TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ July 10, 2024

[Music] off and I say that every meeting and that was the last war to had go off in the meeting so or silence or whatever you want to do so you are live now what's up we okay um so I think we'll go ahead and begin so uh folks welcome to the July 10th regular meeting of the Durham planning board was postponed from uh last week the 3 of July because of holiday conflicts um our first effort this evening is ter determination of a quorum we have four members which gives us a quorum uh and so Mr lenoy Mr dur M Mr pitton and myself John

talet um so if you'll rise and join me in the Pledge of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for agenda I don't have any seeing none um so the accepted we don't have the June 5th meetings to accept correct correct okay we'll kick those out till the August meeting informational exchange on non-agenda items so Town officials would be oh I'm sorry I forgot to introduce uh George thear is our town planner so put a face with a name so George if you have any comments for the town officials yes I we'll start out just by clarifying that uh we have made arrangements for the minutes for these meetings to be taken uh they weren't ready for this meeting because we were still trying to work out who was going to be responsible for that but that's been ass signed so uh we should be good to go for next month and you'll get both sets of minutes for that

meeting okay uh also wanted to give you an update that last night the select board did appoint a steering committee for the community uh facilities Vision planning uh and so we'll be trying to get a initial meeting to kind of scope out the project for them uh as soon as we can get them together and get that project moving uh the re resource protection working group uh met and started initial work on that and they've scheduled a meeting the next meeting for July 31st and the select board sent out an invitation today to uh historic district commission and they're inviting the code officer myself and John talet to uh to look at the potential overhaul of the historic uh preservation regulations and they've scheduled that meeting for August 13th and then finally uh there is an main Municipal Association planning board and board of appeals Workshop they do this uh several times during the year the next one uh and I will be attending

on July 30th at the in Freeport so if any of you are interested and uh if you haven't been to the uh Workshop it's very very uh informative and helpful you get a manual for planning boards uh and Boards of appeals uh and they go over uh legislative updates any laws that have been changed uh so it's a very it's usually about two and a half three hours and they do provide dinner so if any of you would like to go let me know and I will get you registered where is that where is it located in Freeport it's uh it's at one of the hotels I I can't remember which one

ago maybe and uh it does cover a lot of good stuff and it is somewhat interactive so if you've got questions about hey can we do this why can't we do that or how would you do that they're very good so um usually like the two lawyers from MMA um I went at the end of

Co and so I didn't get a free dinner but uh it it is it is worth if you can I know it's for those of you who are not retired it's harder to break loose so July 30th you [Music] residents um those of you in the audience who have anything you would like to

non-residents anybody who's not a Duram resident who has something to wants to say something nice about me uh never happen so uh we are now on to continuing business of which we have none and the next thing is new business maintenance agreement review for a back lot access easement at 470 Auburn pel Road map 9 lot 26 and public comment will not be taken on this so please uh come up to the mic State your full name your address and uh that'll get us started all right my full name is David Robert baringer uh my Durham address is 470 Auburn pel Road although I currently reside in Portland you want that address too uh no no we're good um what we are

trying to do is um create two lots out of our one large lot and and um create one of those lots will be a back lot and so uh it will have an easement for Access uh to get to it so we've uh we're working on a road to meet Town requirements for for the road we've had it surveyed and we've developed this this maintenance agreement for the road so that that responsibility will be shared between the two owners of the two properties okay Mr thear did do you have

anything think you I can just summarize the agenda notes that I provided to the board uh as I explained that like many communities uh Durham does allow this type of uh Backlot access and uh they need to create 300 ft of Road Frontage that's what the back lot easement will do create that for the back lot uh and then they have a 50 foot right of way that can either be easement across a lot or as in this case or it can actually be a separate needed strip uh if it serves two or more uh Lots then they do have to have that maintenance agreement and that uh under the current framework which we've been trying to change uh the responsibility for approving the Backlot uh itself and the access easement is approved by the code officer and then the maintenance agreement has to be approved by the planning board which is why we're here tonight on this so the ordinance requires that the road maintenance agreement include a

statement of the ownership interests a statement that any subsequent lots that are created must be party to the agreement which obviously makes sense uh it requires an acknowledgement that the town will not be responsible for maintenance of this access and also a statement that uh the responsibilities transfer to all subsequent owners uh and the ordinance currently requires that the planning board be notified of that that almost never happens that people notify the planning board when they sell their Lots but but it would be nice but technically it is in the ordinance so they should be aware of that U requirement that all Deeds for the Lots reference the maintenance maintenance agreement and I did mention that currently the notes do not include that uh require statement of that requirement and so I've suggested that you could uh add have them add that on to the uh as a note on the plan and

then if uh there's a requirement that if the uh uh if it's an extension of existing road then they have to make an offer to all of the other private road like Pound Road has no maintenance agreement so if they were to do this off the end of Pound Road they'd have to make an offer to everyone on Pound Road to join uh they're not required to join but they have to at least make an offer and put an affidavit that they did to that effect uh the the uh both owners have to have the authority to put leans on the other one for non-payment of Maintenance costs and then finally there's a requirement that the maintenance agreement has to be recorded and that uh they can't the code officer won't issue any permits until uh that is recorded just to make sure that it gets done uh so you have in your packet the uh the draft maintenance agreement and Survey plan and it appears to meet all the requirements except for that deed

reference that I mentioned and uh on this one a simple motion to approve the maintenance agreement per your review of the documents and the provisions of section 5.23 would be adequate facts to support your decision on the application do we have any comments or excuse me questions from the

do point about the specific requirements for road maintenance agreement are as follows um number six if the private way is an extension of an existing road is that the the Town Road or no as I explain Pound Road is a private road I don't know Pound Road well goes run Rod Gun Club access okay yeah so that's a private road and whether it's a public road or a private road if you're extending off that then you well be a public wouldn't apply to a public road because the town maintains that so like Pound Road is a private road there's no Road agreement now and someone can put and someone actually did put one of these Backlot access easements onto the end of Pound Road uh and they would have to make an offer to everyone on the road to form an association to do the maintenance agreement but that that doesn't stop the applicant from doing it if they refuse to because they could just say no we're not going to do it

then you won't be able to develop your property okay so that's what that's talking about thank you and um number seven just um following that um the authority to place leans for non-payment of Maintenance costs um is that by the property owners

yes they can so what you end up with and again assume that you've got six people on on a private road like this and one of them notoriously doesn't pay their dues so this requires that there be an authority in there to place a lean on their property to make sure that the payments are made part of the maintenance agreement yep okay long as with it's within the agreement they have the authority to do that correct it has to be right okay any any other ones questions Brian good thank you Mark also up thank you that one um in that case I would accept a

sorry we often look for uh planning board members so keep that in mind next I will make a motion that we approve the maintenance agreement for back lot access easement at 470 Auburn P road map 9 lot 26 um with the condition that um

going to try to get the word verbiage right uh that there be a requirement that all Deeds reference the maintenance agreement going forward s it's been moved and second and any further discussion seeing none if you approve raise a hand passes unanimously thank you very much all right thank you and you know just make sure you follow up with the codes guy and Calvin on road structures and all that my next step is Calvin and um and our our attorney is already putting it in referencing it in the D that should be fine okay super thank you very much good luck me is the address still going to be code officer code officer okay okay number uh next thing up is a conditional use review for expansion of a home daycare at 706 hallall road map 7 lot 35 and

public comment will not be taking but if you all would join us either one or both of you I'll do it hi I'm Andrea Nash I live at 706 Hollowell Road okay and what is it you'd like to do um I H currently have a licensed home daycare for 12 children which is the maximum for a home daycare and a home business um on my property and I would like to build an addition onto my home to extend my

capacity to 20 children um that's all okay uh George we can we pull that up on the screen if there's any questions about the layout actually can't um so you have in your packets the the U uh diagrams that have been submitted did you get a printed version of that John yeah I'm good okay

um so what we'll what we do there's a couple of steps for the approval uh it's not as easy as the road maintenance agreement uh unfortunately for you um but we have to the first thing we have to do is decide what whether it is an appropriate use so approved conditional use for a 20 kid uh daycare center and

