TranscriptApril 1, 2021 ~ Conservation Commission Meeting

today. Okay. Well, we'll give them a few more minutes then. Hey guys, I am recording and if you give Kathy a second, she will start to stream. Yep, they're streaming. All right, take it away, George. Okay. So, this is the Durham Conservation Committee meeting and uh I'm uh presenting some information uh George to town planner and I am presenting some research that I've been doing on implementation of the 2018 comprehensive plan that was adopted uh by the voters at town meeting. Uh, I notice uh I think Jess and Kit, I haven't met you yet, but I don't think you were in attendance at last week's workshop. So, I'm going to I was go planning to give a quick summary of what we discussed last time, and I had sent out the slides and the information to the committee members who were present last time. And so, as I just do that quick review of what we looked at, uh, feel free to jump in with any questions.

uh and as we go through the whole presentation, I'm going to try to take a piece at a time because it's a lot of technical uh data over quite a few uh points of of uh interest. So, as we go through this, it this is really an education as much as it is uh policy development. Uh and I'm I've been doing a lot of research on this stuff, working with the planning board, as I explained to uh everybody who was present last time, the planning board has been has been uh caught up in a lot of other issues. And so, um, I've taken this time, they're taking a break from this stuff to, uh, to try to, you know, bring you folks up to speed and and get your input on these important, uh, conservation issues. So, with that, I'm going to share my screen

and confirm with all of you that you see a set of slides that says Durham resource protection protection analysis. Is that viewable to everybody? Okay, good. So this was one of the slides that I presented uh last week and in that uh presentation and discussion we looked at four questions and this is again flowing from the adopted comprehensive plan of Durham. So the first question was and one of the issues raised in that comprehensive plan was how does Durham's resource protection compare with state requirements? And so you see a picture of the zoning map that was adopted November 3rd of 2020. And on that everything in green, there's two shades of green. Uh but everything in green on that map of Durham is zoned as resource protection, which pretty much precludes most if not all development within those areas. Um and the question becomes how

did it after we look at how does it compare to the state? How did it get here? Um and um then this third question is what does the current comprehensive plan say about it? And then finally uh the comprehensive plan recommends refining the resource protection uh zoning of the town and what would that look like uh if we were to pursue it. So what I'm going to do is walk down through just a summary of what we discussed last time as a reminder and for the newcomers. Uh so we looked first at the comparison between the state requirements for resource protection under the mandatory shoreland zoning act and what Durham's uh zoning requires to be resource protection. So as we saw last time everything within u this map

either colored in yellow or colored in red is required to be shoreland zoning under state law. Now of that only the parts in red the flood plane and steep slopes along the Androsken River uh the wetlands in forested wetlands surrounding runaround pond and of some areas of these large what they call emergent wetlands. There about six in the in the town that have been identified. Some borders of those also have to be resource protection under state law. Uh but as you can see comparing the red and uh here and the green on this map uh Durhams is far more restrictive than the state requires. So the question then becomes how did it get there? And so I did some research found uh the primary impetus for this zoning was the 2002 comprehensive uh plan. And

just going back to those times, you might recall uh the late 1900s, 1990s, early 2000, uh right up until the great recession of 2008, uh 2000 to 2006 in s southern Maine was a tremendous time of growth and development. All the towns were adopting growth caps. And so part of the reaction of Durham, like so many communities, was to really look hard at zoning and limiting growth. So in that

comprehensive plan that was adopted uh in 2002 at town meeting, there were three criteria for determining what was going to be put into resource protection. And the first of those was the flood planes, not just along the river, but also around Runaround Pond and all of the stream systems within the town. Second major criterion was wetlands. And the town at that time identified 10 acre or larger wetlands, which is kind of a recognized threshold for for dealing with wetlands on a different level. uh but both unlike the state state really focuses the uh policies on

emergent wetlands uh Durham also included within that uh category forested wetlands which typically have uh preponderance of trees that are at least uh 18 feet or taller. Um and then the third criterion was to put everything

question there. Yep. Um that 18 feet or taller definition, what's that from? Because that doesn't match Army Corps of Engineer standards for definition of wetlands. Well, it's actually uh six meters, which I Yeah, but where's the number where's the number did that number come from? Because Army Corps Engineer recognizes anything with a diameter at breast height greater than three inches, regardless of tree height.

Well, it's in the D regulations. Okay. So yeah, I was just wondering if you were pulling that from the D regs or from Army Corps rags. D. Okay. Yep. Okay. Uh so that's the second category and that's reflected in the current zoning map. And then the third area was again all shorand areas, not just those required by state to be resource protection. The town at that time said if it has to have shoreland zoning, we're going to zone it all resource protection.

the current comprehensive plan recommend? And the current comprehensive plan went through a pro public participation process between 2016 and 2018. And what came out of that process was a set of recommendations of which the key ones are shown on this slide from the comprehensive plan. But I'll just summarize it in red down here where it says, "The plan calls for refining Durham's regulations to better reflect updated data on natural resources and be more consistent with state laws on natural resources.

um I did an overlay and in the gray, if you can see my arrow cursor there, uh that's the flood plane map from the 2002 plan. And the red overlay is the most recent FEMA flood plane mapping. And what happens is these flood plane areas all shrink down dramatically to what is shown along these uh water corridors. And I'll show you a more detailed map, but just to give you a sense, the flood plane mapping in 2002 was far more extensive and that's a biggest part of the resource protection zoning that the town has, the basis for it. Uh, also the

comprehensive plan includes a more recent wetland inventory uh map. This one shows uh based on the national wetland inventory um the wetlands both forested and non-forested that are uh 10 acres or more in size. And then the third area of natural resource data available that's referenced in the comprehensive plan is the beginning with habitat uh analyses for the town of Durham. And Durham's comprehensive plan uh includes a strategy to to use beginning with habitat maps uh to identify areas

with a co-occurrence value of six or greater and consider resource protection zoning or mandatory clustering to preserve as much of those natural resource values uh to the maximum extent possible. And is this color coding virtually? Uh the greener it is, the more valuable it is from a natural resource standpoint.

Hey, George. Yes. Hey, quick question back to the flood plane. Um when when is uh when's the latest data that we could pull for FEMA for the date of the most recent flood mapping? The red. Yeah. What's the red? you know, I don't know if it's referenced in the 2018 comprehensive plan. So, I would say probably around 2016, maybe right around that time period.

Okay. And then the gray was a previous Yeah, that that goes back to before 2002. Okay. So, yeah, I'm just a talking point that we can discuss later, but you know, flood planes change. I mean, so the question is, do we because where these areas are gray, it's not to say there it's not going to grow that way, right? But if the data is not there now, it's just out.

Yeah. Yeah, they do. They do change. U I did some work in Montana and out there the they have what they call channel migration where the rivers the rivers coming down move all the time. Here it's been more an issue of more and more accurate analysis and mapping. That's that's quote changed the flood planes. And then also along the coast you get the sea rise that has affected the flood zones. But

I don't think within Durham's watersheds there has been or is likely to be that much change. Taking out the dam uh as happened on the presumps river here in Falmouth. Taking out the dam at Lisbon would make a big difference and those flood planes would be reduced.

