we think and then are we also comfortable with um the solar

the excuse me Conservation Commission taking on ones certain ones of these are we comfortable with what we're taking on are we comfortable with uh what's the other historical uh or are they not the right group that you know one of those is not the right group to do that does that make sense to everybody so I think maybe the next step here would be just kind of George very quick because I mean we've read the bullet just kind of the solar energy systems kind of just why that's go ahead Brian sir just jump in for you may jump away um is there anything else in the um comp plan that uh you mentioned that organizing the agricultural group was a priority is there anything else in the comp plan that we're overlooking that might okay no actually these are tabs uh

that identify for the topics in here where the where the touch points are now you have to recognize under state law you have to deal with Transportation you have to deal with that uh not education because that's handled in Maine separately but basically there's a lot of different uh topics in here yeah we the that comp plant calls for agriculture forestry committee a doesn't want to have a they want to have a separate from forestry as an example probably there were probably 150 policy recommendations in this thing and strategies you know so this is just a

you know what and that really in terms of prioritization one of the issues uh you know many I don't if you've ever heard about the like the the Conservation Commission was doing the resiliency uh but long before resiliency planning came along they had what they called Hazard mitigation planning Hazard management and really that is looking at like the FEMA and uh and looking at

earthquakes wildfires flood hurricanes all of these different natural disasters and and working with local uh Emergency Management agencies to try to uh def determine where to put the resources toward toward these different disasters which we've seen are increasing dramatically and so they have a prioritization grid that they use or Matrix it really looks at um how frequent is is it how severe is it how

many how many how much of the population is affected by it so they have like this prioritization Matrix that they look at to determine in our area you know wildfires are not what they are in Montana um in Montana hurricanes are not a problem so each of these and blizzards is another one severe cold weather uh so

we don't really have that established framework for that but I did just did a quick chat GPT AI you know what are the what are the criteria for prioritization of land use regulatory policies and they had seven uh the first one was environmental impact the second one was social Equity you know for for like location there's been this long standing issue of usually land sanitary landfills and industrial areas are located near the PO the poverty area areas because they don't have the political clout so those kind of social Equity issues don't really have that here in Southern Maine as much uh especially in a town like Durham which is pretty uniform in terms of the demographics but there's also costs and benefits so for example agricultural uh issues versus you know commercial development of properties you know the commercial development of pro properties versus the residential values adjacent to that so there are some

social e Equity issues but not in that that's not a really high Criterion uh then there's economic viability so one of and that's both both ways in terms of if you policies like solar that affects the economic viability that's something you need to consider and on the flip side if you have policies that negatively affect agriculture that's a c that's a viability issue if you want to see AG ulture continue and expand if your policies discourage it uh without good reason then that goes counter to your your goal uh land suitability you know in terms of locating different uses like solar or storage uh what is the suitability of the of the land either for conservation if you're going to do open space programs prioritizing we shouldn't just buy up somebody's land we should look for land that has the most resource conservation values uh and then uh Community input is obviously critical because you can put

all these policies together but if they don't have public support they're going nowhere no matter how well founded it is on all those principles and then there are the legal and regulatory requirements so for example that idea of doing a solar mitigation fee for preserving agricultural lands has to work within the limitations of the main law what you can do and then finally uh the long-term plan goals which is the comprehensive plan so whatever you're going to do in terms of prioritization should line up with the comprehensive plan by main law and so those are just some of that's one framework for having this discussion of prioritizations and then as I say there's always the politics uh certain groups within the community may say that's not important what's really important is what I'm telling you and that was um were those ranks

somewhat by importance okay those are the top there there is kind of a sequence in that you go through the first ones which are more objective but then you get to the bottom line of the last three which are two two of the last three which is the community input you know is well reasoned as it is and supported you know rational argument support whatever it is from all those other ones bottom line is if the people won't buy it you're wasting your time and resources and then the legal parameters it'd be you know we want to do this but under main law you can MH that's helpful so I get yeah yeah I I get your um suggestion to uh promote agriculture

um but I'm also wondering if we're overlooking something that we haven't seen and might see in the future more heavy commercial development and should we be taking a harder look at our commercial land use ordinance to make sure that we have everything covered there in the event that since I've been on the board I haven't seen any major commercial development come through it's been change of use or small businesses but um I I want to make sure that just get a get a feel from the board as to whether or not we feel like that's something that isn't Overlook because that was also something that was part of the compant is to yes and and what the compr how the comprehensive plan looks at that issue is that the reality is without Public Utilities it's very difficult to get any type of major commercial or industrial so that almost is a nonstarter because uh you can't really do that so recognizing that what

the comprehensive plan recognizes is that uh Durham is probably most in terms of commercial conducive to homebased businesses and that type of small contractors those sorts of things and so the comprehensive plan talks about and the adoption of the updated condition use review which now this new wood wood

processing has to have a fire water uh water source for fire protection meeting NFPA 1142 so uh it's really more what are the types of commercial and Industrial that you're likely to have given what's out there and it's markets too um and then so that there are recommendations in there and it also recognizes another reason for pursuing agriculture is a comprehensive plan recognizes that one of the major commercial uses that Durham currently has and is likely to have is agricultural so right ranova down on uh royalsborough Road and that kind of uh more commercial agriculture Greenhouse type crop production and processing uh you could get some of that I guess there's a really big one up in Madison uh Madison main that does tomatoes and there's distribute them everywhere so and you know they got maybe 30 40 employees working in how you know triple what they've got down here so that is a form of commercial uh so those are just

some responses of what's in the current comprehensive plan and how it looks at it but is it fair is jumping on Brian's jumping on uh fair to say that if and I don't know what it would be uh because we know we're not next to the interstat we're not likely to get big warehouses I but if there was a big industry that wanted to come in here whatever it may be or maybe that's the wrong term but a big Warehouse a big whatever one to come in um is the conditional use sufficient to

evaluate that the condition as it exists today is that because I mean we don't have a commercial zoning where we would have a whole bunch of lighting standards and you know a whole bunch of stuff and is that something I think what I'm hearing you say George is we probably that's not a danger right now that's not a we're not at risk of a big uh I would I would use the term uh development pressure so battery storage systems given the governor's you know mandates on that topic uh solar given the proliferation uh not so much cell towers as it was 40 years ago uh when I worked on it for Falmouth uh I mean cell towers are just popping up everywhere and every town was in the spinning wheels trying to get a response like we're currently doing with solar all across Maine cell towers back then and I mean some of the impacts of those things if you think about the TU on the turnpike and gray uh towns were really freaking out with

those things popping up everywhere not really knowing how to deal with it so development pressure is the is I think the appropriate term to use to talk is there development pressure for solar energy for major commercial for housing uh you know you think about the Brunswick Naval Air Station and I remember when I first moved down to Portland area in uh the 19 late 1970s um BW had that big announcement of

doing the ship Works down at Portland Waterfront with thousands of jobs and so I just saw housing moving because of that so if you had something like that come in like Boeing or somebody comes in to the Brunswick Naval Air Station and says we're going to build a you know something new with the Moon new moon mission we're going to have be building components of that we're going to hire 2,000 people to do it and Brunswick does a big announcement there's going to be a demand for housing and that could put some housing pressure on on Durham but barwing something like that the the comprehensive plan that the demographics for durma going in the opposite direction slower housing starts

projected I can't believe that yeah yeah that was a that was that may have been a while ago you know it's it may have changed it really hasn't changed I mean you're still less than you know down around 20 housings a year it's all Rel you know 3700 Indianapolis area when I left so yeah it's all semi- not but Durham is not Indianapolis the public water supply either we don't yeah there are things that that's a big there are things absolutely there are things that um and the current comprehensive plan has a response to that it's that addendum that says we're tracking the number of housing in uh new housing starts we're tracking the number of applications for the planning board for lots and if either the the number of building permits for homes exceeds 45 in any given year or the Lots approved that by the planning board exceeds 100 that is a trigger to have the select board consider holding a special town meeting

to consider a moratorium or Andor a uh a review of the comprehensive plan like like I was mentioning if some big housing proposal came in with 300 units of housing uh being proposed before the planning board then you could basically trigger that and have a special town meeting put a moratorium on and then uh then have a process to look at the comprehensive plan and say you know and they were offering to bring public water across from Lisbon and build a sewage treatment plan those sorts of things happen in other communities and and but their comprehensive plan has a way to deal with it

your comment about so you saying dropping the solar to to like the least thing that we want to look at just dropping it all together yeah until yep for and I and more I think about it I do know we do have storage people like knocking on our our door so I don't know about the storage piece but the solar the the solar part is to look at where we want to put solar projects so the interest well I guess the thing and I'm not sure if there's a way to separate this and I understand where you're where you're getting at is getting another group involved that has a a a steak in it right but what I like about the the floating overlay zones is there a way to separate that from solar I'm not sure what you mean so in what somewhere in here you mentioned that solar arrays or battery storage

could be part of a floating overlay Yeah so basically what that does it's like the aqua for protection is an overlay District so you've got the re the U rural residential and agricultural uh and so the aqua for prot Protection District is those areas of the town that have identified with high yield sand and gravel aquifers which make great Public Water Supplies town of gray that's what it relies on North y Yarmouth and North Yarmouth they have their own wells in those big aquifers so they're hyper sensitive to U pollution you have a gas station come in you know that's that was a big issue in the past in North Windam uh it can one gas station can wipe out an entire aquifer uh for centuries because of the transmission rates are so slow in those things and there's no way to clean them up so um that's an an example of an overlay loan zone so yes you could have a a solar farm overlay Zone to say these

are the areas where solar Farms are allowed and that's kind of what the Conservation Commission was looking at possibly doing yeah and we we T I don't know we talked him out of it but at their meetings when George and I went we kind of said we need to get something on the books for solar and because in my mind the solar I I I saw it more as a