so there's a checklist that we go through uh and there's question things we have to now you've seen it you've filled out parts of it I think in your package the application y safety and all that other kind of stuff uh we'll go through that um and uh I guess the question we for the board is what we doing in the past and whether we want to continue to do that if it's necessary on this one since we've gotten a lot of public input already is do we want to have a public hearing we can't do the public hearing this evening do we want to do a public hearing uh our next meeting is the 24th uh is it do we feel it's necessary to do that or can we make a decision n or nay on conditional use and if conditional use gets approved the next step is site plan approval well one of the questions I have was one was the initial approval prior to expanding when was that approved you mean when Robert Frost approved it I he was he was the code guy

but you know correct yep so or Forest um he approved it in 2021 okay so I'm I'm questioning whether there was there any public participation at that time I think he wasn't not a requirement I don't not for a homebased business I mean normally I don't think unless we have a but is are notified of this correct yep and I think a lot of the information that has come to us is from people that are not a butas correct uh I don't know all their addresses but probably I think so yeah that would that my guess is yes that's corre so I mean my main concern is when someone comes through for conditional use it usually is the abuts that may have questions and if they haven't come forward then is there a real concern granted other people have the ability to do that if we have a public meeting so what I'm getting at is I don't necessarily feel that we need to have a public meeting okay uh Mark Brian your thoughts I

agree I agree I don't see a need for a public okay then uh we will probably not do that we have gotten uh a lot of input U from a lot of people um and so we will that all gets taken into consideration as all part of the uh the process here so with that uh let's go ahead and start with the U going through the cond conditional

through the checklist what I'm trying to say here got it very badly Mr chairman I do have updated copies in which I've uh uh made indication of the additional public input that you've done summarized pretty much most of the comments came in support of the technical capacity of the applicant so if you want to use these for your decision uh review process we I can give them to you I'll take probably be the latest it was it it's not it's hasn't been updated on the has not been on the website included the public comment that received before we posted they they're revised over the last couple of days I've gotten you've gotten in a lot of comment and I've I've just summarized what that additional comment is so those are not in the on they're not on the web right the web printed copies and I brought extras I thought people would be interested yeah I would so if the applicant could have one please thank

you thank you to make sure that um uh as you know I'm speaking speaking to the choir so there are things that the state will inspect regulate require them to do that that I'm not sure all of them are in our purview so the state will figure out whether the building is big enough for eight 12 eight additional children um as

an example uh whether their kitchen meets the requirements and so on and so forth so I kind of like to keep our comments our questions our focus on what it is that is the town's correct role and pro proving this is what I'm trying to get to here so uh let us go forth then and do well and uh so the first one conditional so there are I think eight different uh issues

that have to be considered um and then a final condition of approval so the first one is public health impact the proposed use will not create um let me one other question is we're doing this uh are we comfortable voting yay nay on them as we go through do we want to go through all of them and because as as I try to recall all the time we have to vote on all eight uh issues yay nay or do we just want to go through all of them and then come back and vote on the individual ones I I'm fine voting on as we address them okay I agree with that I think you be wait till the end you're just going to confuse things and works for me okay no comments are going to come so then public and so what we'll do is we'll go through them we'll discuss comments that have been received maybe some new ones that we have and then we'll vote on each one of these okay so so uh number one Public Health impacts the proposed use will not create

unsanitary or unhealthful conditions by reason of sui's disposal of emissions to the air or water or other aspects of its design or operation so uh Mr thear is and the applicant and uh some of the input we received there are a through D for comments

stated in their application that increase waste uh for the eight new children has been accounted for with uh the new septic system um so my understanding is you're going to you're getting designed or you've already design had designed a new septic system and you'll will have that installed when you go to uh expand if it's approved correct okay so I'll cave I'll throw that caveat out there at the beginning okay okay and that septic system is approved also by the state yes the State Health HHS DHHS dment Services y so

going forward um so I've already answered or Part B you've got a new design um and then part C the board received public comment questioning whether the well should be considered a public water supplier requiring a 400t separation between the septic system and well and uh George I when I looked at it

it's a total of 25 kids and employees and then it comes under a different rule but it doesn't necessarily say it has to be 400 feet well if the uh water system is serving according to the state law 25 or more people like the Leisure Campground for example then they do classify that as a public uh drink drinking water supply which has to meet certain testing requirements and there is a 400 foot well separation for a a system serving a public water supply so uh it might be helpful for the board to get clarification for how many uh uh total people will be using this this uh at any one time to make a determination that it will not trigger uh the public health uh water system requirements yeah that's a question comes up with a couple other cases so 20 children how many because it come up with parking and other issues how many employees just probably three or four okay would you have twin children there

all at once not always but there could be there could be okay so if if I what you just said you're maxing out at 24 right okay and that meets your state requirement for X number of adults per children correct okay so I don't think it me if if you hold to that and if you exceed that I am is it safe to say the state DHS whatever they are will they then say you now have 37 people and and do something and I know that's an exaggeration I don't think they have anything to do with the public water supply they only regulate the testing piece I already have my water tested my well water tested for DHHS annually um but it's a different set of testing for the public water supply and I think what I'm trying to say is if you hit that public water supply threshold you're going to have to look at well separation and septic system right okay Y and you have an engineer working with you on the site plan correct correct okay yep from

Acorn the board re next one is the board receive public comment on the adequacy of bathroom facilities that is also that's something that's set by DHHS correct do you there's a bathroom in the design okay and that meets the requirement for bathrooms okay is there anything else the board would like to ask about um just getting so I'm looking at the floor plan that was submitted as part of the what is is it the the existing garage so is it is the addition from the existing garage back correct okay so you

include some storage a mower a shed M mechanical room bedroom bathroom and your facility M okay which of that how much of that is daycare um all of it except for the storage and the mower shed so the daycare starts at the wall that separates the the mower you're not

licensing the mower and storage spaces correct else I I have a clarifying question regarding your number of people um so it's the daycare will be for 20 children correct um plus four employees maximum okay um and then it's attached to your home so same Water Supply Plus your family correct so then what's your total number then well my family is included in the numbers my husband is technically an employee and my children come to into my child care so it doesn't add cool

comments on number number one please and John I would uh suggest that you add a a finding e which indicates that the applicant has stated that there will be a maximum of 24 adult uh people using well okay yeah applicant is satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with the Criterion for public health impacts

that were in that we discussed plus e there will be George I'm asking no You' you've already added it it'll be added up to about it's been moved in second any further discussion seeing none uh raise your hand if you vote to approve it passes for nothing um so the track Traffic Safety impacts the proposed use will not create unsafe vehicular or pedestrian traffic conditions when added to existing and foreseeable traffic in its vicinity um you've stated there be an uptick of uh four to six vehicles that drop off pickup is that about right what are the hour what what are the hours I mean I assume they don't all show up at the same time what's a window of what's your busy window uh so I'm busiest around 8 um but I'm open at 7 and the last couple

of people drop off around 9 so I have I have three or four families dropping off around 8 and that's my busiest time okay and then at pickup time um I close at 4:30 that's the trickiest bit because the majority of people pick up right around 4:30

some proposals here why don't you talk us through them rather than have me read them about adding parking spaces widening the drive because that is that's a fairly significant concern absolutely so um this is what we're working on with the um with Acorn engineering um and a lot of it so

basically we would be adding another Lane onto our driveway so our our current driveway is basically two vehicles wide driving up to our garage and and then there's a whole area beside it um that we would add another Lane of driveway except it would be wide enough for people to pull in and park perpendicularly to the current driveway um I have already asked my parents to start doing that um so it's been two weeks of them pulling into the driveway parking perpendicularly and then they're able to back out and there's plenty of alley and like safe passage for children along the front of the vehicles to go in front of the garage but when you did say backup you're not backing onto r n correct they're backing right out into my existing driveway and then then it's actually even safer them before because they're able to pull out onto Route n right and is this extension all going to be asphalt or um I believe it's reclaim

in my plan um but that since then since the original plan was made we've hired the engineering team and so I feel like they may advise me to do something differently well because there is a slope going into the driveway and I'm just wondering about uh yeah you know

when we have these torrential rains you're going to have wash out if it isn't uh asphalt that's a good point we would love to have there's a road there's a right away that goes right by my house and they have reclaim in these last thunder showers they've had it's not holding up well yeah I'm just it's a if I was building it myself I mean we can make that a stipulation because the last thing we want that to be doing is coming out onto the state

okay um that that's something certainly your your engineer may have another idea of how to hold that together uh as well I have some reclaim that's holding up well but it doesn't get the traffic you're going to get right people aren't turning on it and all that other kind of stuff so um okay and the the reason we bring things up like we don't want things to be a problem in the future and I don't I don't think you do either I do not but if we recognize something we need to identify it and hopefully make it the best outcome that can be