Yeah. It's just interesting how much it has changed from if that if the gray is 2002. Yeah. I think it's more a function of more accurate flood mapping. Yeah. Okay. Y thanks. Okay. So, I mentioned the 10acre plus wetlands based on the 2018 inventory and a lot of what going to get we're going to get into tonight is related to that. And then the beginning with habitats. The darker the green the higher the value. Um, in putting this plan together, the town settled on six plus uh convergence of six or more re natural resource values would be something to consider for resource protection or mandatory clustering. Uh so then the question is what would a refinement of this map look like if you moved in the direction recommended by the comprehensive plan? And uh in last uh week I presented uh kind of just conceptually what would happen is in the same way that the aquifer protection districts were revised.

Uh the state did these sand and gravel aquifer maps. Uh again just like the flood they they get better uh analysis more detailed information. And so what they determined was that in 2011 uh more accurate Santa gravel aquifer mapping was done and the red was the preceding maps were based on and the blue was the 2011. And so the aquifer

protection districts of Durham were not well aligned with the actual aquifers in Durham. And so in the last round of uh of updates of the land use ordinance and zoning map, um the map was actually revised to take these red areas out of

the aquifer protection district and put these blue areas into it to make sure that they they were in alignment. And so with the resource protection, that would kind of be the same process. And I've actually conceptually described it as realigning the resource protection zoning of the town. And so this is just a early and this is a work in progress. Uh but working with uh the mapping people at the Greater Portland Council of Governments, I was able to get them to produce a very early draft version of what applying uh the criteria that I presented last week. and uh we're going to explore in detail this week. So on the left you uh you see the current resource protection zoning um and then on the right would be what a refinement might look like. So I presented these eight criteria last

uh week and I'm going to add one in response to the input that I got from you folks last week. So the first criterion uh draft for moving forward with the refinement could be the 100-year flood planes uh shown on the most recent FEMA flat flood maps. Secondly, uh all areas subject to mandatory shoreland zoning. And on each of these I'll kind of walk you through and give you some policy options to consider. Thirdly, land within 75 ft of a perennial stream. Fourth, uh, land within a forested wetland 10 acres or more, just like in the 2002 comprehensive plan along with contig all contiguous wetlands. And I'll get into explaining why that phrase was added and why it's important. Fifth, uh, land with an uh, emergent wetland uh, of 10 acres or more. And I actually I presented this phrase last time, but as I was doing some additional analysis, I'm going to show you why I think we may want to uh not apply that

to the emerging wetlands. Uh then land within 75 ft of emergent wetlands of 10 acres or more unless those emergent wetlands have been rated as moderate or high value for waiting bird and waterfall habitat. you land rated by uh beginning with habitat as having six plus multiple natural resource values. But I put in the qualifier last time that some of you struggled with those areas currently zoned as resource protection. So you asked that we take a second look at that idea. And so I've added a ninth possible criterion to look at those areas that are not currently zoned as resource protection but have that same uh importance assigned to it by beginning with habitat. So we'll look at that tonight. Okay. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is walk you through each of these nine criteria and stop on each one and

give opportunity for discussion and hopefully some some uh feedback and possible direction on where to go with these. Everybody game? Yeah. And George, in general, these nine, you know, you say draft, right? Yes. These are a very what's the word? you know developed draft I should say is that is that a good term for these nine you know you've done a lot of thinking and you know there's a lot of good background for these nine right but it is draft I guess

well I prefer to think it's developed as opposed to undeveloped but yes there yes a lot of thought has gone into it I will say that and it's based on looking at the data and looking at the comprehensive plan Yeah. But as we go forward, these are all, you know, there's no hard fast. This is the way it has to be. Um, as I as I shared in that first, the state has not said you have to do much of this. Uh, this goes beyond the state law. So, there's a lot of room for calibration up or down within this. Okay. So, let's take a look at the 100red-year flood plane. We've already discussed it a bit. Uh, so I think it this one's probably the simplest. It's really just an issue of getting to the most recent. But there is a policy question and at least since 2002 the town has taken a adopted a policy that there can be no development within the uh the uh flood plane and you know many many communities have flood plane allow they allow

development. It just has to be flood mitigated. So that if you build houses they have to be uh not sustain significant damage. They have to engineer it with like breakaway walls and those sorts of things to keep the building from being flooded down the river. But many many communities allow continued development in the flood plane subject to the uh flood standards of the federal government. Um and there is a flood managing ordinance in effect for the town of Durham. Uh but that will only apply right now to uh alterations to existing developed areas within of which there are very few. You maybe have a dozen at most flood uh located properties that actually have buildings on them. The rest is all undeveloped. So I'm assuming that the town it's a good policy to have to not allow the development in the flood plane. Even if you try to flood proof it, it's typically uh designed to withstand a hundred-year flood. But I'm sure the

presumps or excuse me, the Androskum River, like the presumps river, has had major floods that far exceed the 100red-year flood level. Do you know when Durham had its most recent 100redyear flood? I don't. Not. It used to get bad enough it would shut down 136.

Really? Someone who lives Oh, yeah. told me that that the road down that it got shut down. Yep. They have to What did they close the schools or um Well, kids can't get across. Well, I don't ever remember them closing the schools, but they they'd come down Bowie Hill, so I always knew it was closed when all of a sudden my road became a super highway.

Right. Okay. All right. Um but yeah, so it it it hasn't flooded since they they put in the embankments and took the the land um to move the road over, but it I don't see why it wouldn't again. Um but it definitely would be a much larger flood than what used to flood the road.

Can you hover over 136 on the map? Yeah. So, yep. Right up in there. Exactly. Right along the river. And that's right where that flood plane is right where they would go where it would shut down because you would come up stack pole which is

a little Yep. Right there. Yep. And then you would come down Bowie and then go back out by the get and go. So I think it makes sense to just continue with saying no development within the 100redyear flood plane but just updating the map to show the most accurate info because I think George is right. you know, the mapping info is the the level of detail that they can get with things like LAR and all kinds of stuff is just much better now. And uh FEMA, right? You know, pays attention to these things. So, if we just say the 100red-year flood plan, it just means that as you know, as mapped by FEMA just means as that changes, our map changes with it. You know,

is that can we Sorry. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say I wonder if there's any modeling that can be done to predict um effects of climate change on flood plane areas um where we are probably expecting more you know severe storms and greater frequency. Um, I just

wanted to throw out the idea of uh climate change potentially influencing these areas uh 10 or 20 years, you know, down the road. the the law to an not an everchanging map, but a map that will change and then can cause I don't know if it'll cause confusion with development or you know people would come back and maybe try again. I don't know if it's possible to tie the rule to the specific one that we're looking at now and then maybe in the future it can be relooked at. Okay. So, let me bring in some legal principles here.