similar to the resource protection thing which is you know Landing turtle in this area no so this is not this is good solar land and you put it there and then the rest of the Town not so much and I can't remember if it was identify the good areas deny the non- good areas or if it was how they wanted to do it but it was I was taking it as another layer similar to flood plane or or Wetlands or wherever which would be these are south facing Hills and this is where we think um solar would be good we don't want it here because of the view or whatever it may be we want to restrict it because this this is a good view area um and I

think so they they had started to go that way they've done research on it Michael friendley in particular had done a lot of research on it and I think kind of the consensus was we would hold they would hold off recommending it um for at

least a year let's get the solar ordinance on the books and then come back later and talk about the the correct lands how to how do you where to put it and then the other thing is they based on the Topson model um toson has a

fairly significant impact fee for solar uh and the tens of thousands I mean it's at least four figures Plus for you know to get a permit for solar solar farm and I'm sure it's based on square footage and a whole bunch of other Stu so we asked them and then they punted both of those to the Future and the impact fees is I don't think that's our baileywick at all that's something they have to work with the select board to say you know we want to have an impact fee for solar um so the the question and and again I think going back um they're the ones who I think are pushed would like to bring this forward they be in the Conservation Commission so we can recommend that they wait a year and talk to their their Folks at the May 7th meeting and and say you know the planning board recommends and again it's the consensus of the group that you punt this for a year um it doesn't bother me because I think we probably

need to be very Co very aware of the fact that resource protection took away uh use of properties now we're going to come in with a u um solar takeaway use of properties for solar and I'm not saying that's what we're going to do and how it end up but I think we need to be sensitive to those those issues and SO waiting a year for two reasons waiting for a year is not necessarily bad to me but I think the other piece of the pie is that whoever takes this on in solar energy systems being one they would do kind of the grunt work on it and we could as a board input by attending their meetings or whatever and they were very receptive to input last year uh and say hey we really think this should wait a year or the select board is LEL to say we don't want to take it on you know we don't want you to take it on we're directing you not to take it on I mean I I don't know that that's what they'll do but I get the impression

they're going to be more directive this year um so is that having this discussion how do we feel about uh we don't need to prioritize at this point but any thoughts or I'd like to do is go through all of them and then talk about prior and any others that we have prioritization y sorry good no I was just going to um kind of respond with one more thing so it it is um for the solar and storage it's in you know we got to figure out where we want it in town that's part of it but the other part of it is what I'm really thinking of with the a group is a lot of our town is a and um honestly solar developers

you know um they like developing on a lands um so I think having the ad group look at that and figure out you know what they want to possibly propose for like incentives and easements and restrictions and you can enter into a conservation easement um Farmers aren't

really anti-solar they are if if it's going to give them more money for a 20 year 40y year you know project and then after that everything's taken away and they can use it again for Farmland it's still great land then that's that might work for the farmer but like I feel like the ad group is the group and the consom to work that through so my my thought on waiting a year is to see maybe the ad group and the consom would be ready to go right away but I just feel like this is a lot the sighting thing is going to be a lot so that's why I was considering pushing it I'm not I do not argue that with you at all and say and again I think that would certainly be our input and we could we I'd be happy to you know justess as well as it is say hey hey look at Conservation Commission our the planning board's position is is to wait yet another year and incorporate the agriculture let let the solar piece uh

or the resource protection piece die down a little bit and then uh people will see it wasn't maybe not the most evil thing on earth and uh let's take it on in 25 I guess and then by then the agricultural folks who would have some views on that and and and so on and so forth um that was my thought there but sorry one more thing the storage piece though now that I think about it I think it might make sense to try and push that through not push it through the ordinance get the ordinance drafted similar to what we did for solar and worry about sighting it could be paired with the sighting of the solar right right like and here's another Factor on that and then Alan you can jump in um is that you know we found on the U main

custom Woodland they had to put in under the current ordinance uh 1750 gallon per minute for 2hour water supply for that use and these solar uh energy storage systems are in a whole another realm of fire hazard and water supply so it may well be that one of these couldn't even be done in durum because it could never meet NFPA 1142 for fir flow because they might might need 10,000 gallons a minute to be able to put out one of those things and a public water supply without without a public water supply so it may are that may take the pressure off that so one step the first step in in this process if it goes forward would be to look into that say can they even be done here and if they can't then you don't need to do an ordinance or or should they be done I I personally having looked at a couple and done a little bit of research I know just enough to be dangerous I'm not even sure if my thought right now if we were

to vote would be no you know is is to ban them um with not withstanding the state coming along later and requiring it but because I think it is there's a fire safety issue there's a safety issue for other things there they are at least one of them is noisier than heck they are butt ugly and um the other

piece is if they burn you are stuck with some some real bad stuff sitting on the ground so there is an environmental issue there that I'm not sure has been resolved yet I mean New York's studying it they I think they have a moratorium they have a hold on it uh some now that's John Talbot's opinion so if we want to do something with that that would be part of the discussion so the details about battery storage um would

be worked out as part of the uh the discussion over the next year right but if if you decide not to take it on what you could do is have a limited review of are they even possible if they're not even possible then you don't need to worry about a Prohibition uh and that wouldn't take a lot of research it would mean talking to some departments fire departments in towns like Rumford that have done them and what are their requirements and if if again if you can't do it without a public water supply that gives you a certain volume then we don't need to go any further with it at this point yeah so go ahead no no I I keep interrupting I know you were going to say something well one of my concern we're talking about a solar overlay and I think that would be extremely controversial I depending on what the parameters are in developing that I'm thinking of resource protection we really have the support of

State resources and that's already been developed but this is almost to me it's very subjective as what area we would identify and who are we to identify that with what parameters and I would agree with you 100% that's why right now I mean we just we just got this ordinance in place and I think we need to let it rest and I hopefully it isn't going to be one of those years where wait a minute we let it rest and we got all kinds of demand at least we have an ordinance in place versus not having one in place so so it's going to take a lot it is well and that's one reason we asked them to not do it for this year you know for 2024's meeting because you're right I mean and I came in at the very beginning of resource protection but you know those of you who are around um it got blown out of the water at town at the town meeting but a lot of that was because people didn't understand exactly education so we spent

two years that we being the primarily the Conservation Commission and others sell selling it or or explaining it maybe it's a better way to do exactly it's education education education and I think I I think there would be but again so that would we would make a recommendation here which is this is a low priority and you should consider not doing it for these re you know reasons um lower what's that lower lower low lower yeah it's it's all relative not you guys kill me with semantics but anyway it would it would not necessarily be the number one priority I guess on that one it depends on what the other ones are should we go through and just each one like you were trying to do and then like talk about priority for each one and then also maybe kind of like designate pseudo leads yeah does that that was kind of my plan I can just get sidetracked again please so are we just making an assumption that this Improvement group

is going to be formed quickly and that a year from now they're going to be ready ready to take it on like they might have their own agenda and really don't care about solar I think that's I think that's a good question at this May 7th because if you're going to say we should wait till the a committee forms I think they want to move I've not seen their Charter I've not seen their priorities and you know they're they're probably limited Manpower even with the the other guys so there there may be issues that that they you know unlimited green I'm making stuff up unlimited green houses or whatever it may be um

well they just said hey you know we're not we're not really that interested in participating the good news about the Conservation Commission I don't see a change it they'll do a lot of the leg work if they want to do this they'll do a lot of the the research and other things so um and my guess is if you punt

it till next year they don't want to play then we play without they kind we play without it does that make sense all right yeah sure well the other the other factor to consider is what is delaying it because they wanted to get rolling and they went to the select board with a proposed Charter but what is delaying it is the is the select board saying putting the brakes on to say look before we launch this we want to be clear number one that this is Under the Umbrella of the select board so just with the planning board with the Conservation Commission with the historic district commission or any other group the select board appoints these volunteer uh and they they basically can and should give direction to these groups including if an agricultural commission is formed uh if they say look we want you to look into this then they they would get that direction from the select board so it's it's a little bit different than an

independent group that can say oh no we we're just going to do our own thing if they want the support and sanction of the select board then they have to work with them okay yeah and so really talking about if so in my mind I think there Allen's comment about let it let it cook for a while and then the involving the egg Committee Member input or whatever we're really talking about not starting that if we do that the earliest we start is this time next year so there is a year to see if egg's going to get off the ground I my feeling is they are enthusiastic uh about going forward will the select board give them that that that mission or will they just say coscom you do it and if ask agriculture if they have any input in agriculture give them input if you do um or will they say yes let's let's wait and get them going and and be able to get their input and stuff so what I heard and recorded on this one of the issues is

that two concerns the planning board has is that the uh any review of solar location ation or fee structures should wait await the involvement of the Agricultural commission um that would be a potential reason for holding it off for a year second reason is the concern for whether it has a scientific SL objective basis for the solar overlays and the potential controversy that would be that's what Allen's point was so I recorded those two and we'll communicate that yeah if you want to add a third one I think it's too early to limit land use rights after resource protection well that gets back to Allen's point of the controversy yes I yes yeah but it's more just a scientific if they came in my mind if they came in with a whole bunch of scient scientific evidence that you know here is what it is I still think it's my opin my opinion is too early but again uh you really think you're limiting land use rights

though it depends on how you want to do it if you want to say you can't put solar on this these areas you then you are I mean I don't know what they're uh obviously they're going to work on it they're going to come up with the thing but if you say these areas cannot have

solar uh because of the land view or whatever it may be and I'm not saying that's what they're going to do that is concern have Prime Farmland soils was one of one of the criteria they were looking at yes so you know but again at

the select board at the end of the day Conservation Commission or historic can do their thing it's still got to come through us for a recommendation what I did like I combine half of Allen with yours to be three the first one being the um the need for involvement with an agricult the agricultural commission the second one being the concern for lack of a scientific or objective basis for where you would put them and the third being the limitation of land use rights would make it a very controversial issue if you know they may convince the the select board no that it will have no impact on it um yep I think I think your