alen not yet this a involves I guess traffic and and or or internal circulation for lack of a better term um so you're people going to drive in your driveway turn perpendicular and um then they're going to they're going to back out so who is there some what is your plan what is your policy about somebody uh you know making sure the kids do what you said they were going to do that people are not just backing up into into somebody what's your traffic flow I think is is yep so part of um my plan is to also add a

policy to my handbook that talks about not getting your child out of the vehicle until you see that the previous child that's been picked up is in their vehicle so this way I mean this was a policy that we kind of started during Co anyway where people weren't all like crowding to drop off at once I also would do all of my drop off and pickup outside of my home um which again started during covid times so I meet them on my front porch currently in with the addition I would meet it meet them along the side of my garage or you know down back behind my garage um and that

way way as people are seeing somebody else is being dropped off they're parked and then as soon as that person comes back to their vehicle gets their child in the car the other person can then work on getting their child out of the car so that is a policy that I've already rolled out to my families everybody hasn't had a hard time with it so far I would talk about that policy with new families as I toured them okay and so if four people pull up at once for pickup m uh and there are four cars lined up perpendicularly to your driveway yep so I'm closest to the house I get out and I go get my kid and I come back to the car then the next number car number two gets out goes gets their kid and number one's backing up or do they're getting ready to leave is that if I'm understanding that correctly okay and uh is there adult supervision out they kind of making sure that's happening you you know is who kids are

outside the door side of the house is somebody also paying attention to what the cars are doing and the kids are doing you know running through the driveway or not well this is part of the absolutely makes sense um this is part of the reason that I I do it individually so that you know I have staff taking care of the children inside so that I'm allowed to step outside with the child that's currently being picked up then the parent comes to me everybody else is staying in their vehicles we have a discussion about the child's day then that current drop off

goes back to their vehicle gets in gets their child buckled the other person is walking up to me and then that car is pulling out so I guess the people who are supervising that is me and the current child's parents okay but there is a one of your people you or one of your people are are supervising and making sure the kids are not parents don't you know start talking and the kids correct you know heading for the school playground yes U yes these are the reasons that these policies are in place for that exact type of thing um because that is a concern I have um and then

going to make sure that we're the right places to okay so then the comment I've got or is whatever is that uh uh you have an existing driveway um and so then that's you've had I assume or maybe that's the wrong thing to do but that's an existing driveway that the state of May knows is there are you widening that driveway the driveway not the parking spaces the driveway no okay I mean just parking

spaces I mean when I was looking through the ordinances I realized that there are there are like certain setbacks for parking spaces y um so again I'm deferring to my um engineering team to follow those ordinances and um you know technically my driveway as it is will be our driveway and our personal driveway and what's used for people to back out um but other than that all the parking will be what's added okay if that makes sense um and I'm digging out loud for the board um you're not changing the use do you need to go to uh MD do is my question you're not changing the use you're not changing the driveway um uh

with you know the access there um so I'm trying to decide if because a couple things came one is the width of the AIS the other is line of sight and there's a given the speed uh there um there is a minimum line of sight in both directions which uh for the site I'll just tell you now for the site plan we're going to want to see your engineer to put that on there I I think it's 300 feet but don't he he'll know better than I but here's the driveway so 300 feet that way 300 feet that way he's got to say that that is the safe a safe distance okay you know that that's that's your lineup or it could be greater uh kind of deal so is that Mak sense yep uh so that that was the other question I guess the last question I have is if you go to this new plan does it eliminate queuing on Route n 100% okay yes so your handbook I'm

just talking out loud your handbook will say don't stop on Route nine correct you know circle around somewhere till you come back and there okay so you had mentioned that you weren't based on the plan and I see it is increasing the width of the driveway

it's putting a drive right right next to the existing one right is that correct well that is that is what I did initially before I sort of Dove deeper into the land use ordinance okay um just because I sort of this was a piece of the project that I didn't realize was so technical so I I was like

this is where we're going to park so I mean now that I've I've learned and read through the ordinances realized that this image that I added to my application isn't accurate it's just showing parking area where the plan is to be and not meant to be sort of like exactly how it's going to look so your existing driveway is going to be both the entrance and exit correct with no increase in the width right

question mark or Brian you guys have anything no I would just Alan I would just say we'd wait to see the engineering plans this is this is not an engineer plan but if they're not going to expand the driving we to see what Acorn comes back with yeah and you guys should know what he's going to have to go to the m do with um and know I've forgotten the oh number of parking spaces uh we don't have uh we being and Durham does not have a standard for a daycare number of parking spaces um so question for the board is and for you all is uh in a little bit of limited

research I found that Leon has a requirement for uh one parking space for every uh employee and then um Lewiston is one for six so one parking space for every student uh Ellsworth is one space for every um employee and one for every five uh students and

you're you're just you're in my mind your garage could count so if your cars are in the garage those are and those are your employees that's those are legit parking spaces y so do we have a feel for you know a reasonable number that that we should require for a daycare well I Center my concern would be what is the maximum amount of vehicles that are going to be pulling in at the same time uh if you have 20 children

there could you have 10 cars coming in at once so one thing that I can do is make sure that people aren't all coming at once because I currently have people sending me a a message every time they're coming to pick up and every time they're coming they are coming to drop off and so at one point because there was a really busy period of time and that was when I was smaller and I was just by myself I made sure that people were letting me know so that I could say people there would be too many people here at that time so that is one option that I have for that um Mo there's not usually 20 different families I currently have seven families for my 12 kids I

actually have 15 children enrolled I guess are part-time and so you know they offset each other's days um I the maximum amount that I've had currently in my driveway at one time is four cars in addition to my staff and myself the reason I asked that is because I certainly wouldn't want to see a line of

cars on route nine trying to get in and they don't they don't have any place to go or park right it sounds like you certainly concerned about that also yes and are we going to have a dedicated enough parking spaces Mr Chairman's suggestion um she has an engineering firm uh going to be working on a design they will need to do a proposal for parking and uh although durm does not have a specific standard there are industry standards The Institute of Transportation engineers and uh I think you can look forward to Acorn engineering presenting a site plan that explains the proposed parking okay yeah I I think that's fair just understand that's a concern we have and that will be something that we're we're uh looking at in particular and you know if you if he comes up with um says I want to use you know lens which is one for six just what you know that's the justification it works in the city of Leon uh or it works in in bath or

wherever it may be or it's the standard that George mentioned so that somebody is going to say yes look it that'll work for what you're doing and if there's a there's an additional requirement that you have to impose on parents we need to build that into the site plan approval as well Mr chairman the other comment I would make would be a caution that although it's uh it's acceptable for the applicant to make verbal representations about how they might control the uh number of vehicles that are coming uh if you accept less than adequate parking on the basis of those types of management techniques uh enforcing that will be absolutely impossible so I think you should look at this application as if those controls were not in place would it still work and would it still be safe so fair point I think it's it's a it's great to try to manage it that way but the reality is uh there's no way you can enforce it so

you you should be sure that it will produce a safe result so when you're working with your engineer what's the number um I think it's fair to say that that you can you can you can limit the number of f because if traffic's backed up on nine you know that would not be good and and that would be enforceable I mean if it becomes a problem you probably have people who would help you point that out so so uh I think that's fair but come up with a good plan where you're going to park you know employees out of the way and all that other kind of stuff so that you can get people out of there and um safely yep y okay because that that is a good point because what happens is 20 years from now when you say I'm done with child care and somebody comes along we want to make sure they understand what the what the rules are if you get tired of child care yep Fair rules are okay so having done that uh are

there any other I'm just looking to see if there's anything else we need to so one of my concern on this particular one traffic sa safety impact without having a engineering plan how would we be able to approve give us a engineering plan that has safe yeah I I totally agree yeah and if they can't you know if he comes back says yeah you know I can't do that for you they I can't you know you can't take 20 new that that's we wouldn't approve site plan right that's my abolutely thought to it I do already have the proposal I just I didn't get it in time to submit it to you guys I literally just got it yesterday from them so he he does think he can do it yes okay so and we'll present it at next need put that on paper put his PE stamp on it right and off we go so I think that's the way because just because we approve the conditional use they still have to meet all the traffic the line of sight and

all those other requirements when they actually do the engineering plan okay and there is a draft condition of approval number two that specifically States the applicant shall apply for plan Board site plane review view of the detailed design of the access parking lighting and Landscaping so I think you're covered and it's okay to give the conditional use approval subject to the uh design because if the site plan review is not approved then they will not be doing any