Yeah. Thank you. Um, and again, I'm not a lawyer, but I've dealt with lawyers uh on land use issues for 40 years now and have followed like I go to conferences and follow the legal presentations on Supreme Court decisions on uh land use issues. So, um, a couple of principles that apply here are, um, having science-based, uh, regulations as opposed to, and you can have non-science-based, you can have aesthetic regulations. However, there really has to be good data behind whatever you're doing and a rationale and a public process to get there. Uh typically on something like flood planes, it's a it's a fairly precise science and uh and those maps are

updated periodically and the the the maps uh do change. The flood situation can change as Jess was pointing out with climate change and other factors. Like I said, the biggest change that would affect this would be the removal of that dam. uh that dam uh at Lisbon backs up

uh the water up the river and a lot of this right here if that dam were removed this would dramatically be changed in terms of flooding. So yes, the situations can change. However, the other legal principle I would bring in is that uh there is this concept that has been recognized by the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court of what they call investmentbased expectations.

And what that principle says is if someone purchased a piece of land based on your comprehensive plan, based on your regulations that when it went into effect, it's not that it can't change, but they have a higher stake in something. If they bought the land and it's all flood plane and it stays flood plane, their case against the town's ordinances are, you know, you're far more restrictive with with resource protection than with just flood plane management. So this idea I want just want to plant in your minds this concept, legal concept of investmentbased expectations. So that if someone bought a piece of land, it's always been resource protection or at least it was for a long, long time, their case against the town is pretty weak. If on the other hand, you put forward a new restriction that takes away their property rights and you don't have sound public policy to support it and they bought it without that in effect that

ramps up their leverage against the town enforcing its ordinances. So, just kind of keep those principles as we go forward and have some of this discussion because a lot of times it's it's hard to look at things from all different angles. Is that why, if you don't mind me jumping in real quick, that that must be why a lot of um, you know, new regulations that were adopted back in the day with things like shoreline zoning, stuff like that, had exemptions for property that was developed prior to that, right? So, if you want to, you can't add an addition to your house necessarily without going through a permitting process or appeals process, but if you maintain similar foot same footprint, you can. So I mean

and it's also why if you look at the shoreland zoning guidelines that the D has promulgated I mean it is so complicated. Uh and the reason is because they're trying to keep it flexible to accommodate people's property rights while trying to accomplish the goals of shoreline zoning to protect water resources and habitat. So there's this dance that goes on and a lot of times you'll have lawsuits or you'll have a horrendous development that just rapes the the environment and then there's this push to put in fixes into the law and it gets more and more complicated as we go. But yes, that that is a basis for a lot of exemptions that are put in.

Can I ask for a sort of a definition? My concept of what a a hundredyear flood map is is that it's going for the catastrophic like this is only going to happen once in a hundred years and that and when you think it's not okay. is

it's based on a percentage probability of it happening. And within any year, there's only a 1% chance of a 100red-year flood level being achieved. But you could have backto-back years with a 100red-year flood, right? And so what happens is the higher the flood year, like a 500 flood year, has even less percent chance of happening. A 20 year, 10y year has, you know, 5% 10%. So

it's that kind of a mathematic abstraction but they just the term that's been applied is a hundredyear flood plane but it is a very confusing concept. Okay. So what you might say is that with climate change what you expect once it might happen three years in a row.

Yeah. Or it might get higher even than that. I think a perfect example is if you look at the Gulf of Mexico, you know, at least in as long as I've been paying attention to the news for 10 years now, you know, there's been 300year hurricanes, right?

You know, so the term hundred year is misleading, right? Because that's what you think is, oh, it's a once in a century storm, but with climate change, the percent, it's, you know, yeah, it's a 1% chance of happening every, you know, annually, but with climate change, we're seeing those storms happen at a higher frequency,

right? So, I mean, there's a 1% chance any year that this flood plane could or this this map could get filled completely with water, but that could happen two years in a row, three years in a row, you know? Right. All right. Thanks for that.

Yeah, that's a weird term. Okay. Uh, so is everybody pretty much on board with just keeping that policy, the status quo, which is all RP, but refining it for those maps? Yes. Okay. So, I'm gonna move on. Yeah, George, sorry. I I am in agreement as well as to keep it in, but wondering about the the um the data. I So, if this

is going to show up in our map, but Joe, you had a good point of just saying, you know, the latest flood. Well, what I was going to say is look, anytime that FEMA updates maps, typically towns look at it and that would be the time at which to make a revision. Just simply go to town meeting say FEMA has updated this like for example if the if the dam got removed, then the town would say this flood plane is nowhere near as expansive as it was and that would be the basis on which to revise the map.

Okay? And if someone comes to us with a permit, the town with a permit um application, they would need to show, you know, if they were near a flood plane, they would need to show the data based on, you know, FEMA. So, yep, George, correct me if I'm wrong. It works both ways there with the investment investmentbacked expectations. If someone buys a chunk of property in flood plane and they get a great price because everyone thinks you can't use it and then a dam is removed and now that's no longer mapped flood plane, you know, they are gaining the potential on that property too. Correct.

Gaining is not a problem. Well, no, I'm saying I'm not saying it's a problem. Well, I understand what you're saying is that, you know, if the FEMA map updates because of for some reason now someone's front yard is flood plane, it's like, you know, then you get into the case by case basis.

Yeah. But again, as a courts, the the typical court case is somebody challenging the restrictions being placed on their land by the town. So if if the town has a restriction on there and it's no longer needed, the town should from a policy standpoint get rid of it.

several times now taking that dam out. Is there discussion about removing the Lisbon dam or is that just you're just making an example? There's discussion on all main rivers of dam removal. It's happened on the KBEC. It's happened on the presumps. Uh, so it's a trend to try to get the fish ways opened up.

Um, and and you know, I don't know what the purpose of that mill is, what it's used for, but it's electricity. Yeah. And those are that I don't know how old it is. It's probably pretty old. Um, so anyway, that those are always corporate decisions at way high places, but yeah, there's there's moves to get them all out at some point.

Okay. Thanks. Oh, especially when they get damaged by floods. That's when the companies say it's not worth fixing it. And with all the solar coming in, that's got to have an impact, too. So, okay, let's go on to all areas subject to sh mandatory shoreline zoning. Again, the current policy down here in parenthesis on the right is all RP and that could be the continuation of the town's policy, but uh the town could also consider adopting the same uh shoreline zoning program that the state allows, which would have some resource protection as shown on that first map. You could you could have the town currently has some limited residential around those large open wetlands. uh you there's concern with homebased businesses to allow as an alternative to limited residential which does not allow commercial to have limited commercial or andor stream protection. So again assuming the less policy change the

better in this process. Keeping it all as resource protection would seem to me to be a first option to consider. And then a second option to consider would be uh getting away from total resource protection to allow some limited development in these areas. And there could be some other approach too.

does not overlap with the flood plane. I think it looks like there might be a little um but it would seem to make sense to do you know all resource protection because it's going to be pro not you know it's going to be protected anyways due to flood plane.