commission is is a key component driving this if if they don't agree with that philosophy it's not going to fly right yeah you mean about limiting where right where solar exactly exactly they're they're a key component and the but but just to be kind of not Devil's Advocate but just to um this is important like you said a lower priority like I think that um we would be doing a disservice to the town if we didn't try and and push this forward at least starting next year if not this year um the sighting of it because I think as it is now um we

could see some issues also I think that there's some economic benefit that we could get out of these projects that we could you know get into the sighting piece so yeah at the end of the day when it when when you talk about land use rights it's it's up to the land owner whether he wants to continue farming or sell it or give up his Christmas tree farm or whatever it may be so and and it doesn't always have to be negative could be incentives to do it so for example let's say you did this solar overlay Zone and any anywhere else in town you got to put up a 50ft buffer on three sides of this thing because there's a neighborhood there there's a public road on the other side um and so they're looking at $100,000 in landscaping um so what you could do is if you create a solar overlay Zone where you've uh talked to the people in the zone uh mostly areas with Wide Open Fields for farming uh they use it for

hay now which doesn't generate a lot of Revenue and they could generate a lot more revenue and keep their other agricultural operations going by putting a solar farm there and you go through a public particip process it may well be that you don't require the buffering in the Solar overlay zone so it wouldn't necessarily be just we're not going to allow them here you might have preferential treatment in certain areas and that's a discussion whether it's this year or next year those are the kinds of things that that my mind I agree with that it would be the Conservation Commission if they want to take it which I think they do those are the kinds of con cons conversations they would have um and I think we stay out of the impact Fe piece of it I don't think that's our uh it'd be nice as a budget committee guy it'd be nice to think we're going to get you know $10,000 for a solar farm above and

beyond the the whatever the electrical fee is but uh I really think that's probably more of a select board I don't see that as a land use uh issue the actual impact fee yeah and just to clarify when I say economic I mean um yes the fee for the permit application or whatever that's something that's not but there there are things that we could um require like a um host Community agreement or a benefit that the developer needs to pay the town x amount per megawatt every year things like that that are typically built into the ordinance that's what I'm talking about well I that's what I'm talking about saying not doing and is part of the land use ordinance that that would be a fee outside of the land use ordinance uh we could because impact fees have their own little impact fee yeah so it's it's they're kind of different um what I'm thinking of is actually something that has a contract and it's like um it's

typically it's like a decom plan it's built into like the the requirements are built into the ordinance um but we can we don't well I think that's part of the discussion when we get into that yes into that piece of it so absolutely uh any other questions on solar energy systems number one moving on to battery battery battery energy storage system and Juliet I think hit on it um that there is a potential what's the term you use there George development pressure to uh for battery energy storage systems is this something we think is a you know is this something and the issue is developers have come and said you know we want to do this I it I command whoever works on it go to Rumford I think just put some in and gorum look at them and more importantly look at where they are you know the actual location where they they're sitting in Rumford is this something we think that we should recommend to the

select board that they be a 24 25 have the pressure um the state is going towards this um as other states are as well um I think that like we talked about there's a chance that maybe they they legally and regulatorily can't go in Durham but the only way to figure that out is for someone way to study it right that's my thought this is something we want to good but just not just but kind of like we what we did with solar last year looking at the ordinance piece the sighting I think right is we're punting that or possibly punting that but that's a whole separate well this one is more the best place for them and again we talk about this as we actually get into it is a is a Industrial Park uh but

then the other challenge they've got is they got to be close to an energy source for the storage piece so this is something we would recommend somebody looking at in the next year is that a fair statement from everybody this this year there a well yeah what I say I'm sorry starting out thank you um so just a clarification this is Standalone um did we lump we didn't lump no not part of the solar so if they wanted to add a storage same issue I think if they came in in in my mind so a battery in general yeah it's just battery storage if if I'm saying solar I you can look at whether they're associated with a solar energy site or just on the power line that's another factor to consider you've got a lot of power line in this town yep that's also also yes so also you can have you can get a big big solar project and then they connect to that versus front of the meter they're connecting to the grid the

lines so there's also they're kind of there's separate separate safety issues too so right this one in particular I think is is one that we as a town need to look at very carefully so and I think there is development pressure on this and would you all recommend that

because the kcom did such a great job with a solar um would there be any reason why I mean obviously we're going to want to be involved for sure maybe more than we were with solar but that they don't lead this as well question of broadband for them can they do can they do the solar sighting if they decide to go forward with it now if they don't then that might be another issue um they may argue for going forward with it at some level um and then also the resource protection uh reignment if that goes forward and if they have other initiatives they're working on such as pesticides or resilience plan whatever so they may not have the Broadband capacity to deal with that issue in in my thought not just because I have a obviously a stated opinion but this is something that we would the planning board would I Ian I'll just tell you my thoughts right now I guess is we would take on battery storage we would take on cell towers

and um conservation if they go forward would take on solar energy systems and refinement of of resource protection um because in my thought those are two fairly Hefty projects if they go forward this year and like and they've got resiliency um now if they want to come in and say nope we truly believe battery storage is ours and that's what we want to do uh we certainly could arm wrestle on May 7th and see who gets it or do it together yeah could be it could be a certainly I think that we were they were very receptive to our input through the process and Juliet's input and I think if it were reversed we would be interested in their uh if we were taking the lead be interested in their input and certainly none of us are shy to go to their meeting and say I'm not sure we want to do this or here's things you need to consider you know make sure you we build in the fire protection and we the other kinds of things that are out

there so um question why did they why why why did they want to lead solar and then not battery because we didn't know about battery energy storage systems until later in the process I me right but like why wouldn't if they LED solar why not lead battery like I I there's definitely more safety issues for sure but like why like what's the difference well my thought is workload okay it is if they come if they if they C because I think um yeah I hear

you on workload yeah I think workload is you know not that they're not smart enough to handle it or that they're going to go the wrong direction it is really just I just think it's a lot of a repeat of what they did already like as far as like looking through the state looking through the you know there's guidelines on storage yep and looking at already developed projects and and a lot of it has to do with um conservation um I I like the idea of maybe partnering with them they just did they honestly did a great job and they did was a lot of work and I'm thinking on the resource protection is that I would also like our board to help on that as well so you're talking about a U joint board on batteries and RP y because my my thought on RP was they've done all the the leg work I mean they're the ones who at least in my opinion compared to me they best understand this and I think just let's just kind of jump up to that

um so just for before you do what I've noted so far is I don't think we've decided Well I just wanted to put down the points that you've raised okay and you can process those and add more or take away so the first concern and issue that I heard is the is the development pressure for battery energy storage systems and there were three factors noted one was the state mandate the governor has set goals for doing these things secondly the in terms of priority or impact is the presence of these major power lines going through town which makes it Prime for it and the third is the fact that there has been at least one sighting analysisis for one of these facilities indicating there's interest in doing it and that and I raised the point which I'll continue to raise which is it may be a non non-question because if it requires a public water supply there may just be a waste of time to do it because you can't do them in town

well I think there's that and then you know there's a lot of safety is is our fire department equipped to handle a lithium battery besides just water but you know mass and training and all those other if it's not possible because you need a PO water spot you don't need to do that research and then the third factor that you brought up was the IND is this an appropriate industrial use in dur just the compatibility with the community so three three for that one too factors for the select board to consider we can have a conversation email otherwise with the conservation committee and say um which ones of these are you comfortable because I don't want to I don't we don't want to get into a you know we'll arm wrestle you for battery you know kind of deal and I don't think do either so I just think that they already did so much work with the solar and it would just we I think we can ask Jess because my feeling really is more

about workload yeah uh but George can you also add in there um that um the only way to answer those issues is to look into it so the only way to do that you don't have to add it but just you know that's what we're implying right is that someone needs to look into this to answer those issues those questions right so that that would be why I would propose to start this this year I would do an initial look is an option yeah get started on it and see what what the issues are and then as opposed to setting a goal to adopt an ordinance do a first step of just let's just review it see if it's really even an issue is part of that and then uh because even if we decide that you know and the Chief Fire Chief should be involved even if we decide that they can't pump enough water we would still have to write the ordinance I would think not necessarily cuz if it 11 it won't meet 1142 it's going to fail at the conditional use

level so we wouldn't have to do anything we would just okay and sight plan review one thing though I do have to say is I think that for um a couple things actually for Batteries they're they're now built they're like a trailer and they it's fire protection they're now built like if a fire starts it's supposed to be contained and a lot of times if there is a fire they let it burn you don't want to throw water on that so you might not we

might find that you don't even need like that large amount of water if you found that out then it goes to the issue of should we make a Prohibition on them because do you want to have that right I'm just I'm just like kind of likeing that out and then the other thing about like um um uh fitting in with the

environment um these things are small these things are like a little trailer so so so I'm just saying this they that like you can be driving down past 10 of them and not even know they're there right like so so there's ways I'm just I'm just saying this like there's ways to buffer them and so to make them fit in like especially if they're close to a power line that out there somewhere you know yeah and that's part of the that's part of the process you may not want to Pro we we may do that I would the that I've seen are yeah some of them are right there their Trail their trailer is probably as big as from the window to the wall and wide and there's like 10 of them together surrounded by a chain Ling fence and so I don't I in the industrial parks right like that's that if we had an industrial park I would be a lot less yeah anti this particular you know but again I'm just yeah so okay so moving on to

refinement of the resource Protection District boundary George give us a little bit background um okay we've had two two residents took their case to appeals board and I think W both times for different sets of information but the one that I I'll let you do it because I took yeah so just even back further uh when this was originally proposed I did the research and presented a report to the select board that uh reviewed the comprehensive plan criteria the natural resource inventories the Wetland uh rules and basically and the updated FEMA flood maps and basically put together a report that documented all of those facts uh and then put together a recommendation that the uh Town move forward with a two-step process the first step being to correct the uh resource Protection District boundary based on the fact that massive areas of flood plane map were not actually flood planes and so what I had proposed was a

two-step process first do that and once you address that issue then go on and do an analysis of where based on the comprehensive plan recommendations new resource protection should be put in uh based on beginning with habitat and go through a public participation process not just after you've done it but get input from land owners that would be affected by it to to explore with them uh some of the details of it and then uh