Traffic Safety impacts uh it looks to me like we have findings Alpha through golf there I don't think we picked up any additional ones are there any other comments if not I will entertain a motion I will Moote that the applicant has satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with the Criterion for Traffic Safety impacts second moved and seconded

any additional comments seeing none please raise your hand if you agree if you approve 4 Z Public Safety impacts the proposed use will not create Public Safety problems which would be substantially different from those created by existing uses in the neighborhood require a substantially greater degree of um Municipal Services

than existing uses in the neighborhood applicant uh the planner and I think there's some from public issue uh do you have a f fence at this time I do there's a fence that goes not in the front of my property but where the kids are let loose to do whatever they're going to do in the backyard yes okay then you don't I'm assuming you just don't let them loose out front I don't let them loose now ever all right but it is now currently fenced the backyard is fenced in per DHHS perfect no more than 48 in or 48 in tall and has this gate that's separate from that's correct we have a definition for let Lo yeah it's called a finding by

dhss I used to build nursing homes and and so what I learned was that when you're 80 they treat you like you're five yeah it's the same it's exactly the same requirements um so okay so that covers the fence issue um the fire chief I uh did some emailing with him today or texting whichever he's going to look at uh D when you come in for your U site review to make sure that he can you know do the safe thing with his equipment okay he unfort tells me that he's no longer allowed to just drive through the front door and get to the back so he'll figure out if he can get to the back of your building or not okay uh the State Fire Marshall's office is also involved the State Fire he's your final approver but we want to make sure that Durham fire department can get there yes and get the kids out and do that other stuff are there any other comments on any find questions I'm sorry on number three Public Safety

your fence is it can okay yeah it should it should something like that is that if anybody once something like this is documented people can review that document and then hopefully would satisfy their questions okay any of the other or all five comments any

additional John I would suggest adding F which would be that the applicant stated that the backyard is fenced in okay we had that in another U category but it' be good to put that here where that came up okay else seeing none do I have a motion I will move that the applicant has satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with the Criterion for Public Safety impacts second second we have a motion a second any other comments and that your motion includes F since we've written it in there we'll we'll include it it'll be on the findings George I kind of looking at you so y okay uh any further comments seeing none please raise a hand to approve for Z we're moving on

to number four environmental impacts the proposed use will not result in sedimentation erosion or have an in adverse effect on water supplies and there's four findings in there um three from the applicant and then um the uh required setbacks in the resource Protection District I don't think that's a problem yeah just to clarify there is no setback from the edge of the resource Protection District there's a brook just to the north off their property and the buffer for that Brook which is dire Brook extends onto their property but there is no setback uh under Durham's regulations or state code from uh to you have to be a certain distance from the edge of the resource Protection District which I think was the focus of the comment okay so that does not apply is like correct the gist of that one okay any other

lists rra as his own does it need to be amended to say that there's an RP Zone on the be helpful and they can do that in the site plan application as well okay RP is a resource protection excuse me resource protection which shouldn't preclude you I don't think it'll preclude you from doing anything it doesn't overlap your building extension or anything okay it just satisfies all of the check the boxes on application

somebody down the road says you didn't consider RP it's it's in there that in fact we did so mentioned it earlier whether it's going to be addressed somewhere else talk about environmental impact but erosion control usually we're looking at that when we're putting an addition on but in this case my concern would be the enros

well I guess I'll back up on that CU that question was answered on the driveway okay don't need any further thing to say okay um anything else to my right seeing none do I have a motion to include uh for approval for the four finding or five findings to include site plant should show RP

from the from the resource Protection District would be a finding so that would be a motion the applicant has satisfied reasonable burden of proof of compliance with Criterion for environmental impacts second it's been moved and seconded any further

hand if you approve okay we're halfway through scale and intensity of use the proposed use will be compatible with existing uses in the neighborhood with respect to physical size visual impact intensity of use and proximity to other

structures and there one so any uh any comments on any of the house you can't see it from the road it looks like a residential addition anyway correct I'm not even planning to put signage out front just so that it's even more protected from okay the community you you mentioned the fencing in there

findings questions so what do we mean by aesthetically landscaped well you know this is a good question um I added this because I had talked with George about making sure that there was um screening or you know buffering between the parking area and the road so again I'm going to defer to my engineering team to help me figure out what you know to make sure Sidelines are still there um and just make I just want it to still look like a home essentially I don't want it to look like there's a big old parking lot out front of my house

comments uh George do we need to the board receive public input arguing that the proposed daycare center is out of scale with surrounding Residential Properties should we put an ie in there that we find that it is not out of scale well that will be in your motion which says that they are they have met that Criterion so I don't think you need to add a works for me less typing okay do I have a uh motion to approve or make a motion that the applicant is satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with the Criterion for whoops yeah Public Health impacts it should be if if you're reading from the printed version that was corrected

and intensity of use yeah the original packet okay sorry was incorrect I will reneg that motion and I'll make a new motion I make a motion that the applicant has satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with Criterion for scale and intensity of use and a second please

motion doesn't that h no because you did receive that as a fact that's a fact of the record that you did receive input but not that we agreed with it do we that's right you don't need to agree with it it's just a fact that was presented during the during the process the way get cuz that myot the answer George Gate my question was similar the applicant is satisfied a reasonable burden of proof of compliance with the Criterion for scale intensitive use which is we disagree with that we can put in a statement if you so one of the things that concerns me is and I had stated it earlier was excuse me that when a conditional use goes out

notification goes to the Butters and this was this information supplied was not from anut and we're not having a public meeting okay I so I'm questioning why it's great to have information out decision process if we're not taking

please I answered Brian unless you you want to explain it um there's a difference between a public public hearing input and written comments submitted so that uh when the notices are sent out to the abutters and when the agenda is published on the website it basically says public comment will not be taken on an item but you are encouraged to send written comments to the planning board and the abutters are not not the only people that are affected by a project like this because we've talked about traffic safety on Hollowell Road people dropping off kids at the schools so it's not only the abutters that have the opportunity to give public input it's pretty much anybody from the public now the board can weigh the input that's received differentially if a person is in a butter compared to someone who's not but at the same time I encourage the board to uh to receive and respond to all

public comments given on applications so when we start our meeting we have that statement that's saying public comment will not be taken is do we state that to at the meeting at the meeting that's what that's intend to St we basically state that so we can expedite our meetings well also just to have an efficient process recognizing that applicants are re requ ired to have a decision within a specified time frame and so this uh IT addresses both the issue of the board's efficiency as well as the legal requirements for making decisions within a timely fashion as and also finally recognizing that there are other applicants typically that are waiting to be heard and so these are all important considerations thank you but and I think this this one do you agree with that right well Alan I got to tell you you know receiving these public comment two hours before the meeting is a little bit disturbing but whatever and and the

board can delay the the process if you're if you're getting information you're you're feeling you don't have time to process it no I I don't I don't feel that at all I because I think we're very thorough in what we're our findings are and what we investigate yeah and I think we had the discussion before we started about whether do we want to do the public hearing because you know my three years give or take this is probably as much input as we received on any particular project so so for those who wrote uh comments that you don't see in here it's not necess you know not necessarily that we didn't read them I mean I read all of them I looked at the pictures the whole nine yards so they were those that that input was in fact considered good bad and otherwise and they are recognized in the document

second correct am i that's correct that's correct gby is correct okay so are there any other com we still have the opportunity for comments seeing none please raise a hand if you uh vote to approve unanimous uh we are on to number six noise and hours of operation um okay so the the proposed use will be comp compatible with existing uses in the neighborhood with respect to the generation of noise and hours of operation um you said 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. uh so there's no change I guess in that hours um you are saying that eight children will only increase small amount of noise um from where it is right

now and that's okay because the Durham C says basically it's okay because Durham school makes more noise yes can hear that so my humor aside are there any comments or additional noise and hours of operations concerns just comment I think somewhere in here I'll have to dig but you had mentioned that um you'll have um children being picked up at