Yeah that that issue of the overlying of different resource values is an important one. there's no compelling reason to go in a different direction such as B. 75 ft of a stream. And just walking you around the town uh over here on the border with Brunswick, you've got Pinkhambrook and then you've got uh Metobrook and then Newellbrook which goes all the way up to here and then you've got Dyerbrook which goes up past the elementary school and then Garishbrook goes through that flood plane and up. This is an unnamed stream. And then you've got Libby Brook that flows down into Runaround Pond. Runaround Pond Brook comes in at this point. I think that's Palmo over there. And then Runaround Brooke flows out and down becomes the Chandler. Uh and then Alderbrook feeds down into that. And then finally, you've got the east branch of the Chandler. and both Chandler branches uh flow to the Royal River eventually. So those are the

brooks that are named within the town and there were three policy options for this part of the equation. The first is the width of the buffer. The second is the type of buffer and the third is which class of streams do you apply those two. So with respect to the width of the buffer, DP across all of their programs, shoreland zoning, natural resource protection act has moved to a consistent 75 ft width. You used to have

some 100, some 75, some 25, but they've just to get some uh reduced complexity, they've pretty much gone with a consistent standard of 75 ft. Uh Durham, like many many communities going back to the 1980s, uh has a 100 foot width along the streams and then some communities and conservation groups have argued for much larger buffers for wildlife corridor purposes. So there are at least three different options there. And then on the type of the buffer, Durham currently has the resource protection which is the strictest within a 100 feet of the stream. you can't do virtually anything. Uh, and that is administered by the code officer. You could go to a stream protection under shoreland zoning, which is less strict, but again administered by the code enforcement officer. The least restrictive protection for streams would be the NRPA rules. Uh, and that is

administered by the D, not by the local code officer. And then the question of which streams um the larger streams are required to be shoreland zoning stream protection by DP. And just to show you where those are, it's these sections. And basically wherever you have two of these two perennial streams come together at that juncture from there down is usually shorland zoning requirement for stream protection. So you can see that most of the stream and stream segments within the town are not required to be shoreland zoning by DP. And so that's a question Durham has elected to put 100 foot setback on all of these streams. Uh and that's a policy question. So three three different factors of the width of the buffer uh the type of buffer and which streams and based on all of the state programs looking at 75 ft that would be my recommendation. Uh but that would be a a difference from the 100 foot that's

currently in place and that 100 foot town regulation has caused real problems in terms of being in conflict with the state law. So, George, how long has it been 100 feet? At least back to 2004. So, a long time. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess I'm just curious what sort of problems it's caused. Well, we have people that look at D regulations and you know that's everywhere and they say 75 ft. So we've had you have actually had people build uh foundations within 84 feet of a stream thinking it's 100 feet and then or excuse me 75 ft for DP and then code officer goes out there and says oh uh town says 100 and so they've got the foundation there and then you're

Has that happened a lot? Uh it's happened at least once since I've been working with the town and uh and what happens is then they go to D and D they try to tell and D thinks the town's got it wrong and so you get the state agency local uh people going back playing each other back and forth.

Has D told the town that the reggg is wrong or did has D told the potential developer that they should have checked local ordinance first? Because my I mean because we can make an ordinance that's Oh, absolutely. Absolutely you can. But my view is the more consistent you are with the state laws, the better it is for everybody. And is there that much benefit from having 100 feet versus 75 ft? And if there is, and if there is, and you make a compelling case based on scientific data, then the town certainly can go to keep it at 100 feet or go bigger. Can I um my perspective is um since you

mentioned the wildlife corridors um and eventually we want to look at the beginning with habitat is to begin with the beginning with habitat would be my preference and see it might even like on Newbrook I think there was a really good size beginning with habitat at um priority zone near some of

that. So, you know, if we looked at if we began with beginning with habitat and see what that looked like, maybe it would be worth revisiting this after possibly. Or am I being simplistic? Well, let me point. No, you know what? with habitat does recommend 75 ft along streams. No, but I think what Roberta might be saying is that yeah of species

we might see if we look at those BW maps that their habitat extends beyond the 75 ft which or the corridors if you're looking at wildlife corers you might have one area that's a priority for beginning with habitat have another area close by and

say gee where would the wildlife carter maybe possibly though possibly, you know, uh 85 ft or, you know, that's simplistic, but it might possibly be to connect those two areas might be to go along that stream if it were undeveloped,

right? And so Sam as our chair, yes, I would recommend for this point is to maybe table this one and we can talk about it maybe at the next call to come back to it. Yeah. On the rest of it. I think Roberta, I personally like that idea of looking at the BW maps, seeing where the habitat is along these these and it's so interesting. Everything's called a brook in Durham. I just noticed that. No rivers, no streams. Anyways, looking at that and just seeing what what that looks like as far as feet and if it makes sense to increase or keep 100 feet, right? Right now it is 100 feet ordinance. We would be decreasing that. So, kind of talk a little further about that later if that's okay with you, George and Sam.

Abs. Absolutely. And all of this, you know, there's no binding. This is all just continuing policy discussion and development. So, I mean, I think some of them are going to be easier, kind of like the flood plane we talked about, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. And and as you see, I'm going through here. I'm giving you the options. So, it's not like I'm locked in on 75 ft. The reason I'm saying 75 ft is for a couple of reasons. Is that's what the state is suggesting is the is the is the best is the at least what you should be doing. Um, and you don't have to do it on all streams. This is so I'm I'm looking at what are the options and what are what's what's kind of the industry standard if we can use that term.

Yeah, that's another option too if you don't have to do it in all streams because I was just wondering if you look at the beginning with habitat how often are those priority areas near streams and what does it look like after that? Yeah, I agree with Juliet that this might be a good convo to have um in the future because I think what you're getting at, Robera, is that some of the streams are already being captured as six or more co-occurrences along the riparian zone for a variety of reasons. Um so that is something we could discuss. Because if it's like if we end up saying we want to adopt the beginning of habitat 6 plus co-occurrences, it might capture

those high high value corridors along certain riparian zones because of a number of other environmental factors. So yeah, I think that's I think that's something good to to talk about later for sure. Okay. And the flood planes also going to expand those out.