basically come in with a well vetted uh process so whatever the history was of the politics and how that went down uh that two-step process didn't happen and the two got squeezed together so the second part of that which is put new resource protection went forward without the level of analysis that I had recommended where you'd look at some of these like the beginning with habitat 6 Plus which had has never been done in the state of Maine and really look at you know and we've learned since then through be uh beginning with habitat program that if they had known that we were going to be using it for this purpose they would have done a customized analysis for Durham which they're actually doing now uh as a result of land owners from durman going to them and saying they're using this and they put lots of my land into resource protection based on this beginning with habitat 6 Plus and the data has been revised and they're not

even in six plus anymore but your Maps still show it so the town has to go by that because it's in the comprehensive plan so uh the good news is it's in you don't have to take it out completely you can refine it uh but now really what I

think is being considered and will be proposed is doing that second part of the process that wasn't that was bypassed now doing it to move back to what kind of like the flood plane if some of these areas when you do the analysis don't really support the beginning with habitat um designation then those should be pulled out just like the flood plan were pulled out so that would be the basic gist of this and two land owners have come in the first one was actually not related to this it was that they were in motion getting their land split and they were halfway through the process but got delayed because of a mortgage issue they had to get a release on their mortgage so they couldn't split the lot and by the time they got it released it now had resource protection on it so that was one of the appeals that was was supported on the basis of they had done everything they could to get it in uh the other one was

the uh beginning with habitat analysis and they did the analysis and determine it we did not meet the beginning with habitat 6 Plus Criterion through field analysis and it cost them $3,500 to get that analysis done and if beginning with habitat we'll do research that will on a larger scale it would be a benefit to many many land owners without having to go through that process so that's in a nutshell what that's all about and so summarizing in my mind there's there's what you just described which is fishal wildlife have said we're working on this map and they claim it'll be ready soon that's right what it's soon that's what I was going to ask um I told them we're beginning this process so they were talking like the end of April uh we've just passed that so I would expect uh any time now that we should be getting so I mean somehow we have to refine this to reduce this financial burden on the town's

people to fight it it just isn't I I know we're we're learning through this process but that just doesn't seem fair to me at all well this would be a very high for exactly that reason I think for for all so I think there's two map issues here possibilities one is the state getting off the dime and it because what I think about my Limited experience here in the great state of Maine is when are you going to publish the rules on affordable housing you know and so it was like a year so maybe these guys this fish and wildlife they may be better but you know the dead there's got to be a deadline that says we need this buy if we're going to go through this process and I'm quite truthly willing to say if we get that map in December we go ahead and do it anyway as challenging as that may be or we use that we we take the time meeting say use this map instead of and we'll fix the other one the other one is I think George I think

you references in here is right up is there is also another map out by the same folks or some department where they took and they U instead of the big broad crayon they came by kind of after we were done with our process and they said well this area is already developed and so they carve they being the state carve that area out of of the the habitat for

six I me that's a an official map that exists today so what we would try to do is is to in in my mind incorporate both maps in a change in the refinement so just a note on that this map that goes over developed areas I think it's just please correct me if I'm wrong George I think it's just a buffer around roads and other areas like it's not like someone and and like carved around things I think it's like they took lers what they did and this again I think the point is valid that this is what our comprehensive plan says go by the beginning with habitat maps and methodology their methodology can included which was never considered as part of that first process uh it should have if it had gone through a public participation process fully vetted there should have been consideration of using that to put a buffer around a development buffer around existing buildings uh and the formula that they

use was either 250 ft from a road or 250 ft from an existing building they put a development buffer around it to buffer the development from the resource protection and that was never discussed or considered well didn't as I recall the date on that didn't come out till no that data was there all along was it okay it's been refined the one I've seen ref dated like April of that year or March been that one has been refined but it was there before okay what I recall is after the land use ordinance was passed you had approached the board with adding this buffer to these properties that were affected by it and we denied it saying that the outlet was to go to the board of appeals right but that gets into this issue of how much money do they have to pay to do that and should they be required to do that yeah okay I'm just just clarifying what the process really was not that we didn't have that information no no but I can

tell you that that was not considered when the resource protection was being proposed there was never any discussion of putting in a development buffer which was in the maps of that we same Maps we were using we never considered putting a development buffer around the houses using that map now you're correct in that the there was some discussion of it and the discussion was that they all they have to do is go to the board of appeals well we Brian's the option the option of putting that development buffer was not put before a public process at the top meeting we voted not to continue on with that you know at a meeting is I recall 32 um but that's

history so what I think we need to do is we've got two sources of information that one for sure one maybe that I would I would like to see us build into the refined maps that takes the new information or existing information that wasn't considered before and says here's uh here's the we

come up with the new map uh and I don't think flood plane has changed I don't think wetlands have changed so it's really the habitat uh deal um and so the questions that's John's opinion does everybody feel like this is something that we need to do this this for this next year yes can I can I just say some things okay so I I agree 100% that this map that the beginning with habitat is working on for us is going to be super super helpful 100% um I that's that point regarding

this development buffer so this is where I think the planning board might want to participate with the consom but we I just I worry that we don't want to like do another broad brush with this development overlay that it it absolutely makes sense but that we you know we should take the time to look at this 100% And and like there's there's the uh there's another block on there um what is it unrestricted habitat or something like that undeveloped habitat blocks yeah you're going to want to like we're going to want to look at all of that and not just say let's throw that development buffer on there and call it good like I think this is going to take some research and explaining of what all of these things are yeah um and I'm sure begin with habitat can help us but I just want to frame it to not like the points that are in our uh the list right here specifically but more broad that we are going to look at those those things

or they're going to look at those things um they can and should determine the scope of it yeah it could be broader than what I've identified yeah I just um and you can you don't have to follow blindly the beginning with habitat Maps they're they're a guide so for example on that issue of development buffers you can look in the detail on aerial photographs to see you know you could have a 100 foot buffer instead of 250 ft so you is too I have a feeling not everything that's developed is included in that right now like that's good point like like I think either way we should um just not pigeon hole ourselves but I I I agree absolutely with that map hopefully we can get soon because I would like to see that well and I think it yes because I think to do the level that you're discussing about it can't necessarily happen in December and I think you know when you go before the town in next April we don't want to go

back again you say okay we got we got a 75% solution we'll see again in 26 I mean I think we'd like to if possible get it get it right yeah uh and make and I don't think it's not necessarily that mistakes were made it's the truth changes or the you know just like flood planes change and wetlands change and the state the FED feds are now looking at flood planes for the Andre Skagen so five years it may be our flood planes are bigger smaller different than they exist today but I so I guess I think that two questions is one it's in my mind it's a priority does everybody agree that this is you know a priority and then we can kind of say whether it's one or two or three or whatever and um

is this something that we would work on as the planning board um versus and not that I don't think Conservation Commission can handle it uh and this is one I think that's a lot of work for George as our GS GIS Guru and getting getting two maps potentially put on to you know the the the town's GIS system so tweaking whatever is out there so that's to me is a lot of ours Georgia well the biggest one of the biggest uh time drains on that last one was was answering these questions for individual Property Owners I probably had probably 30 40 people said well how does this affect my property well I think well I don't see that changing to be honest with you I mean I think that when we go and say okay we've modified this we've refined it they're GNA somebody's going to look at it and say why is it my property and but why I have a 100 foot buffer instead of a 250 why don't have a buffer at all why you know why is any of it still in

in habitat so I don't see the individual right part work I mean I guess I see it as almost as much work as the last one so I I'm just trying to think about your workload there a little bit right um thoughts from either end of the table there's always going to be controversy there is and exactly and so we can say well you're not on there because you're not on that map or those Maps you know they the maps didn't delete your property from it or uh oops it looks like we missed you you are on the state map and we need to we need to fix it but yes there's going to be people who I you know I'm in a flood plane why am I why wasn't I taken off kind of deal so some people might like being in it but I agree that it should be a priority y so uh I have an idea a thought um you know if the kcom wants to lead this it is absolutely resource protection consom stuff um maybe we could um have the

opportunity to review and comment um you know once the map comes out and and then and then maybe be more involved regarding the development buffers like decision like you know if if we don't want to own it more you know what I'm saying like question do we you know then again do we arm wrestle or we say you can have batteries and we'll take resource protection or uh uh trade or whatever or a joint committee you know you know six members three each two each whatever it may be I think we would be open to their participation and they would be open to our participation and at the end of the day they well be that select board makes the call and it could be the select board just says I want uh that's true I keep forgetting them yeah that they could very easily say nope that's a well they could hear these discussions of here's why we think it should be this way and they say here's why we think it should

be this way and let the select board make the call yeah I would I would hope I can't imagine this is not a priority for them the select board want somebody to take it and and uh whatever it may be so would it not be silly to not have the Conservation Commission involved in this wouldn't it well again it's not that they're not involved in it it's who takes the lead responsibility for it I see and I think all of these issues whether it's solar agriculture whether it's battery energy storage really we're talking about a Cooperative communicative process where all the groups are working together so there may be some of these May need more dual involvement than others I see but who who is primarily responsible for doing it so if you go down through the comprehensive plan recommendations what you'll see on many of these issues is they list time frame but they also list who is involved and who's responsible

for it so some of them are Conservation Commission some are planning board some are both yep yeah so my my vote is a joint for that if we have to like label who's owning it I would say I would say joint I think that there's some heavy lifting here with beginning with habitat and agencies that I think they would be great to do work with and then when it comes to other stuff we could help that's yeah I'm I if they're they're so how we divy that up I would just like to make sure it's it is done I mean I I don't see anybody here or Conservation Commission commission pushing back and saying nope we're not we're not making changes uh we're not you know we're it is what it is and well I just don't see anybody uh pushing back on and the key is quite truthfully and I'm willing to take it on George is getting the state to get the damn map done you know not not working to their timeline as nicely as possible uh so not that you can't

handle it but I mean if it if you know it's going to take a lot of time just to get them to do it I mean I know you probably have more connections than I do but I think I I think they're very interested in doing it and here's the reason why because we're the first town in the state that's actually used it and they want to make sure it works good because they want other towns to use it good but I would just say they've already missed one proposed deadline so well it's only May one but I did and I might have had the date wrong end of May yeah anyway let's so we