I've made an exception for them to come at 445 would you be willing to change this to 4:45 instead of 4:30 you know what that child is going to a different program in the fall so I'm going to go ahead and say 4:30 is my closing time got it otherwise you that leaked out I don't want everyone thinking they can come at 4:45 a correspondence somewhere y thank you okay y I think that's a fair question and answer any other questions on noise and and uh was the other one hours of operation seeing none do I have a motion I'll move that the applicant has satisfied a reasonable burden approv of compliance with the Criterion for noise and hours of operation second please second moved and seconded any other comments seeing none uh raise your hand if you approve uh for nothing right title or

interest the applicant has sufficient right title or interest in the sight of the proposed use to be able to carry out the osed use and I believe that is you own the property correct okay is there any other questions comments or on this

particular one I would move that the applicant has satisfied a reasonable burden of compliance with a Criterion for right title or interest second move to Second and any additional comment seeing none uh raise your hand if you approve 4 Z eight financial and Technical ability the applicant has a financial and Technical ability to meet the standards of this section to comply with any conditions imposed by the planning board pursu pursuant to subsection 7.5 uh you've given us the cost of the project um you've applied for a loan uh

in grant money there's a has a question about your ability to finance and Technical ability uh and then there's a comment that the supporting the technical ability uh multiple comments multiple comments that was the reference to all the there was emails you got

that I see it it's obvious that if somethings through on this more than likely the project will fall through so I'm assuming based on what's been presented it will be successful I sure hope so could you could you just kind of where are you on the loan and other stuff so I'm working with CI which is Coastal Enterprises they um I have a business advisor through them um and I am applying for a loan product for child care through them I they plan to bring my application to their group on July 25th

um which they meet monthly um if the loan is approved at that point then I should be able to get monies in within you know one or two weeks after that um the Grant I have already finished the first um application of which is sort of my my credentials for the business the next piece of the application um I need to have like the

the Fire Marshall um permit and I need to have the conditional use permit and everything I need to have all of that so that I can submit that second piece of the application but that will um I will qualify for $30,000 from that Grant um

so everything is in the middle on a grant like that so the grant has already been closed um the application process already been closed it's already um it was open two years ago with money from the covid relief fund for daycare

infrastructure um and there were different pieces mine qualifies for expanding an existing daycare and I just need to to add spaces and provide more slots for daycare essentially um so and that Grant is distributed by CI so they're working closely with the grant distributor it sounds like that's definitely happening okay so so is it fair to say it's a bit of a catch22 in that to get your these things

approve CI and the loan you have to have conditional use approval correct okay so it's you're caught between a rock and a hard place yes um my concern with this is is re really somebody starting a big subdivision or a big whatever and running out of money you know that they don't have the the money to do that what is your intent if you don't get if none of this gets approved I'm going to shut her down okay you'll stick with eight student or whatever 12 12 correct

the loan and the um whatever the other Grant I'm not really in a rush to start I don't have you know I mean I have a wait list I have a very long wait list but I don't you know I'm doing great right now this is just sort of the next phase of my career I'm hoping to do this for a very long time and um so I'm kind

of letting the pieces fall into place as they need to um um but I'm not trying to like break ground by a certain date essentially I don't have I haven't told anybody that you'll have a spot in January when my numbers are um expanded okay that's my thought I kind agree with Alan on unlikely to move forward but other comments so TimeWise if the grant was

approved and the loan was approved when do you have a time frame of when that you may have an answer to that y I said they're meeting on the 25th right I believe in August um I will have an answer on financing questions board members is there a deadline on moving forward after we approve this yes there is a uh one year to start

three years to finish I believe is a standard okay that's under site plan review not under s to a subdivision right yeah did you understand what that meant y so that's after the site plan and you can always come back and ask again hopefully you don't have to uh other questions

motion I would move that the African has satisfied a original burden of proof of compliance the Criterion for financial and Technical ability second moved in second in uh any other comments seeing none please raise a hand to

okay so we're not quite there yet couple more things we got to do compliance with land use ordinance standards the proposed conditional use shall meet all appical criteria design or performance standards in all art articles of the land use ordinance performance standards the project conforms with the following applicable standards for specific uses and issues

public comments on the application not meeting the definition of a home based business that the 20 vehicle trips per day would be exceeded and that no more than 30% of the FL can be dedicated as non-residential use uh and I was confused on this one does that apply since we're going with the day I just clarify for the record that this is not a homebased business this is a conditional use for daycare center so the uh person who raised the question about the homebased business limitations of vehicle trips and percentage of the floor area it has no no applicability to this project okay thank you so um do we need to note that at all

um no again what you're doing is you're making a decision based on all the information that was submitted and you can come to your own conclusions okay thank you having said all of that I will entertain a conditional use meets all the app applicable criteria and design or performance articles and or all and all articles of the land use ordinance second second moved in second and any further further discussion seeing none please raise a hand if you approve 4 Z and I think this is the last one planning board approval conditions upon consideration of the criteria listening to subsection 7.4 the planning board May by majority vote attach such conditions in addition to those required by other provisions of this ordinance as it finds necessary to ensure compliance with those criteria and all other applicable requirements of this ordinance violation any those conditions shall be a violation uh of this ordinance uh there

is there are two findings one is the project to be constructed in accordance with the plans Maps diagram specification textu submissions in testimony presented by the applicant and approved by the board and the applicant shall apply for planning board site plan re view of the detailed design of the access paring parking lighting and anything else on that so um basically what that's saying is you have if this gets voted yes you have conditional use approval but you still got to meet all the site plan requirements or there are waivers you could request everybody fair with that any comments members of the board Mr thear no uh I will make a

motion to uh that to apply the following conditions of approval to the permit for conditional use uh and as they're written here on this thing one and two which I just read off do I I have a second uh all those in favor please raise a hand 4 Z okay Step One is done and so then you do have the decision as well on the next page I always forget that one yeah um okay so I will make a motion that the planning board grants conditional use of approval of the expansion of kids Next Door daycare subject to the adopted conditions of approval second uh made in second any additional

comments seeing none um please raise a hand 4 Z now you're done with step one great so on to the uh site plan do you have any questions about anything we've discussed or told you you have to do uh no just um actually so you George you

have spoken to my um engineer about what needs to be on the site plan yes so he knows all of this or is there stuff I sent them the checklists the application forms and all the information okay and I followed up with an email just trying to clarify the issue of what they should submit okay great so we'll wait for that and it has to be in two weeks before for the next meeting right yeah to which I can't remember it's first Wednesday of the month so yeah I don't know if he's ready to do that or not or if it's going to be more likely the September meeting yeah I'm not sure I don't know how it's up to you and him and being able I'd only ask that don't have step it you know make sure it's done absolutely just try to meet that you know instead of trying to meet a deadline y absolutely okay thank you very much thank you very much thank you anybody out there is going to go home happy it's it has no bearing on our

decision whatsoever at least my decision some some folks like to see happy pieces all right thank you all very much for coming thank you if you're not happy his truck is the bay there that's it you're all can go home if you want hang around we're going to talk about land use

leaving um the next the I guess George you want to just kind of quick update or maybe you've already done that on the other land use the non-battery storage land use stuff sure whatever it may I think you kind of covered that already actually in the beginning well actually we had a little bit more detail in the agenda not uh just to give you an update I can find

mine uh okay [Music] so I did kind of give in the agenda notes some of the background of how we got here and where we are uh but particularly the uh area that has not been really touched yet by any of the boards or commissions is the issue of the uh battery energy storage systems which is one of the priorities uh that was established by the select board back in U late April May June um and so I've

been doing some research and this new codification uh contract has been extremely valuable because we gained access to over 3,000 ordinances across the country that they have and they are be able we were able to do a search to identify every ordinance that they have in their system that has dealt with batter energy storage did you read all 3,000 and no but there were only 700 of those 738 to be precise I think or 48 uh but I

did notice that uh of the 21 newest uh postings in their system uh about 90% of them are moratoria and so uh just digging into it a little bit deeper and I did find this a very helpful uh summary of the issues that I put into your packet the overview of local zoning ordinances for battery energy stor systems so just like some of the research we did on solar uh Farms it just kind of gives you what the big framework for looking at and what's typically included in ordinances uh so you see uh on the the it's page uh 15 of your handout your

packet so you see that most ordinances that involve battery or address battery storage systems or energy storage systems they include definitions they include uh size tiers for C offs and typically those are dealing with what is the uh what's the connection of the battery storage system is it a home uh for their solar and possibly electric vehicle uh charging is it uh a solar farm uh where they are storing their energy before it's connected to the Grid or is it connected directly to the grid uh in the case of the new plant down in uh gorm that's five acres of the storage batteries uh they're connected to the to the grid and the purpose of that is to provide that uh system reliability efficiency and all those things that are being uh promoted by the governor of Maine uh really pushing hard for these types of facilities to be built on a fairly significant scale uh