Right. Right. Okay. All right. So, I just want to get those three policy areas and some options before you. And I understand you want to take a closer look at that before you make any decisions. Okay. So, let's move on to the real sticky stuff, which is the u wetlands uh

10 or more acres along with all contiguous wetlands. So, what you've got here is the National Wetlands Inventory for Durham. And you can get on their website, uh, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and you can zoom right in and look at these to your heart's content. I've spent an awful lot of time, a lot of eedran moments, uh, looking at these maps. And so what you see is um generally the the two classes and there are a gazillion different variations within these uh the two general classes are the freshwater emergent wetlands and the freshwater forested wetlands. So really the terms emergent and forested. We're not dealing with uh coastal flood planes or or wetlands in Durham. So generally the two classes that we need to talk about are the forested and the emergent. And so this lighter green color is emergent and the darker green is the forested. Now, what you'll find is that if you zoom in on these on the

National Wetlands Inventory and you click on any one of these that are outlined and you see a a classification system here and if you click it on there, there's a get the specifics, you'll see that this one here, which is off swamp road, I think that is um it's a forested. It is needled evergreen. The number four. So fo is forested. Number four is uh

needled evergreen. Uh there's a subclass and a split class of shrub shrub. There's probably shrubs and scrubs mixed in with all of that uh tree all those trees. Uh there's also a subclass of broadleaf deciduous trees along with the evergreens. And then finally the B indicates the hydraology of it and it's seasonally saturated. So each of these wetlands of which there are a gazillion uh in Durham has its own

classification. And the problem is this one. If you do a GIS uh analysis to show you, as we did on that map with all the blue, remember that the wetlands 10 or plus acres. This is 20 acres, but right adjacent to it, there's another 9.39 acres of forested wetland with slightly different characterizations. And this does not show on the map because it's 9.39 acres. As I was doing this analysis, trying to figure out how on earth can you can you do this? You know, uh this one down here, every one of these pieces that's separated by these drainage channels is a separate wetland category category characterization and is listed. So there's probably 10 acres here. if this is nine acres, but there's like seven different wetlands and none of them uh account for 10 acres of size and won't show on your mapping if you do a 10acre analysis. So, if you add in this

phrase along with all contiguous wetlands, that would incorporate all of this wetland system together. phrase to try to get at this. Okay. So now if you look at what was the basis in 2004, they didn't have GIS mapping back then. And when you looked at the the wetland map and the how extensive it was through the town, what they settled on without doing any field analysis or GIS analysis is they basically said if a swamp shows on the property maps, then that's going

to be resource protection. That's how we will define 10 acre plus wetlands. And you can see that these wetlands that I just showed you that are this one's 20 acres. They don't they don't register on that map, but this is the basis of the current zoning map.

tax maps is the basis for the current resource protection zoning. I can see why that doesn't make sense. In other words, if it's on a map, then it should be on a map on the new map. Well, the goal is to get the most accurate d uh data you can base it on and those tax maps are not accurate. Uh so here's where I showed you if you take the 10 acre um this is that same wetland

couple of wetland systems I just showed you. So you see in the overlay green from the blue, this is the 2018 comprehensive plan uh 10acre plus wetland map critical rural area. You can see on the it might be hard to see on your screen, but this is a blowup of that right there. And what's shown in blue here is this part right here, the 20 point whatever it was acres. The nine acres does not show up on this inventory. Similarly, this one right here, you've got this small area that's has a different wetland characterization, less than 10 acres. This one is 10 acres that looks like kind of like a bull's head with the horns. Uh, and then this part down here is two separate wetlands, less than 10 acres each. So, the only part that shows on the blue map, which is in the comprehensive plan, is the um is this these two right here, not the rest of it. But again these are all these would be captured by this phrase along with

all contiguous wetlands. So this entire system here would be part of the resource protection zoning. Question for you on that George. Yeah. Language says land within a forested wetland of 10 or more acres along with continu contiguous wetlands. Um, so obviously NWI maps are pretty coarse and

rarely capture all the wetlands in a um in an area. So, does this language carry over to someone who, let's say, wants to develop their property and finds that they have 10 acres or more of a continuous contiguous wetland or that their wetland, let's say their drainage that extends into the field of the property that they're buying is attached to a 10acre wet forested wetland off site.

Okay, so that brings up a couple of different issues and complexities of what we're trying to do here. And that is this issue of is that 10 acres within your property or does it go across properties? If it's on the zoning map that crosses properties as you can see here, these these are property lines. And so this wet this if you did this resource protection um this property within this part would be restricted and this property within this part would be restricted. This part would not be restricted. So from that standpoint, it doesn't respect property lines. However, if you were if it did

not appear on the map and then the question would be and it could be shown that there is 10acre contiguous, then I think that would be a legal question of whether or not that is subject to the resource protection zoning or not. Yeah, that's just where what I'm wondering is if we if we because this language doesn't say within forested wetlands of 10 acres or more that are currently mapped.

Well, some some lawyers would argue if it isn't mapped, it doesn't count. Other lawyers would argue whether it's on the map or not. The map is just a general representation, right? And when you go out there, you have to do field analysis to prove it one way or the other if you're going to challenge it.

Yeah. So, I guess I've never I bought in Durham, but I didn't build. So, I don't know if building process involves you making sure that your building isn't going to be within these resource protected areas if there's a permitting process where you have to do that. Um and if so, does that include, you know, a component of bringing in the wetland delineator to look at the property?

Yeah, whenever property is developed, uh if it goes through the planning board, whether it's uh commercial or residential wetland evaluation is is one of the requirements, a mapping, right? And so at that point, that's where these issues usually come up. Somebody applies for a subdivision, they get to deduct these areas out.

Yeah. And that's my question is just what an implication of this has on wetlands that are discovered during that permitting process. Yeah. What the benefit of the map is is typically it tells you out here on this property, you better look quick and you better look close because that area has been zoned that way. And that's because there's a prepoundonderance of wetlands out there that are at least 10 acres and more. And so you need to be aware of these restrictions. When you go to develop it, it gets ratcheted up even more intense scrutiny.

as we think about our options here, Yeah. Um, how how how much more wetlands would we be adding um to our map from 2018 if we did include, you know, contiguous? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's an issue. Okay. But let me just at least let me just explain the options.

Okay. Yeah, do that first. Thanks. Okay. So these option policy options over here are just go with the 10acre plus based on the national wetland inventories what's on this map right now which doesn't include all of the 10acre plus if you do contiguous uh or combination you might have three or four uh three acre wetlands all

adjacent to each other but with different characterizations in combination they make 10 acres. So that would be the second option. First option is the most conservative to just say look if it's 10 acres itself that part of it has to be uh resource protection. Second option is to say no we got to if it's 10 acres it's 10 acres and whether it's got one characterization or another shouldn't make any difference and therefore all of this is going to be uh the the 10acre wet land as the threshold. There's at least one 10acre wet land there with a single classification and any contiguous wetland with that gets lumped into the resource protection. I think that would be a very defensible policy politically as well as legally. Okay. Then the third option, few towns are doing this I think at least in my experience what you're what you're doing here because the Army Corps of Engineers and the DP both have fairly stringent

wetland regulations and those regulations say each property owner within this uh wetland is allowed to fill or alter I think the number is 4,300 square feet. Um, and anything that you can do without any permitting. Anything beyond that, you get into permitting. Anything for anything up to an acre. Uh, and in that permitting process, they look at is there an alternative to what you're proposing. And if you can prove to them that there's no alternative to what you're proposing to do, then they go to mitigation. How can you minimize the impacts on the wetland that you're going to be doing? Again, this is all between 4,300 square feet and and one acre total of area. Uh and if you and so they they

can require you to do all kinds of mitigation to reduce your footprint and minimize the impact that you're going to have on the wetland. And then if you go over an acre, then they get into compensation. And typically you got to find some place that you know it used to be 20 to1 ratio. For every acre of wetland you disturb you got to preserve 20 or restore 20 acres somewhere else. I don't know what the current formula is but the D and the Army Corps of Engineers strictly regulate development within wetlands and most towns just simply rely upon that regulation as opposed to establishing it all as resource protection. So if this process of trying to find which of these are technically 10 acres and get into all kinds of very difficult policy discussion uh and not having the GIS mapping capability to do this quickly and effectively. Uh one option I think you should seriously consider is uh just

simply letting the Army Corps and D regulations control any alteration of these wetlands. Not likely that Durham would do that, but at least I want to put it on the table for consideration. Why do you think Durham's not likely to do that?