I think we've got you are you good on what we're thinking about there and I'll and I'll do a memo after this meeting and just kind of say here's what I heard and here's what I think you the direction you want to communicate thing I would add to Joint boards is somebody's got to be in charge you know whether it's you know where conservation says okay we've we're done let's move on and send it to planning because we're at the end of day we'll get our own input when it comes up here so and again I think they're happy to work with this but if they they really they want to fall on their sword on that one so I think think about Equity right and if we said that they took charge or took the lead on solar and kind of pushing the battery stuff to them we took lead on the resource protection are we sure that we want to push it push something else on their agenda it's too heavy well and I I may try to give Jess

Costa who's the chair a call yeah until things are presented next Tuesday some people may not be having any this dis discussion once it's presented to people people may say I want that one yeah well no that's that's exactly right they may go in so I will call Jess who the chair Jess C and say Jess here's what we're thinking so that she's not blindsided on she may just assume hey those first three are mine mine be in the Conservation Commission and it doesn't have to necessarily be this is our recommendation it could just be these are our thoughts yeah exactly and also remember we're act I'm proposing that we push the solar the sighting for not this year but if they want to but if they want to do it absolutely we asked them to push it again I don't know to Allen's point is I don't know what they're going to want to do I agree The Sting I just getting to the battery storage part oh yeah storage yeah and they can do cell

towers um so I guess we're on to page three and overhaul of the historic preservation regulations so George I George did a lot of work on this two years ago 2022 um and uh it was we originally thought maybe we'd include it in this year's town meeting that did not happen so um your thoughts on George has put out some bullets and your thoughts on uh the important the priority of and um so

on on historic commission the historic preservation commission are they interested in I would think they would be uh I mean they took all the responsibility union church and they were advocating for that the Historical Society they're interested in the issue they have different views on how it should be

was approached by the historic district commission right after the 2018 comprehensive plan was adopted and asked to help them work through the recommendations of the comprehensive plan for historic preservation and I to spent a year and a half doing research trying to learn how the system is set up and came to the conclusion that the uh historic district regulations for Durham are way outside of what the town actually has capacity for number one and number two Way Beyond what it needs in terms of the historic district regulations are really designed for a town like topsum or Kennebunkport or some place where they have these historic districts with dozens of homes uh here you've got several isolated ones and there's no real historic district um so but you have a whole administrative system set up like it is downtown Yarmouth with hundreds of homes that need to be reviewed for everything uh and so you've set up a a bu

bureaucracy to do that without committing the resources to do it right so this is a very complicated issue very very subjective um I attended one conference on it trying to get myself up to speed with it and I was the manager for Helena Montana that had uh four districts and 60 National registered properties um and a and a historic preservation officer who was a professional uh she was a lawyer too um and so that's that's what you need to do it right you need people with real good professional so you either have to hire a sort preservation professional or you have to provide a budget for consulting which this town has never done so uh So based on all of that research plus the overlap between the three agencies involved in this in Durham you got the code officer you have the historic district commission within the historic district and then you have the planning board whenever a subdivision comes in

you get into these issues and there has been confusion and conflict between these three groups since I've been here on multiple occasions and so after doing all that research working with the Conservation Commission I presented a report to them in August of uh 2022 that basically made several recommendations for streamlining and simplifying the system and presented that to them and that's where it ended so uh but those issues still remain the system is still as as um in my view uh

in UN in ill suited for the town of Durham in terms of need and capacity and should be addressed but that's a decision of the select board and the historic district commission and that's really in their bwick how they want to proceed and I would say that this is one uh for the reasons that George is list and perhaps some others this is one that quite truthfully my recommendations is we don't really take a stand on it I don't know that it is well the regulations may be may be challenging for us as a planning board but I kind of think that um the historic district and the select board kind of need to say which direction are they going to go which direction does the select board want them to to go stay the way it is change

tweak it eliminate this part of it or whatever it may be but uh I'm I'm not sure that this is one that we play in the same way we do with solar and some other stuff if that makes sense so I'm kind of recommending neutrality or no opinion or we have an established historic district mhm it's basically uh you're in it yeah uh no no actually I'm sorry it does not come up this far so the empty lot that's at the corner here on the other side of that away I don't even think it comes up that far it yeah I mean it's further it's past that all the way down to un down the hill Union Church is the is the I don't know Northern boundary of it pretty much maybe a house over there so it's really downtown Durham if you will and there's a trailer within that District yeah and then so outside of that outside of that we have individual houses yes that are yeah so you've got you've got the Bliss in um you've got

the um a couple next Sho Temple the west phma west west dur method the Union Church and red you mentioned Shiloh yeah the uh Osgood house I think it is down almost Freeport yeah uh so they like there are five nationally registered uh one of one of those is in

the historic district then you have we thought there were 10 but there's actually another five eligible for listing officially which is the trigger for the ordinance there's actually only three now the two down by the um

Windgate subdivision where the planning board required a buffer along the property line because it was it wasn't it's it's not officially historic now we've determined okay Oh you mean the one off Royal no yeah it was called The Royal wind or wind the state had advised us the historic preservation District had advised that it should be treated as historic the main Municipal Association attorney said you can't CU it's not officially it's not officially designated as eligible for listing um the historic district the historic preservation Commission in Augusta said well you should treat it that way because it could be and the lawyer said no you can't treat it that way because it could be it has to be or it isn't so uh so now there there are eight then Friends Meeting is is eligible for listing um so the three that are the three that are eligible are the one on the corner across from the Gazebo the

white and then um the house next to Union Church on the Hill that's eligible and then the Friends Meeting House is eligible so now there are officially eight five listed and three that are not and the ordinance establishes anything within 1,500 ft or quar a mile of any of those has to go through a review got it and and when do we they're eligible they can become listed at any point they can become unel at somebody has to go through the process of asking to be listed oh and that's the determination made by the and part of the problem of this whole system is that it's not really designed for regulation the national listing uh is not designed for determining whether something should be regulated or not it's to determine whether something should qualify for tax breaks or not so their whole system is based on you have to prove to us that this is eligible and most regulatory systems who use the same framework of

review view for what is historic and why is it historic and what do you do if it is historic most regulatory programs use that incentive system to do their regulation so it's just like it's a very very cumbersome difficult confusing uh set of regulatory and that's why you need really historic preservation professionals to deal with it because it is just very very difficult to do what triggers the review in 1500 ft that's what would do well that was just what was set up at the time that they adopted this they said anything within 1500 ft quar mile we don't know what the basis of that was that they permit is it a building permit that triggers a review or yeah yeah any actually yeah it's any any development permit issue by the code officer well even more than that I if I think inside inside the district is different than like Bliss in or west Methodist West the dura Methodist that are outside but

inside the district a trailer that's inside there a whatever other house that's inside there if they want to paint the door they well just this week the church down there had to go to the historic district commission to replace some windows Union Church no no the the whatever congal Church Congregational Church had to go to the historic district commission to replace some of their window even though it's not a historical building it's if it's in the district they they get uh so having said

that I I think this may be a discussion between the select board and and um his the historical district historic district commission historic district commission something that we touch can I ask a question though did the historic district commission have any comments back to you when you submitted them the your thoughts you don't want you don't necessarily want know the answer go ahead okay no no no no that's right I'd rather not get I think and then that's okay that's fine and then my last question is is the select board they're not asking for our thoughts here right like no yeah okay

now if they do it to me I mean I it really is you can give them to them though what's that I don't know what yeah I don't know what now with that just recognize you are involved because any subdivision that comes in within 1500 ft of those properties uh you've got to do a review too like you did for The Windgate subdivision and the buoy Hill subdivision which had the Parker Schoolhouse which they wanted to demolish because it was a dangerous building and that got all messed up with this system so you do have a you do have a stake in this process but yes I think letting those two and I'm not saying it's it's going to be a fight or bring your popcorn but I think it's they'll have a discussion oh I'm bringing it they I'll bring you some too thank you I do love course um anyway before I say anything else stupid let's move on to so I think we're just no position on that one George at this point defer to

performance standards um we punted that once or twice because the what's the term development pressure doesn't seem great on it but we have no no standards in the ordinance for cell towers or communication there may be something in 10 years that's laser beams or something now just be aware however there are some factors that should be considered in this and the main one is this is a federal issue and under the FCC

regulations which are binding on all local municipalities if someone files a permit for a new cell tower and you do not follow the procedure that they have outlined that is required then basically they get their Tower with no permit by the town and that includes a Time clock for receit of applications

processing of applications and decision making and if you don't meet any of those they can then go to court and get their permit without any review by the town so it's a it's something that is important for the town to be aware of that uh there are pretty strict requirements for how Town regulate towns regulate these typ Towers when we reviewed the one that's yes but I don't know you didn't follow you didn't know about those because there's nothing in the ordinance about it I think we just followed you just followed the conditional use and you may have been fine but if you had tried to affect the tower and you had not followed those guidelines you might have not been able to do it legally so why do you think the feds can overwrite what our ordin okay so it goes back to that time period I was talking about in the 19 80s when cell phones were really exploding across the country and what was happening is because these towers

are are so big and impactful on views especially you know think about uh somebody has just built their now $700,000 home in Durham and a cell tower comes in right beside you and your real or perceived property value plummets because this 260 foot Tower with flashing lights and fences and uh there were actually complaints in Falmouth uh and they had had Towers there for decades the television radio industry for Portland was developed back in the 50s 40s and 50s so they had Towers up there now they were throwing all these cell phones onto them so structural issues were concerned but also people were complaining their garage doors were opening and closing by themselves because of the signals that were coming from them so those are all some of the issues that came about and what was happening is you know there was a push to make cell phone technology available to the whole country because the whole world was