so you typically they treat the each of those different classes differently in terms of the regulations and requirements um uh deciding where in the in the community they should be allowed typically uh you'd look for these more so in industrial areas than in rural areas but on the flip side of it where there are power lines there's going to be uh a potential desire to put them there and may be appropriately so uh when you think about the scale of a power line compared to uh a battery storage system so those are considerations to put into it property line setbacks uh fencing and screening we looked at that on our Solar Development noise and lighting uh decommissioning plans and funds see a lot of this is just the same kind of stuff as uh as solar farm and cell towers uh the site plan requirements uh many communities have their own ordinance separate we would incorporate this into the uh land use ordinance as

we did with solar uh and then other requirements um they did point out there are some unique and restrictive ordinance elements and as we indicated uh many communities are looking at moratoria because of the fire hazard concerns and just out Pro yeah or just I mean is it yeah right either moratoria or you can put in apparently an outright prohibition and we would look at that we'll discuss some of the options and just after I get done the summary so they have some discussion and takeaways and and uh the interesting thing about this is a lot of the research that's being provided uh is being provided by interests that promote this use and so they're trying to address the concerns that community are facing uh but you have to understand that's coming from the industry perspective uh so they don't necessarily look at it what's in the best interests of the community they're looking at trying to make this work for the energy

industry so I've taken kind of a grain of salt with all of the research that I've looked at understanding that that's something to consider so when you get something uh proposing that all of the safety concerns have been can be met that's typically coming from the energy industry side or government side that's trying to promote Alternative Energy so I just suggest you take a hard look at any information that you get not just to the substance but also to the source and is that Source potentially biased as you're looking at it so um with all of

that I found this very important document in my estimation which is the uh they had a series are I think five major facility fires in the state of New York and these are potentially very catastrophic situations where you're dealing with intense fire uh potential

for hazardous uh toxic fumes all of those sorts of things and extreme hazards for Public Safety uh fire Personnel that are responding to these things I have a son-in-law who's a paramedic fireman in one of the local cities and he said that they were told if there's a electric car on fire just push it into a ditch and fill the ditch with water that's uh they're just so intense the fires and if you I mean remember you couldn't put a lithium battery in your uh check baggage that sort of thing so uh there are some special considerations uh that kind of differentiate this even from solar Farms that you need to be cognizant of but at the same time there are people with a lot more qualifications than I have to speak to these safety issues and you should be uh getting input from your own uh fire chief as well uh and so with that again caveat to uh looking at this New York State inter agency fire safety

working group fire code recommendations this has just been released within the last month or so in response to the New York uh Governor's concern with the f fire hazard of these facilities and looking through these recommendations from this New York State working group which seems to be in all the country way ahead of everybody else in terms of dealing with these things both in terms of the number of facilities that have been built and the uh the intense most of the ordinances the majority of ordinances are in New York above all other states so uh so I think that's a good place to learn about these things so that uh I highlighted uh through this document what those concerns are and I'll just briefly run you down through those uh the New York State battery energy storage system safety efforts so the first recommendation they made of about a dozen I think uh was requiring industry funded independent peer reviews

for all projects and one of the difficulties I've experienced in my 40 plus years of uh of this type of work is that sometimes finding an expert that's qualified to do the peer review uh especially in a in New Market and in a very small rural market like Southern Maine compared to San Francisco or Dallas or places like that the availability of Consultants with the expertise to provide you with a peerreview that you need uh can be a challenge so it's just something to consider how many experts are there in the country on this are any of them in our region and how available are they to provide you with a peer review so they were pointing to that as being a critical need to address the safety uh of these facilities in New York the need for and they suggested that uh the communities require industry funded independent peer reviews for all projects and that's similar to our typical peer review uh system where you

want an independent peer reviewer not someone who's working for the applicant uh the second recommendation was uh explosion controls uh and New York's uh working group said that recommended that they expand the requirement for explosion controls to include best cabinets beess which is battery energy storage system cabinets in addition to Rooms areas and walk-in units additionally provide design requ requirements or language for what constitutes a passable system so it's one thing to say uh there is a uh safety explosion safety control system but what is that what does it look like and how effective is it how is it tested those sorts of questions uh the third recommendation of this um task force put together by the governor of New York is to require that qualified Personnel are available for dispatch within 15 minutes minutes and able to arrive on scene within 4 hours to provide support to

local emergency responders again where does that come from uh and how do you guarantee that it's going to be available they're saying that's critical to the safe operation of these systems on signage uh extend number four extend

safety signage requirements beyond the best unit itself to include perimeter fences or security barriers and include a m of the site best enclosures and Associated equipment uh they recommend uh directly including signage requirements uh with applicable National electrical code references for grid interactive Des operating in parallel with other power generating sources so we're dealing with very high voltage stuff so that's why they're stressing those things uh and update the fire code be under that one to require clear and

if of explosion control panels number five update the fire code to ensure that battery energy management systems uh data is monitored by a 247 staff Network Operation Center critical failure notification should be immediately communicated to the site operator owner to take corrective actions as necessary number seven remove the fire code exemption for vest projects owned and operated by Electric utilities to ensure that all projects comply with the fire code apparently there's been some problems there with their utility companies uh and then under proposed recommendations for the fire code this is the New York fire code uh emergency response plans and regular Fire Department training include a requirement for emergency response plan Erp an annual local first respond or training for every best installation almost done uh Central Station monitoring of

best facilities include a fire code requirement for monitoring of fire detection systems by a Central Station Service alarm system to ensure timely proper notification of the local fire department to the event in the event of fire alarm uh three fire stops barriers and fire brakes mandate the installation of fire stops for all vest enclosures uh penetrations to prevent the propagation of fires from One V unit through these Pathways periodic special inspections for introduce a new provision in the fire code mandating industry funded special inspections for best installations to ensure thorough safety and compliance uh five include cabinets and all fire requirements that contain to Rooms areas or Walkin units except for fire suppression requirements as they may be inappropriate for cabinets and then they go on to some additional uh recommendations in terms of investigating the files that have

happened the causes how how do you establish those caes so all of that uh leads me to the conclusion that Durham should seriously consider this at a different level than you considered solar or some of the other issues that we've addressed and uh so I had in the agenda notes uh suggested at this point rather than jumping into drafting a set of regulations like we did for Sol based on models like some of these that are being proposed uh we kind of take an initial step of saying you know does Durham have the capacity to regulate

this type of Bo do you have the system capacity administratively in terms of the planning board code enforcement do you have the capacity in terms of your public safety system fire rescue um so there are some options for how the town could proceed on this and I outline those the first would be to consider whether or not this is on page 14 of the packet and I'll close here uh to four options for response would be number one a de facto prohibition per the conditional use criteria for Public Safety public services and scale intensity use I recom getting a legal opinion either from MMA or your new attorney as to whether or not if a system or proposal similar to

uh what happened in gorm five acres of batteries uh proposed would these types of information provide an adequate legal basis for a decision to deny that type of an application or would the town have a difficult time if an energy proposal is made with lots of expert testimonies verifying how safe the facility is going to be so how much author discretionary Authority do you have under the conditional use criteria to respond to uh to an application now there may be some applications that are appropriate so for example a solar farm that has a limited battery storage capacity compared to a five acre one there may be some applications where they you could meet the conditional use criteria uh but how much Authority do you have under the conditional use criteria to deal with a major project that might be proposed uh second option would be to just say the town this is not workable for we're convinced of that

uh for whatever reasons you know rural character uh Public Safety limitations concerns for the Hazardous impacts of of the environment you could express a Prohibition of battery energy storage systems in the ordinance and again you might want to differentiate between different mods uh third option is to try to draft

regulations um if it's perceived that this could be an income generator tax generator for the community which is very limited commercial industrial base uh it would at least be worth uh considering uh this as a as an option if the safety concerns can be addressed so you could there would be basis for trying to draft regulations to address the design and fire safety issues do everything that was recommended in the New York Governor's task force um if that can work for Durham then you might want to consider drafting some regulations or if you were to move in that direction probably option number four would be advisable which would be to do a temporary moratorium to develop that research and and study so under main law you can adopt a moratorium on any any