Because it's been resource protection since at least 2002. And the premise is look, this limits development, and that's not necessarily a bad thing for the town. Uh, investmentbased expectations. Uh but part of the problem here is those investmentbased expectations were based on really bad data. So you think it would be seen as as um lessening our restrictions by going with

I think some people would see it as lessening but at the same time I think you it's very hard sledding uh when you don't have a solid policy basis on this stuff and without the GIS tools to really do this right and very little support for public funding to do these types of studies uh it's just a very mission impossible try to get this and get it right.

So would the process George somebody would come um and would need to work with the D in order to identify the ability to develop a piece of property and they would get involved. How would that work? No. Uh from the town policy standpoint,

what you would do, this can be done. Uh a typical study of this would be like 20 $30,000 to look at in detail all of these wetlands on the national wetland inventory and to do some analysis of all of these systems pe one at a time. Um and if you look at let me go back to that. Okay. So this is Durham. The line is over here somewhere and comes around like this. All of these wetlands, you know, they range from very tiny, but some of these, you know, where's that 10acre threshold and and again, each one of these little splotches, you need to do analysis. So, first you got to identify them and then you got to analyze them and then you got to make policy cut calls on them. You know, I think if you were going to do this and do it right, you'd want to take a look at, you know, this whole wetland system and what is its ecological value? You know, is this high value? And we'll we'll go on and talk in just a minute

about some practical inland fishers and wildlife guidance for what's important and what's not as important. I mean obviously all wetlands have important functions but trying to analyze and regulate all of those to come up with a zoning program if you had the resources it's tough if you don't have the resources and the financial backing to do it right it's really really bad.

is that, you know, keep going back to the fact that we want to base our decisions on science here, right? And so, you know, like you mentioned, George, that one wetland without that 9 acre adjacent wetland part makes no sense at all. That's one system right there.

Yeah. So, I think the science would back that up. Um, so that that's my thought is that, you know, for science's sake, I think we should really consider looking at at all of these areas. And actually, I do think that won't be as hard as we think. Um I think um we can talk about

hiring like a consultant, a GIS consultant and really what they would do is they would cut the NWI layer um for Durham and then they would run a a Q uh not a Q but they would run a um analysis and trim everything first 10 acres and more and then they would add in anything adjacent to it and pop they they pop out a layer and it It's really quick for them, I think, to do something like that. But, um, so I think we can do it. It's an option that I my thought is maybe we table this as well when we talk about this next time. Um, but I'd love to hear what other people think about this. I have a quick question about um did all

of those options exclude um like that area you have there that's mostly the light green. Um did all of those policy options exclude that because it's less than 10 acres of any one of the categories? Well, the two that would exclude it would be would be a just 10 acre plus per the national right inventories.

That's already been done by GP COG and that's what's on this map blue is a um B would get all of these that would that would do the an require doing the analysis to look at each of these individually and make a call on whether it should be in or should be out. Um, and then the third one, just

backing away from zoning all this stuff, resource protection, and just saying, look, it's already got the protection of the Army Corps and the DP. And if you ever gone through their process, you know how hard it is. Um, there's really no need for the town to zone this as resource protection. So, those are the three policy options. the only one that would uh really vary from this. I mean those army corps uh and D they apply no matter what you do. So when I say just 10acre plus that just says for these the town is going to impose resource protection. Don't even you don't even have to talk to D. You can't do it. U but every every property owner would have to go through D and Army Corps beyond what you do. But um what I'm talking about is if I'm understanding this correctly on that expanded where you have the arrow there on the bottom

uh oh this down the bottom part. Yeah. So the first two options would exclude that completely. No actually the B and combined I'm assuming that this combined is 10 acres. Okay. because that would put it into the 10 acre when you add the combined. Okay.

Yeah. I mean this would be the most robust analysis would be B. Okay. I see. And right the two auctions are not be robust or and and just say these are the important ones from the town that we want to make sure nothing happens in these areas. But even within uh if you don't do that the D and Army Corps are still going to regulate it. Let's see. and just stop trying to regulate these as resource protection. Let the D and Army Corps do their business.

Yeah. And it's just difficult when I think about C, you feel like, okay, if they're going to allow a certain amount of filling in just like as a blanket thing, go ahead. It's less than one acre. Just do it. you know, from a conservation standpoint, I feel like what's on that area? What

lives there? I mean, that's the hard part. Another thing to think about is that that does that that limitation doesn't stick with the wetland. It goes by ownership. So, if someone buys the property, they can then the next owner can then fill that in. And then someone else buys the property, the next owner can fill that much percentage in. So, it doesn't stick with the wetland, it goes with the owner. Oh, that's an interesting

Oh, are you sure? Are you sure about that? I mean, that's what my wetland delineation professor told me, but that was in 2014. So, unless it's changed, I wouldn't be a straight A student either. So, I might have, you know, been snoozing a little bit during that, but

I I would be very surprised if that was accurate. I can But no, I think it it goes with the land. saying that if the first owner did some filling in, then the next time someone buys it, it's like, nope, you Yeah, that's on record.

Yeah. so and talk about it. Yeah. At this point, our table's looking like a Thanksgiving dinner, but we're not we're not done yet, right? Now for the Do you think option B would be met with a lot of resistance or that's kind of an easy? Well, it just gets it's going to get very sticky and my concern is you guys uh the planning board has every time it goes to the town meeting to try to get funding.

Uh it's pretty bare bones as Juliet will attest. And so the idea that you're going to hire a wetland specialist to come in and evaluate all these wetlands um you know you can put in for the funding um but uh if you don't have that funding it's going to be hard to do it right now. Let me just say I mean you do you can you can't do anything until next town meeting now which is a year from uh this month. So there's time I'm going to work on continuing to develop the GI my GIS capability. Uh there's a free program. ArcGIS is you know you got to pay Ezri every time you try to do anything. Um, and uh, it's expensive, but there's a free program called QGIS that I just am have been looking into. So, I mean, if you could get some proono analysis, uh, that would be great. I've tried with, uh, beginning with habitat. Um, ask them for some customized maps, which they offer on their website, but when they

hear heard what I was talking about, they said, "Go talk to GP Cog." Yeah. And so I' I've tapped out GP COG. I've gotten a lot of mapping done by them. Yeah, George, I really don't think it's going to be an issue either. I don't think the cost would be that expensive. Um, but if even if that I think there's a couple people on the board that, you know, consultants or, you know, know people. Um, and I know one guy that offered even a couple years ago back when Paul was here, um, that would help with this.