going that way and so the FCC was finding that local zoning boards were turning them down right and left because of these impacts and so they adopted these rules that trumped the local regulations to say you have to you and one of the primary ones was that you cannot have a regulation that has the effect of of uh prohibiting self service

so the burden is on the town to show that you can put a burden on a on a provider to show that they need the service in other words they have coverage models that analysis that they do and so they have to Dem you can require them to demonstrate that they are gaps in their coverage that cannot be met by another provider that's what you get into all of this and it's hyper technology um and so that's that's all involved in that but right now you've got nothing on your books other than conditional use in this one the development pressure is pretty minimal because I think there's pretty decent coverage in Durham now and what they seem to want to do is if a new cell company comes along they just go to these other companies and say I'm going to pay you money let me hang my my yeah go okay thank you man so this doesn't have I don't as George said a lot of development pressure so do we want to take it on and then I guess George the

question would be if we do we there are things we could require that I I don't know if it's buffering Landscaping whatever it may be you can't really buffer a 200 foot tall but what you can do is you can do a visual impact analysis and that can say uh it can be no higher than this because of the visual impacts but you have to have an ordinance that establishes what the rules so those we could those are the kinds of things we would have in the ordinance and the other big thing is like with solar decommissioning if the technology goes Obsolete and everything's now satellite you got all these towers sitting around your town rotting yeah I'm curious about what our other one says on decom the one that we did long time ago I don't think it does were you not here I was but I don't think I don't think that we anything about decommissioning it right you probably didn't no I don't think we did and they probably didn't bring it

George's office that uh is gonna so I guess the question is do and this would be something I that I would recommend we do but is there do we need to do any is this something we want to do uh this year is it is it is it lower priority than some of the others yeah that' be my my thought yeah um was interesting to me was you said the federal rules and guidelines about what you have to do in time frames and I just my thought process just went to the solar stuff where the state's mandating right maybe we'll get there yeah the fed's going to say hey all of a sudden you need to they could you know yeah so I just want to I would not bet against it um so uh um do we want to do

it and just make it a low priority I mean that may be one of two things we do or at this point maybe the only one we do unless we've got some other stuff because going on to the next one agricultural regulations I that one I think that's in somebody else's ball I mean to me that's the agricultural committee and the select board have to say we want to establish you and you

know we we read your list of things you want to include and we okay with it or deleted add to it at this stage I'm not sure what part we would we would play as a planning board I mean I think they have to establish themselves first let me just bring up something that I heard from the agricultural group that I met with and there's high level of frustration with the way that the planning board has spun its wheels on those issues so you've had multiple applications from uh the current agricultural interests who have had to come before the planning board and it seemed to them that the planning board was struggling trying to figure out what the ordinance how it dealt with things like agrotourism and other agricultural issues that your ordinances just didn't even provide you with clear guidance on how you should look at it so and that led to lengthy lengthy delays and uh confusion on that was their that was

their input and their perception and that was their perception because I only remember one coming in and you know involved other things there was there were there was more than just that but regardless y um you know they're the ones who if they want to take it on I would assume they would want to U here's our recommendations for um what the article should look like and but it does affect you in both directions because right now uh anything outside of the very limited definition has to come to you uh and I'm yeah I mean I the question whether it still has to down the road or Y you know I mean I would suggest that Sawmills would like to be exempt from uh you know art purview or a whole bunch of other things and so but I think my guess my point is I don't think there's anything for us to really look at you know they need to come up with with their proposed article yeah and certainly if they need input from you or

any of us uh I think we would be there to help them but I think there's got to be some and from the planning board's perspective you have a stake in this too because as you've pointed out I think you're alluding to John is that some of what they want to do pushes the bubble of what is agricultural uh so events and those sorts of things and concerts multiple you know sales stores and multiple yeah buildings and I'm not saying they're bad and so I think the planning board has a legitimate role but I mean I think they need to get going y before so this is something there before the in my mind there before the select board with their Charter the they need to say these are the things we want to work on um you know and I don't know what that is if they come about and say we just want to take the the planning board completely out of this you know which I don't think they would do that but if you get my point at what

point in time do they need a conditional use approval right one of their one of their the three things that they're pursuing and looking at is to have by right for a lot of stuff a related stuff a related stuff so is it a definition change that we're looking at okay yep and I think then you get into the whole what is eg related are events in in the barn EG related M musical or or whatever and I'm not picking on anybody out there because we've approved those things as a good idea butal use but I think you know what is again and there would be a process like everything else we've discussed where you would look at that and you would say they're proposing this wide a definition of agric agrotourism and then with public input planning board input it gets shrunk down to this size so they're going to start out with this this scope and through the process it could end up bigger than what they're proposing more likely it would be

refined down is this common in the state Agri tourism is big yeah no I mean for it to be exempt from regulations in the town like well just this the environmental things you know basically doing agriculture compared to doing development is a whole different ball oh I know like farming absolutely are EXA lands and and lots of stuff yeah no no I knew that I meant I'm sorry like um like another rep whatever Renova thank you another one of those well that would be part of the process that would be part of the process looking at other ordinances how it is it handled Y and I think I'm I'm fine with them as you said putting something together this is what we'd like to do they certainly I would hope I would hope that we you we would be involved so that it doesn't come in with by right you know and I'm just pulling stuff out by right uh we can have a campground you know we can have because Agri tourism we can by right we can have

a barn where we do plays by right we can have whatever it may be and I'm I'm not saying you know we did approve the one that's been in my lifetime here um but by right bothers me you know there's you have to in my mind there has to be some limitations on that but again the select board is going to say we love Agriculture and and we're happy with by right you know we hold a public hearing and I'll get to say my peace but I guess can the comprehensive plan recommendations lean in that direction by right last bullet point um Durham's current agricultural Provisions are outdated yes what does that mean well for example agrotourism nationally has gone on for couple of decades or more and the Durham ordinance still defines agriculture as being raising livestock stock and planting crops uh nationally the industry is much more diverse okay so the definitions are definitions yeah and regulations that follow and we can

dig into this deeper but y take the Agra off and put just tourism we would if there somebody wanted to do the campground as an example we made them go through the conditional use process it wasn't a byright to have a campground and again there's been like this evolution of this use so it started out with a farm just inviting people to come and experience farming and they have their their uh Barn they put in uh you know an apartment and so you can come and stay for a week almost like a bed and breakfast it doesn't really change the use of the farm and so they're starting to do that then they do the uh the corn maze uh and those sorts of things which are pretty clearly related to agriculture but then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more diverse to try to raise revenues to keep the agriculture going like you've been over to pin land lately uh it's like amazing what they're doing there it is

uh in a positive way but at the same time that's a big thing well I think there's there's all kinds of things that need to be considered if you're going to have shows in you're in a neighborhood what time are you going to end yeah yeah you know those are things well I right I can end whatever now expanding from corn mazes to concerts you know and fairs you

know large and where do you draw the line of what is sorry but like when we go back to Agriculture and the reason why those are exempt from wetlands and other things is because of they're growing crops y that feed all of us right this is these companies are making money off of corn mazes or parties whatever it is right like it's not you know like it's it's a business right it's like the campground like good example there it's horm but the argument is those businesses support the agricultural operation that can cannot make it without those businesses businesses supporting them because of the trying to compete with Midwestern no offens uh Western and and Guatemalan agricultural operations and I get all that but that doesn't that doesn't say blank check you know steel mills are trying to compete to the Chinese but there's no blank it's up to theun that's probably a bad comparison but I think

it's up to the community to determine what you how you want to approach it at the end of the day it goes before the community yep and and also one more thing about that to is is yes if it's helping a farm an active Farm or is it a person that just bought an Old Farm isn't farming at all yeah and is on Farmland right like that's a bit that's not farming that's right right that's where you get into the definition and that's why zoning has these complicated definitions because agriculture to some one person is not agriculture to another person yeah and that's where the the legal parameters of zoning hit well I think we have lots of opportunity as they're developing these to sit in on their meetings and give you know express our concern about uh by right you don't

there should you have the right to have a concert that goes to midnight or a party or throw a wedding that ends at 2 in the morning or just get a conditional use for that part of it yeah well yeah I'm not saying you can't have some kind of little venue there but um those are

my concerns so hopefully approach this from a Cooperative communicative I mean absolutely absolutely but I mean just a broad I'm interested to hear more about oh this has been a good but I'm just voicing my thoughts about by right is a pretty open-ended statement so that's agriculture I don't think we have a dog in that fight at this point uh which is not to say that we won't very soon and then are there before we get into codification are there any other um LAN

use things I mean the things that I was thinking about today are the state has mandatory rules on um manufactured housing so I compare the new legislation to what we've got we're not totally in compliance we have you know the biggest thing from the state which we already do is they you have the right to put a manufactured housing manufactur is both mobile and modular um

you have the right to put it on a lot anywhere that you can put a single Fe yeah so if it's a two acre lot they can put a a manufactured house on the two acre lot I think the biggest thing I saw was the state says you can't limit it to greater than 14 feet width our ordinance says it has to be at least four so as a I guess my point is on this and tining homes is there anything that that if something came into the code guy in the next year because we are going to do codification and codification should point out this is where you're different from the state law and we would you know work on that as part of a mass thing but I don't is there something out there that the state's requiring the way they did housing that were it becomes a major issue for us I mean the biggest thing the the other issue is mobile home parks because you don't meet the state requirements for mobile home parks right now and so there is a move underway

beyond the IND individual sighting to make uh Municipal regulations more conducive to mobile home parks because of the housing crisis um and so that is something that currently your ordinances do not meet state law are they thinking that's a year out two years it's hard to say could be be precipitous or it could just be not especially where they've now said you got to allow because one of the main reasons they did mobile home parks in the first place was to limit them from Individual lots and they had a big again 30 years ago that was a cycle uh but there's a new push for it because of the housing crisis so and I and I guess what I'd like to see is what is the state going to require you don't know that's just did it's sort of like affordable housing yeah we jump the gun because we thought well the what you can do right now and should do right now is bring your ordinance into compliance with current