land use uh there are state requirements for process for doing that they're typically limited to six months to do the research and it can be extended for another six months uh so that would give you like a year to try to develop u a response to this so what I've done is laid out those options and you may want to rather than drafting an ordinance and putting that out for public you may just want to put that set of options before the public and see public input on it and provide some of this information out to the bo so has gorum identified or

addressed all these safety issues uh they have no standards in their ordinance like most main communities there've been about five of these I guess one was at cousins uh Power Plant uh inside their facility one was in R two in r two in Rumford um I saw that uh in in the article uh about

the gorm facility they they identified five different communities that have done these Rockland bo bay uh there several communes that have done these typically they industrial parts or part utilities facilities so but it's interesting that if they've approved these things without having the safety concerns addressed why did they do it well the gorm one if you look at the FAQs that George had sent out from the gorm they they've identified quite a few safety concerns well they they've identified them but they didn't have they use a condition I think they Ed is a conditional use process and then inside plan inside plan they got got what they could um Rumford I don't especially on camera they the co the planning guy was very helpful but

basically I I think it's fair to say they didn't have standards I mean I'm maybe paraphrasing a little bit there that um and some of these were probably approved before this rasher fires yeah uh yeah I don't know how either one of them um rumford's I went up I talked about this before but there's two of them both of them are if you're familiar with Rumford one is near the dam paper mill the VA uh Medical Center the other and that's in an industrial area the other one is in an industrial area south of town right next to a gas fired power plant so because I think the other issue and George does a great job on on the safety issue the other issue for Durham is you know maintaining the rural character I mean solar solar plants are were solar Parks Farms are one thing this is another and so I mean I would strongly recommend if you get a chance to get up to Rumford get over to got gorum I think is still building it so

there's probably not much to see yet but I think that's the other concern is that you know we keep talking about rural character um and granted solar Farms maybe take up a bigger thing but um these These are big I mean I think rers are not they're not five acres they're probably not an acre uh but they are big they are the one one of them was extremely noisy um and so it is it's something to consider uh but I think it's fair to say the Goram thing did the my look at it they they did put out some when they did condition use their conditions would be useful to us you know for instance they talk about I think it's 855 or 88 NFP the national fire code uh whatever I think it's 855

that applies to to um battery storage large scale battery storage so there is there is some information out there but I don't you know they I don't think they they made them up as they want and I think Ryan rumford's case is kind of you know these are butt ugly areas anyway what do we care about you know there was no rural character they were trying to protect they really weren't worried about neighbors because it was an industrial park right right um and so I'm not folding them they just had the the the fortune of you know the right place to do that um so my thought is in line with George's

which is we spend some time talking about um before before we go into a lot of effort to say okay this is the setback this is the fence height you got to have six inches underneath it for animals or whatever we came up with which were all good solar farm stuff what do we want to do and how do we want to you know figure it out with the the town what do they want to do what would they like to have because there's I'm sure there's a push for hey we can we get taxes and put it over on stack pull and it it's only going to bother John and Mark who cares uh so the part is interesting because I care um you know the um the gorm

facility is 600 kilowatt right and when I look at the stuff that George sent out um that's considered tier two so that's a small facility yeah and the New York Rags talk about anything above 600 kilowatt so all of that criteria is bigger when I I thought tier 2 I'm like God this is small little thing and then I looked at gorm oh tier 2 is huge is and tier one is even bigger than that it's like holy cow these are Big faciliity so yeah even a tier two I don't think would meet our rural character right you know right what we want to maintain as rural characteristics yeah I mean I think that's that's a big chunk I don't know if it's safety in my mind the safety is obviously more important than than rur but they're by not by much I mean it's you know we if we do want to do that and do we want to have that and unfortunately the power line runs through other than the power line to relatively pristine territory I mean you

know it's there's uh lots of trees and other things around it and you're going to go in and you're going to cut out two or three acres or whatever it may be and I'm sounding very negative probably because I am um but I think you know we

probably need to figure out is this what Durham wants to do you know which are the options um I think you know up against the April nothing of the was it four options five options all of them require Town approval so even the moratorium for six months that's a town meeting the uh I guess it's extendable for another six by the select board if I remember usually it would be a town meeting town meeting yep um so you know what what do

we want to take to the town meeting but I think and um although I would I would question with a town attorney or someone that if the action of the town meeting gave delegated to the SL the authority to extend it for six months you might that would that would make a lot of sense so I mean I had people come up as with every meeting at the end of the town meeting and say oh geez I wish I wish I'd gone to the meetings on solar you know you know can we change it it's like sure a year from now um so but I think this is one in my mind that we solar Farms whether you like them or not that's kind of accepted technology I mean whether you like them or not they're solar Farms there's all kinds of arguments about are they safe and how you going to dispose of them right this is a different level of concern in my mind so can I ask so

George and um summary here you say and I heard Rumblings of this but I haven't heard any real details but um uh third bullet point here page 12 it says um in addition to collaborating with the planning board on resource protection amendments the cons Conservation Commission will consider continuing work on solar energy system Lo locations now that the open space plan application was not approved for grant funding what what does that mean well back to the kind of the strategy session that was done earlier in the year with the select board and the leaders of the various boards and commissions um the select board tried to work with the leadership of the various uh policy land use policy groups to try to set what are the priorities for the next town meeting okay and so last year the conservation commission had explored whether or not to look at where solar uh farms uh should be located in

Durham and not located in Durham and so they had looked at uh topsum I think they had looked at where they not only prohibit them in certain areas uh they have a system of uh mitigation fees so that if you do put them in Prime farmland for example then you pay almost like the Wetland compensation under Army Core rules uh you have to pay a fund into a fund that then goes to purchase conservation easements on on other agricultural land so because we were looking to get a set of regulations in place in case a solar farm comes to the planning board they agreed to defer consideration of those issues of locating where you should and shouldn't put solar farms and whether you should do a compensation system uh so they were going to consider that this year unless

they got a grant to do an open space plan for the community uh they did not get that grant funding so they were going to consider picking up the solar phase two study in lie of doing the open space plan that's what that was about okay and I also heard some chatter about is there an applicant that wants to put a solar Farm in town or or battery storage facility we have had inquiries in the past few years from on both

okay which which precipitated the solar and since then we've been contacted by interests in doing a battery energy storage system all right one other comment I have that I think I don't know this helped drive this conversation further or not but where's the gorum stuff the gorm

state's goal of 80% renewable energy Generation by 2030 and 100% renewable energy Generation by 2050 so if this one facility is going to carry the state's requirement then why would we feel any pressure let's just clarify that's not one facility that's a whole network of

facilities not gorm gorm's is the completion of of the cross town project oh so cross toown project is more than just gorm yes they're they're they're a company that's doing a lot of these but the the reference that you made to fulfilling the governor's goal and the state goal of energy Independence or Renewables those percentages that's the whole system that's not one facility and you're going to need multiple facilities to be able to meet that goal just like you're going to need multiple solar Farms multiple wind wind turbin to do the alternative uh energy sources system you're going to need lots of those facilities both from the generator as well as from the battery

and I will keep my political views out of this is that there will be strong interest at the state level on I don't know mandating it I mean a part of me says it's just going to be like affordable housing you must approve battery storage uh facilities because that's you know if you get enough tiles to say no event you know eventually somebody's they're going to make you say Yes um my politics aside of that but at this point we have the Liberty authority to to come

up with something and you know say we don't want to do it we're going to prohibit it we you know we'll take a look at conditional use and give it a fair review so that if it's inside a um solar farm and it's the right size and and chief is happy that he can you know protect it safely you know maybe we do do that um or you know it's five acres

and you know where are we going to put it four options could be moratorium on some parts and do regulations on other parts or just a good oldfashioned prohibition but uh yeah prohibition of certain scale and then moratorium on the other scale to be able to explore whether that's workable so again there you could do a combination of those four options and I my thought would be is we have this discussion here and then Julie Juliet would like to participate uh and she's smart on this kind of stuff unfortunately she's not here the next couple meetings uh and so so she would be smart on the technical pieces of it um but you know we we then my thought

going forward is we say Okay of the four options that George presented let's present all four to the town somehow in a meeting here where we we get as many people as we can in do we do a survey that get as much information out as we can so that people can make an educated um decision recommendation whatever because somebody's always say man just give me tax money you know that is more to it than that yeah well there is but I know that but that and and I think that's that's probably insulting to people that people who want lower taxes don't necessarily want to lose the rural character or anything else but that may play into folks minds but anyway we present options and say as George did here's here's the four options what do you want to do and here are the you know the pros cons here's what that means to have a Prohibition here's what it means to have a moratorium seems to me if you're going to do a moratorium you have