That's good. Yeah. And I'm not trying to discourage it. I'm just trying to be realistic about look, yeah, if you don't have any money to work with, it doesn't matter how expensive it is, you can't afford it. I think if anything, we should find out what we've got in the town, where these are um and then figure out what to do with them after.

Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna continue doing some analysis and developing my capability. And in the meantime, if you can find somebody that could do this real easy and real quick and would do it proono, that would be wonderful.

But even then, as you go through and start looking at each of these wetlands, like you know, there's people that live right here, right? And you start talking about zoning all of their land around them as resource protection.

Be ready for some political fire. Oh, yeah. That's what I'm most worried about. Yeah. So it's it's all of these layers of difficulty. Yeah. But again, I go back to the science, right? That's what we're doing here. That's what we're we're trying to update everything based on science. And

yeah, but there are policies based on Army Corps is based on science. And they would say, look, Army Corps already regulates this. Why are you doing this to me? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yep. Okay. Yeah, we have to balance that.

Let's go on. Uh the fifth course for your meal tonight is the emergence which is the same issue. Um so here this is again off I think this swamp road right here. Um and you've got or maybe that's old Brunswick Road and you've got this wetland system here which is 20.84 84 acres. And so

that under DP regulation under shoreland zoning that has to be zoned as everything around that has to be zoned as shorland zoning. Um George, yeah, I sorry I'm not a I'm not a a land engineer. What is emergent mean and why is it so important that it's underlined?

Okay. Uh I all I was trying to do is differentiate between forested and emergent. Okay. So, so both are wetlands in terms of the types of plants that are there, the types of soils and the types of and the and this condition of hydraology. So, you got high water tables at or near the surface most of the time and because of all that water, you have plants that either can tolerate that much moisture or they need it. And trees are somewhat limited in terms of their size because of the root systems not having a solid substrate. And so if it's forested and these things change over time uh as Juliet was pointing out and the the the breakoff is

if if the preponderance of trees in the areas and if you look at the you know they do this based on aerial photography. So you can see this is open. This is and if you could take that color off uh you'd see this is this field right here. This looks like that over here. And so this has the hydraology. It has the wetland plants. Um and what was the third and the soils

uh wet soils. So this is the emerging right beside it. This is all trees at least 18 feet or taller. Okay. So that's forested. Okay. So thank you. So, we already dealt with the forested. Now, we're moving on. All of this dark green is forested, like we were just discussing. Now, we're moving to these much more limited areas where you have emergent wetlands. And I'm going to really zoom in on this and look at it from a number of different aspects, but starting 20 10 acres or more. So, this one clearly shows up on the national wetland inventory as 22.84

acres. It's clearly in when Mike Morris did his his review for the town u he flagged this as one of the wetlands that had to be added under shoreline zoning. Now if you take this little cluster over here you got a 7 acre one the 2 and a

half acre on this side on the opposite side of the stream. So it gets a different classification. And then you got two smaller twoacre ones on the opposite side of the road. So Mike Morris in his first analysis, he he flagged this one over here, the 22 acres. When he did a follow-up analysis for the planning board, he added this one because he was debating whether DP would put that in or not. So he he put it in. It's all resource protection now. So it was a mood issue but that's kind of the problem and the question of this do you add along with all contiguous wetlands and I from the last meeting I struck that phrase out on this one and the main reason is that with these 10 acre plus uh there is an inevitable

uh relationship to wetlands that surround them. So I'm going to walk you through that. Okay, so this is this area. We were just looking up here at these forested wetlands. Now we're down here looking at these emergent wetlands because there's there's more of them. And so that is this area right here. This on the right box is the National Wetlands Inventory. On the left is the map of the 2018 inventory of 10acre plus wetlands.

acres or more emergent wetland, nonforested, then this wetland itself has to be surrounded by shoreland zoning. And the town in 2018 this to the zoning map. Now it can be it must be resource protection if it's forested wetland adjacent to it. It can be limited residential. And when we did this, the property owner hired a wetland consultant who contacted me to ensure that his plan to put houses along the road here in his open fields was not going to be stopped by this resource protection zoning. And so that he has the right subject to the shoreline zoning limitations to build a couple of houses along the road here.

again as with forested wetlands just go by the national wetlands inventory of those that register as 10 acres or more. Second option is to add in the contiguous. Going back to this corner right here where you got four separate ones, make that they're all contiguous. That would be 10 acres and therefore be uh subject to this. And then again, you still have the option of relying upon the Army Corps and D wetland rules. And again, there may be another policy option that you could come up with or someone else. The current policy is to apply the D standards to the 10 acre plus wetlands uh emergent wetlands and within 250 ft you have to have the shoreland zoning. That's the current policy.

should be consistent with the last one or whatever we endorse or move forward. There is a slight difference and that is that um as we get into the next realm when we start talking about what to do around the forested wetlands I think should be looked at differently than the emergent wetlands in terms of you're required to do it under shoreland zoning and the question becomes what is the buffer around these open wetlands need to be so there'll be a generally

that I think is is a good analysis, but recognize there is potentially some fundamental differences between the forested wetlands and the emerging wetlands. We're going to get into that when we talk about the boundary around them.

going to continue with a little bit before you and again on any of these if if a policy clear policy direction jumps out at you like flood planes we can do that but other than that don't feel like you need to Are you turned away from the door Zach?

Welcome. Okay. Uh, so I'm going to drill down a little bit here and talk about the buffers around these emerging wetlands. So, helping to understand what's going on with them. This is a USGS topo map. And so, for this one right here that the D has said you must zone this as shorland zoning around this 10acre. Uh it's actually what was it 20 acres 18

uh it was 22 almost uh 23 acres. So around that 23 acres the town is required to have a 250 foot buffer which for these parts that are forested wetlands must be resource protection. The rest of it can be limited residential. So, what you see here is you there's a hill up here that divides this forested wetland and then that drains down into this uh lower elevation that then drains off through a stream which is depicted here and currently has the uh resource protection zoning along that. But if you zoom in

and look at that actual property. So this wetland right here in blue is this area right in here. And I'm going to zoom in again on that. So here is that wetland area depicted on the zoning map. And you can see that this is pretty much open marsh type wetland. And this is all cultivated agricultural fields here. You could see the demarcation. There's all kinds of lines here of crops. Uh and so here's the farm access road that comes in. Uh and I don't know if they're hanging or what they're doing, but this is all under aggive agriculture. And so under DP rules, because this is at least 10 acres, it's actually twice that size. You have to have shoreland zoning like runaround pond all the way around this thing. And for the portions that are forested wetland on what would be I think the west side northwest side around to about where this beaver bog beaver bog comes up or pond on the stream. Um that all