state law which you're not which is what the codification is that's part of it yeah yeah no I don't disagree with you but I if somebody came in with a what I'm trying to get to is the developer pressure y um is there does the codes

guy do we have enough guidance to say okay um he's going to follow the state law yeah he is and so is there enough guidance there to say I following the state law and the the things that are not covered by state law and our ordinance is he got enough to here's where going to get thick if someone were to come in and propose a mobile home park in Durham it's going to have to come to you yes I better say you're going to be in the same box that he's in to say you have to get a legal opinion from the town attorney do we follow this ordinance which says you have to have one acre for each of these mobile homes or do you follow the state law which says you could only have 4,000 square feet for this mobile home and he's going to say you got to follow the state law well I think we just would and is but the question I've got is there enough Guidance with the state law that we could make a a decision on mobile home

parts yeah but it would be very confusing because you're gonna you're GNA try to put in some of your stuff that the state doesn't cover and well the question then is that and I'm sorry I brought it up but is there that something we should be working on this year is that a higher priority than cell towers no I say we go through the codification see what comes out of that and then I would agree with you because on both on all three fronts uh tiny homes where they're required uh cuz the state law says you can use them as accessory dwelling units and our ordinance says no uh he will follow the state uh then uh individual sighting would not complete compliance and then mobile home parks what was the second thing uh individual sighting so John pointed out that the state says you can't require them yeah and manufactured which would be mon so my feeling is that we don't do that one yeah until because

no doing it in 25 have the state come out somewh at 25 plus the codification May fix it codification may very you should if they don't change the law yeah I did have one other thought U roads so we had talked about working on roads for a couple years now and now that the um portable housing thing has gone through driveways and such I don't know if this is something we want to George said you would bring it up actually George predicted that really yep yeah this afternoon uh he's he's uh or maybe I

didn't I told but anyway well the question is do we want to get into that's obviously a complicated question it got blown out of the water my first synopsis quick quick synopsis okay so most towns have regulations for what they call Private ways what you have for Backlot multiple lot Backlot access is very confusing um and it it splits the

responsibility for reviewing approving those between the code officer the road commissioner and the planning board uh and the planning board is confused is why are we approving this without a subdivision approval it's got five Lots it's got a road didn't we take that didn't that particular thing didn't we say that's the road commissioner well yes that's where it is now yeah but but planning board is not in but it's confusion because it does come to you for the maintenance agreement so it's not all in the road Commissioners baileywick it's it's this confusion of who does what and the Cod officer and the road commissioner always coming to me and saying what are we supposed to be doing here so I have to say it again and again and again because it's so convoluted the other issue is that the current subdivision Road standards are still tied to the growth policy that was repealed a couple of years ago so your

road standards call for a public Road Road standard or private road standard well there are no public roads Allis there are no public roads period being approved by the planning Bo they're all private and so your private road standards and your public road standards don't match what your policy is uh and

those Provisions are somewhat outdated a little bit uh because most Road classifications are based on the use not whether it's it's going to be accepted or not accepted so collector roads usually are bigger wider some developments you don't get them much around here because you don't get into big enough developments but if you get into a 100 lot subdivision you're not going to want all 20 foot wide roads in

a subdivision uh you're going to want the the feeders to be bigger to go and get more and more traffic so we had proposed an overhaul but it just got got all bogged down and well it went to the town and got blown out the water well never got that far I think a lot of it has to do my first tom meeting yeah you're correct that would did but so go ahead J I think a lot of it has to do with like engineering like it's I don't know what would it take to have someone help us with that so I already drafted something and what it was was to do look just change add the classifications that most ordinances have again I'm not an engineer but I've worked with Engineers on subdivisions for 40 years so I know what the issues are uh and then have a private waste process standard where the planning board does review this development but it looks at the road and making sure the engineering is done it's properly

reviewed drainage storm water all of those same requirements that you do in a normal subdivision but you don't get into the environmental review use and all of the stuff relating to the Lots it's just the road and then you have a set standards and a set process that gets treated just like the road and the subdivision but you just focus on the road that's that's what most towns do when they call them private ways and if you go beyond the three lots in a fiveyear period then you go through the full subdivision review process so and I'd also like us to take a look at um the 300 linear feet requirement so that if you have a house up front you want to build a house in the back do you really need 300 linear feed for that property you make it somebody and he wants it up front in the lot so anyway we can discuss those is this something we want to and you need a five acre back lot and do all of the back lots have to be five

acres I've just had that discussion with the code officer you could interpret the ordinance both ways and then also add in there like the affordable housing thing right so we've got now a lot where you can have multiple houses what is that driveway or access going to look like right we can certainly yeah have that discussion so is that that's a that is a complex yeah uh maybe we don't need to talk about it this year but it is something we keep pushing like we keep talking and puted it down there I don't see codification helping that it might it might give some guidance well we might be able to say what's a good good good example for Rose I guess yeah the lawyers for them could be saying the same things I've been saying um so I guess and another issue that came up on the uh Granite Hill Farm Road

okay so I mean you drive up there you just about need a four-wheel drive vehicle and the planning board struggled with should we be approving this subdivision up here or should we be requiring the developer to fix the road to it so that's another big issue you got you've got some of those roads like Cushing and granite Hill Farm Road where where it don't come close to meeting a town standard and and is really not good for Access but how do you deal with that as a planning board that's another issue required Road improvements to get to the site can you or can't you do that well yeah let me so do we punt on cell towers

one more time and take on roads uh at least a discussion even if we don't you know start the discussion on it um and have some public input on it as we're developing it it is it seemed to be a couple of years ago a very touchy subject um to the point where it get lost as I as did they both lost resource protection so or do we wait for qualification to identify that okay so that could be could be two years but I'm okay with that that's that question is out there but what what is our timeline granted there was a request for quote for clarification correct it's out it's all for RFP right now so the next topic is digital cific was there any other ordinance changes we want to wanted to make I think the road one is a good one and I think codification is going to put a lot on our plate once that's done that will be we will get real busy I mean just taking the the commas and apostrophes and fixing that I mean we

still have to have all the public hearing and everybody's going to why is you know what on page 78 you know the third paragraph why did you put a com anyway uh so that will be and there'll be other things that will need to be fixed so yeah yeah I don't do we want do we want to take on roads at least get it started so our plan right now is to

joint do the RP right possibly possibly depending on other people joint do the battery and that's it right well I mean our plan it depends on if conservation RP RP resource protection Y and Battery to oh or it's being oh yeah yeah

yeah right if they can lead it and then we'll yeah well it is diff I don't know I maybe a joint on well what do you think John I will well my wisdom um I guess I'd like to talk to Conant Jess con Costa head of the meeting say you know here's our thought and if they say hey look it we we punted for one year on the land issue we really wanted to take that on we need to get to it and do it this year that's a major effort on their part um I don't have any problems actually with us taking on resource protection with their input um if that helps lighten their load a little bit um to do sighting is that what you're saying like no resource I'm on resource yeah no but you said to lighten their load so that they can do the sighting yeah so they would do one they would do uh solar energy systems you know part two maybe battery battery is something I think we we could do but you know they have done a lot of work on it would we

want to take on refinement of resource protection and uh there's something I'm missing here and cell towers I they're not trying to undo decisions we've already made I'm perfectly fine with punting cell towers one more time um and just take whatever we get you know through codification so thoughts I mean I I don't know where they are they' be in the Conservation Commission I do know they sort of reluctantly agree to to not take it on this year take what on the sighting the sighting piece of it I I think I think I think and Michael friendly and they put a lot of work and thought into it they would have liked to have done it yes it's all part of that and and they may want to Jess if you're listening uh they may want to uh not not punt it they may want to run the ball man I just wonder if we could have a conversation and just see like just what makes sense right we want to do it but we don't like we don't want to

rush it it's a big thing and I would like to have that outside of this this you know and maybe it is just a we get Jess on the phone or something and I can ask her you know whatever it may I don't know how to do a tele telec conference but just ask them what their thoughts are y so that again if nothing else they're not blindsided yeah they're not going into this meeting thinking that we're going to do the first three will we be in kcom why don't we can we meet with them ahead of the meeting next week I don't know what they're you and I with anybody's welcome but see if we can ask Jess in the morning if they have time yeah just when's the regular meeting 6:30 oh before the select board yeah I think we ought to have the call ahead of that so they they've had an opportunity to say planning board wants to wants us to not do this what do you think uh kind of deal yeah but we could I'm available

all the anytime so we could have a meeting you know here there everywhere um and just say guys here's what we're thinking about what do you want to do mhm and um does that make sense and George you wouldn't necessarily have to be there we would just say you know we don't want you to be blindsided this is kind of what we're thinking and the discussion we would have so they would be prepared to say no listen we really want to do yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah it would be good to and vice versa find out what they're thinking yeah yeah so let me talk let me see if I can get a hold of Jess tomorrow uh and see if I can get her to give me a shout and um see how you available any any time

kind of deal yeah whenever you guys are available do anybody else want to be there is that something we carry the message be careful because if you have more than two you're two public meeting so therefore we don't yep nope can't make it y okay Julia and I will Julie and I will

have that conversation or what if you and juliia so but we do want to do battery because of the the development pressure we do want to work through the resource protection piece uh we're going to be neutral on over the historic preservation and then s cell towers um we want to go ahead and try and take it on if we're going to wait on roads do we want to go ahead and be done with cell towers at this point or do we want to I don't see that as being extremely controversial you know we can always defer to well the federal government told us we have to um it would be along the lines of what you did with solar part one yeah I mean regardless we'll probably take on battery jointly or not and also RP jointly or not that's a lot right there just those two things yep and then seller the cell I don't see is particularly uh difficult I mean we would just pull out a good cell tower ordinance from your days in fouth or