to you've already made a decision to at some point in time come up with standards that you're willing to accept battery storage you just we just need more time to to do that so we don't just get a project dumped on us uh and then you know I think it is a good a good place to start George would be with we now have a town attorney or MMA to say what if we want the conditional use route is that defensible U because I I suspect these guys have fairly significant lawyer team I mean seemed like CMP came armed with two or three Jesus you know just over freaking 3 feet ad addition to a a pole

size they came well armed um and I you know we shouldn't do everything based upon that but we do need to recognize that hey uh it could that is a potential can we defend whatever decision we make thoughts this is a great backup George thank you I do any more research after or beyond what you sent out here but it's good stuff so we my thought would

be we probably George correct me if I'm wrong because George got lots of balls and in the air on on a lot of stuff but um do something information meeting with the town in September and then put a survey out October you know because if if the decision is to go and this may not work TimeWise but if everybody says no we want to allow them and we want you to write or an ordinance an article that will allow that safely you know character-wise um we have we would have to do that we have to have something ready for for Saturday in April I guess what I'm saying is that kind of that timeline work where but but I do think putting too much effort into um you know a lot of work went into the solar ordinance and with George did a lot of research the Conservation Commission did a lot of research in a lot of time um so do we want to do that if in fact we're going to lean towards uh either a moratorium where we

have extra time or a Prohibition where you know don't waste any time on it do do they come hand in hand with Sol Farm could could I think would be a fair statement right uh the ones that I think we're seeing like the new one down in G uh Cumberland I don't think that they have battery storage associated with them I think they're connecting right to the CMP distribution lines I think it takes a lot of power I

mean I think you know it have to be a pretty darn big solar farm to make these batteries uh worthwhile I mean Rumford is um getting it off the Hydro Dam you know when when power is low power need is low so I don't know what that is compared to a solar farm that said the other one was coming off a gas fired power plant so they were probably able to pump a lot of lot of megawatts into that system at night time one over at cousins Island probably does the same thing yeah I thought because I was closed but anyway uh those are just thoughts I mean that make sense that we just shoot to to get something together to go to the town in um September but not giving them too many options yeah do we do we cut it well one I think we get the conditional use thing answered fairly quickly by the attorneys weeks we we now have an attorney or or MMA whatever it may be um

so that may or may not take one off the off our plate and I think there in my mind there's sort of two of them one is prohibited the other one is come up with standards and inti standards plus a moratorium so that you know we've got a year from now it' be 18 months um before we got a vote on it or

we asked for a set up a special Town election June primary something I don't think we can we get I guess my question be can we get to standards between now and the first of April potentially you might want to consider two of the options if you want to you know just not put it all out there and that would be to say the two options would be do an outright prohibition or do a moratorium to give time to study it in depth and develop

and develop an a appropriate response based on Durham's comprehensive plan and capacity to deal with this type of development so those would be potentially two options that you put just outright prohibition based on safety and Rural character concerns or keep it open for economic development purposes tax based whatever and then spend 18 months studying this issue in depth to develop uh velop an ordinance that will work for Duram which might include excluding certain classes of these facilities and properly regulating others that are within your capacity to regulate I'd be leading towards the moratorium as opposed to the prohibition yeah

necessarily us there's other towns that are going to have the bigger capacity that are going to be able to do not going other towns or wouldn't go along necessarily with prohibition I think we should explore it some more yeah I do we so do we U but

we're not not ready to present anything yeah so do we do we present those two options and get the feeling for the town or do we just as as a I mean I I lean towards the just an outright prohibition um with justification yeah

which you exactly in my mind they're not safe and you know it hurts the real character uh what about all the revenue yeah we I would have I'm not going to be I won't run for don't don't do it just before the tax bill comes out or just after it comes out just well I mean I think that but the the we what are we doing this far well the the other thing is that there is a belief that um

battery storage is a major um part of of the green energy movement that that it will provide you know make up some of the shortfall that that solar and wind can't do you know right now that that it gives you a it's a piece of the green

believe that that's a piece that we don't want to um prohibit it necessarily endur them but do the pros outweigh the cons well that's a challenge and that's one I think that do we want to go forth as the board uh we don't necessarily have to decide that today and say we are for prohibition or we are for uh standards with a moratorium to get us there like that's sort of the question or we want to put those two options out to the people and say you know what do you want to do because you know the pros are uh it is a part of the green energy um puzzle and there is tax money the cons are can they be done safely and right and that's the research that we need to get with Chief on exactly and and outside people to say you know I'll tell you what um they can be you know I mean I think if I remember the brunford conversation was they just kind of decided if it's on fire let it burn you know so you're talking a 40 foot conx

burning with a whole bunch of other 40 anyway yeah I remember all the chemicals they pulled into the end Sagan River back in the 60s 50s yeah ex exactly so let it burn there was a thing on the other day about everson's when I first came up to main dating my wife you know ever since was burning the whole tire place and uh so um you can buy it

Town well Town refuses to take it over well wonder why I'm sorry we're on budget discussions now but so how do we want to you know that's I guess the a question for a future date is how do we want to go forward do we want to do a a go to the town and say Here's the pros and cons on this here's the pros and cons on that no I think those what George had mentioned those two options are the things that we need to explore yeah I would I would agree with that and explore them between now and them to some extent and then look at September um I guess if you go with the moratorium you don't have to be in a super big rush because the moratorium buys you another year but what you know people anybody's going to be asking know if you want to get educated on you're going to say why what opportunity are we missing an opportunity or not what are what are the risks of that opportunity exactly you know what is it what is it

you know load up a bus at Duram mites and drive to Rum or drive over to Goram and and um well I tell you we I was on the building committee for the school back in when it was at 2010 and we drove all over the state yeah I mean I would commend you got different ideas nothing to do if you you know you want to go to Rumford and look at them or Gore them and um because you know when you look at them and you say yeah this is a butt ugly area yeah go to the hide of land and see if you can see the small when it's burning they my my family would we went up to uh rangley over the weekend and my family would not did not want to go cut into Rumford to look at the battery storage sites I can't imagine that I can't imagine why uh but they The Experience try to

getting on to overtime that's right I'm on the clock yes so just going to I was hearing from Allen there seemed to be consensus of the members present that you'd kind of lean toward two of the four options those being you consider an outright prohibition to present to the public as an option or a moratorium to do an in-depth study of this issue I think that's a consensus I age to present to the public in the meantime we will look at the conditional use ability to regulate these things as an interm step M yeah and if the attorney yeah the right now we have nothing we're kind of where we were with solar this time last year was um what if somebody comes in with to Brian's question with the you know we have to be I have to be careful in particular that that we we don't come across as Prejudice I mean if somebody were to show in next month with a battery storage thing they would get a fair look under under the uh whatever

units I mean we have to give them that fair y uh that fair evaluation that's true so yes until we have something something to go with so I think is there anything else oh Juliet asked for U could we postp not do the meeting on the 24th uh because she can't make it and she gave some days I'm reluctant to make changes to that yeah I am too because we're not at a point where uh Juliet if you're listening we're not at a point to uh start locking anything down I mean we're talking about broad brush kind of yeah so there's time at the August meeting for her to to join in the discuss and she brings a lot to the discussion and I don't I don't want to Short change that so let me ask you this George what do we need the the 24th what what else will we do on July 24th supposed to be a workshop on battery storage right it was on ordinances so do we need to have that meeting do we want

do we we want to pick up we've got Bowie Hill and Ruby Lane couldn't make it by the 24th I did two weeks from today today did Boe Hill submit not that I'm aware of by 5 o' we didn't get any new applications so the question then is do we just want to not do the 24th of July and you can put this discussion on the August agenda why don't we do that that'd be my thoughts one you know one saves George some hours saves all of us some summertime um um plus I'm having a crownway place

so I'll be grumpier than usual uh so you're going to cancel hard do that made me to believe everybody uh you're going to cancel I can yeah let's just cancel George I can't think of any reason uh we don't have any other uh they uh daycare

can't get there Ruby can't get there at this point and get their stuff in and what was the other Bo Hill George who was our uh support replacement support for minutes uh it's going to be Deon okay yeah it was just a mixup in communication within the office I was told by Kimberly that they weren't going to do it anymore so it just mix up

second second uh I assume there's no comments all in favor BL a hand we're out of here please turn your mic's off George thank you for setting that