whoever else has done a good one and changed the names to protect the innocent so but I'm perfectly fine with we just tell the select look at this is not a real high priority we'd really like to use our resources on batteries and refinement of resource protection um and then like I said I think agriculture they the balls in their Court to yeah and it's also how many warrant articles can you put on on these issues it's not just what can you handle that's that's the other piece how much can you handle at a town meeting although this town my three whole town meeting experiences this one went pretty quickly I mean Budget and um the two you

know solar and what was the other one we did housing you know that didn't seem to overwhelm anybody we're out of there in three and a half hours um but but if you add agricultural you got we hey we want to add a new new committee and we want to they have regulations that they want to do that that sort of and then historic I'm not considering so you could potentially have even if you don't do Sol you get one two three four uh not doing cell towers and not doing solar energy systems and one of two of those could be very controversial so all of these are supposed to be ready for town meeting they're not just supposed to be started and well they don't have to be I mean yeah the question is what are you going to focus on getting ready for town meeting yeah that I that's a good point is what is there something uh like solar energy systems where we start but we take more time to get there well the other the other

factors from my perspective and my position are we got the codification I'm the manager of that whole project okay and we haven't discussed that but what we're in visioning is that would not be a committee process because it's really this consultant doing an analysis of the ordinances and then we'll bring that back then you start with whatever you're going to do with it with committees uh so that'll be a big responsibility for me uh because I'll be working with them and the code officer and other staff to point out things in the ordinance to them to give them understanding of what we have now so that they can do their analysis uh and then also we're launching that that uh Community facilities planning process visioning process for this area with these facilities someday you're going to launch there someday you're going to launch that one yeah not pick it's scheduled to go on the scheduled for the

select board on May 21st so I can give you a deadline on that good I'm not picking on you um so anyway what I'm saying is there's other stuff going on too plus if we have development applications we got at least it looks to me like we have at least two that we're going to work on over the summer finish up y Ruby Lane and then uh potentially start ill Bo Hill and then whatever else comes in yeah so I guess I probably have

confused it so our perspective is so Conservation Commission we'd like you to consider not doing part two this year take on battery storage systems I don't know if they do you think they need us really on that one or they just kind of your input like you know the input we gave them last like yeah I would say similar to solar but maybe a little bit more earlier on for all of us not just me right regarding safety and and reviewing what they found you know right yeah I'm I'm you want to take they being in you want solar you want conservation you want to take the lead on that refinement how do we want to do that would is that something we want to take on and I'm I'm I think that should be a joint I really do I think but then somebody's got to be respon I'm always who's in charge is my thing is that going to be us who takes the lead yeah who takes the lead thank you okay so is that us is that solar where we just have joint meetings

every other month or once a month where or we we sit down and discuss it and say this is what we want to have in there who's talking to they're talking is the Conservation Commission talking with beginning with habitat about this not you know of just you okay yeah so they're not involved yet really so us okay yep um so do we want to ask them to take the lead and and they would include us yes you know kind of thing and they I

I don't often worry about hurting people's feelings but they have done a lot of work on that one it also depends on your conversation with Jess right it does depends on what my conversation with Jess I think she's seen this because all the committee chairs so she knows these are out there so I will try to contact her tomorrow historic not doing anything on cell tower what do you think push just not do anything is that a consensus on cell tower ler priority as a lower priority depending on what else comes out okay you know if they're going to do all the they're going to do the first three that's true that only leaves us uh so to get might as well I think as you said let's just get it done and and and have it on the books agriculture you know would OverWatch or help them out as needed and the only say on C ification George just keep us posted is your what you do well on you know the first thing in the in the

meeting okay is that the consensus or am I just listening to myself talking I think everybody agrees with me or uh I don't think we should keep kicking roads down there you'd like to do so so so I don't have I kind of think as soon as I say that it'll be easy I mean I really do think it's a matter of getting some say sell sell you talking s roads oh roads I'm sorry I was going to say roads easy wait a minute no part of the difficulty with roads is a couple of things that got hung up on was the policy of whether you were going to require those private roads to be gravel or paved that was very controversial and that torpedoed partly the other issue is that the ordinance and state law on roads is very complicated and very confusing how do you define a road and so part of the cific process will look at that because that was for an Tor Gro who's a lawyer dealing with these issues that was like one of her things we got

to fix this we can't have this definition of Street this definition of Road you know the state law on roads is we tweaked private road I I'm okay with Tak and and maybe it's so that's one reason for waiting on it to get get the codification input of the lawyers maybe we started and um just do some research without having a must be done by you know January you know if if we feel like you could go forward with just the general framework and say you know when all those complaints and concerns come up about definition of Roads you could say the codification process is going to take care of that so at the end of the codification process are they just going to say this is messed up you need to fix it or are they going to say this is how you fix it they're going to do both I think it's more the first though don't you it is but they're going to get for Stuff they're going to say look this is what other towns are doing they're going

to give you they're going to give you examples narrow narrow it down so you don't have to invent the wheel yeah but it's not going to be RP yeah and they can't make those policy decisions for you whether you're going to require those private roads to be paved or not that's a policy decision only the town can make I think there's still a lot of work on a lot of things yeah after codifications done absolutely no I expect a lot to come out of that and it's going to drive the the next time we have this conversation yeah what do we what do we prioritize they're going to have a list of things that we need to deal with and we're probably a year out from having first cut codification because what I heard that guy say was two more likely two plus three years to have the final product and when we meet with the Consultants we'll find out you get a better much better deal understanding what what what is going to

be involved in timelines so we roads we would push until uh we get some more feedback I'm I'm asking I yes yeah I would but again you're going to be presenting the what your thoughts are on the issue to the select board and they may say no go with the roads right well so they that begs so we want to say roads is that's a good roads is something no I roads isn't in here no it's not so would we want to add say we have considered we are also considering roads you know which is a broad bus with like us to take that on or not bring it up at all you brought it up I know I know I brought it up Among Us thinking I think that's what I'm asking well I want you to talk about it but like it's not in this we don't need to add it no you're so don't want to right like we need to think about the things that give us problems all the time that we want to fix right cell towers is not a thing this roads thing you know we had folks

in the in the audience that were developers and affect right it is you're right you're right well you got a lot of discussion that between Calvin and Allan that they disagree on things I'm I'm okay with taking it on and maybe we don't and I'm just thinking you know maybe we get something really put together and we don't take it all to the I mean I'm almost thinking we should take it all but maybe we instead of spending time on cellular we spend time on roads but maybe we don't get there by April next year you know but we've at least identified the problems we have ideas to fix if there's something where Calvin and you know the planner the road commissioner and the Cod guy say you got we need guidance on this this one thing or two things or 10 things we we can fix that it could be you defer the whole issue of those private roads to the to the code officer and and Road commissioner but give them clear

guidance for how to do I think that's what I'm saying is is but clear guidance is probably something in an ordinance right that's right yeah so it may not be that we talk about I mean I'd like to see this 300 foot thing go away so because rather than come in and drive a a circle to get you 300 feet but that may be something we don't do but but there are things that they need guidance on just clean up the administrative parts of it yeah and say okay what do you all have problems with you three the planner as well and let's fix those with a like we did with the who approves private roads we fixed a very small piece of the issue Y and we and we and we just tell that we're we're going to study and figure out which of the administrative kinds of things do we need to clarify in the ordinance and then we get into you know private roads and the width of roads and some of that other stuff keep the standards the same

just clean up the administration yes so are we okay with I'll George n put something together and um use that as and just say we don't want to do so I don't think the selectboard is going to say damn it do cell towers well one issue is roads come before you all the time compared to cell towers but do we want to keep that as a lower priority or are we okay with that we can if they say no to Rose and I don't know what they're going to say I mean roads is probably something they could care less about cell towers that sure they care about roads I'm sure they care about cell towers too but not as much okay I'm just going to Def so you want to add roads to the list I think so George I think you know the way we discussed at least for discussion and if they say nope we want you to completely rewrite them forget everything else we'll do that and but recommend recommend or if if it is going to be thing if it is going to be pursu

pursued in the short term focus on the administrative aspects well I'm not speaking They're laughing at me at the other end of the table so on TV too I mean it's so what do I think about roads I think we need them I think we should have roads because you can't get there from here you can't get there from here and some places where we have roads you can't get there from here quite truly so um so yes we'll we'll throw roads out there get some guidance from them say this is what we'd like to do and see what they I think the biggest thing with cult enforcement and and the road commissioner if you can get them both on the same page they can probably tell you exactly the conflict I'm quite sure they would if you can get them both on the same interpretation well that was probably a place to start is to get that would solve a lot of problems you get everybody in the room and say you know I don't know what it is you know what it's

the 300 foot issue the three yeah the 300 where it's yeah do you want my opinion on the 300 foot issue I think is somewhat BS depending you know well you know like I said get the two of them on the same page and limit problem so that may be all we get to is this year we just may solve some of those kinds of thingss it may not even require a change in the code it's just here's do we both all all of us agree that this is the rule so all

right George I think I think you do you need more guidance from me you want the others everybody else want to say something Juliet I don't think we're going to get to uh I'm welcome Happy to stay no that's fine next time yeah I think we should do yeah just kind of an overview of we can do the and we may need to do this again after we get guidance from the select board too you know we may want to have a separate meeting although I don't want to you guys all have lives I don't so uh I don't want to just keep having meetings for the sake of having meetings well our next meeting speaking of is June well right June I think it'll be busy we have sketch plan for Bowie and I don't I

don't know if Ruby Lane will be back with their final where they'll be at a point they got some legal issues to solve haven't they I did send it off to the r we talking Ruby or oh yeah yeah we do need an answer on and hopefully you know hopefully the guy will say I got to get this done before May 31st uh so that they're not at my retirement already asking for information can I sign off yes yeah I think so bye so yeah and vote raise your hand we have a motion in a second all those in favor of adjourning you can turn it off J people probably signed off an hour ago uh if they were even