has to be resource protection. and around this side which is also forested wetland all of this side is the limited residential. policy standpoint should this be treated like runaround pond? Some would argue yes some would argue no and the question becomes what are the inherent wildlife values that are there? Now, I keep going back to the 75 ft and

uh part of the reason for that is that under the shoreland zoning when we brought in the um those emergent wetlands under shoreland zoning got a real backlash significantly from land owners who are now having their properties subject to that. similar to the one that I just showed you, agricultural land. And the idea of putting a 250 foot buffer around their agricultural fields was just very hard

to swallow and somewhat hard to support. Uh so the state in the state laws on shoreland zoning has provided a provision that says notwithstanding section 435 which is the shorland zoning program a municipality may limit to 75 ft rather than the 250 foot shoreland zone around a freshwater wetland that has been r not been rated by the D uh DIFFW as having moderate or high value provi for wild waterfall and um waiting bird habitat provided that the municipality applies the requirements of this article regarding streams as defined according to section 436A. So virtually anything that has NRPA that would fall into that classification to any outlet stream from those forested wetlands. So, Inland Fishers and Wildlife has identified identified within Durham five different wetland systems that have either moderate or high value waterfall waiting bird habitat. And these are the five uh

one, two, three, four, five. So, that's one basis for saying look these are important wildlife habitats and that's where and the the beginning with habitat data is going to support that. So the wetland we were just systems that we were just looking at, they're not recognized by inland fishers and wildlife as having important habitat value. So the 75 ft could be applied to this wetland because it's not been identified. And so you'd end up with some protection around it and the land owner would have to deal with that. The wetlands themselves are already regulated by Army Corps and and D. Uh, and you already have at least 75

feet. You've now got 100 along these streams. So, you'd meet this. So, it's just an option for the town consider. Mike Morris actually brought this one to my attention. So, uh, along those lines, you'd have to have the 70 in order to get the reduction from 250 ft down to 75 ft around those wetlands. You'd have to have the streams that flow out of them, 75 ft. You actually have that. This is the proposed revision to the uh, resource protection zoning, and you'd still keep that along all of those streams.

potentially very contentious policy discussion is that four out of the five moderate to high value are already in resource protection in the town of Durham. So it's not like you're putting something in that isn't already there now. And again getting back to that principle of investmentbased uh expectations

direction D would require the 250 ft around these five wetlands and actually this number one up here I looked at that in a little bit more detail and the northern part of that was at the time of the national wetlands inventory 8.76 acres which is less than 10 and the emergent wetland adjacent to it is 6.54 that's also less than 10. So DP would not require shoreland zoning around this wetland and that 250 foot buffer wouldn't come into play. So all the ones that are affected are currently in RP.

those emergent wetlands would include the 250 ft around the moderate highv value waterfall waiting bird habitat. You could go with 250 ft around all of the other wet emergent wetlands as well. Or you could take advantage of that special provision in the state law which allows you to reduce the 250 ft down to 75 ft for anything that is not moderate or high value. Current policy is D standards with 250 ft RP or LRD around them.

those moderate values but 75 for everything else. Yes. And those those ones are already in resource protection. Okay. Yeah. So, like for the one that I showed you right here, this would be you'd go to 75 ft RP all the way around this along the border.

Okay, great. Under that proposed policy as opposed to what it is now with the 250 foot limited residential and 250 foot RP along this side. strong feelings about that? Or next time we can pick it up right here maybe. There's a lot to chew on.

Yeah. Well, let me let me give you the dessert. eight which is land rated beginning with habitat as having six plus multiple natural resource values and some of the committee members really struggled with just accepting that that because it's currently RP uh that's that that is a basis for not going beyond it. So I added the ninth which is to say uh

whether it's in currently in RP or not. Uh so what I did was I actually when I was still tapping into GP cog before they shut me off, I got this iteration of this map. So you can see the correspondence between the dark green over here and this also goes back to um an earlier mention of the uh streams the the protection potentially the over the expansion of those 75 ft in certain areas and so that is reflected in the beginning with habitat. Uh most of these are 75 ft but if a wet land extends beyond it it goes with it. So some of these areas are wider and also some of these are those beginning with habitat or excuse me inland fisheries and wildlife moderate high value like this area right here and this area right here. Um so the dark green that's kind

of reflected at least six plus is in these this map. And so you can see the correspondence between the dark green over here and the dark green on this map. You can see it's pretty close. Those are the areas that are 6 plus. And here's what I showed you last time, which is currently RP 6 plus. And here's

all of it. And you can see it catches quite a bit. And most of those others are these stream corridors which are going to be either uh flood plane or other uh wet land. So there's pretty good correspondence. Then I took it a step further what I already had um and took this was the proposed conceptual revision of the resource protection and I took that overlay on the right

and put it onto this with a transparency and so you can see as I said the you know here's the dark green along the flood plane corridors pretty good correspond respondents. It's already covered. Um, this circle right here,

anybody guess what that is? you can figure out what that Yeah, I'm sure it's an occurrence of a rare species likely associated with the runaround pond and that they do a big circle because they don't want the exact location known because they don't want people going out and collecting either orchids or reptiles or amphibians because uh some hunters will do that.

Ding ding ding ding ding. We have a winner. Good job. I work for beginning with habitat. So I should I should know our I I think so. I think it's Blanding turtle. turtles that run around ponds, so that makes sense. Yeah. And so what you see here is there is a radius back on the beginning with habitat map, a complete radius.

And I'm not sure what the, you know, whether it's a mile or whatever it is. Uh some of that's already developed. You can see over here and so a lot of it isn't. And but it's all most of much of that if not most of it is either wetland or um ponds, stream buffers.

So that circle again does not include the already developed lands and open agricultural fields which is probably not real good habitat for them. Um, and so when you overlay it, it's pretty close, Juliet. right? It makes perfect sense. Yep.

Yeah. So, I think most of it would be covered except for that turtle habitat. But again, if you go in that direction of saying, look, we're going to follow beginning with habitat and fully implemented as part of this, then the comprehensive plan itself says consider resource protection or mandatory clustering. So that if the these areas they allowed a certain number of twoacre lots, they could still do those twoacre lots, but they'd have to cluster the development to preserve as much open space as possible. And as part of that design process, you'd look at are there reptile uh migration routes and those should be in that common open space. You could actually have a wildlife biologist required to do that analysis for subdivision. There was one here in Falmouth when the uh vernal pool regulations were first coming in and a subdivision had to build a bridge to allow the amphibians to migrate across

the road underground. culvert. A flat culvert. It was pretty interesting. See the analysis. That time's coming right up. That time's coming up. Yeah. Like a mini B, right? That crossing in Canada for the one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Okay. That's the whole uh the whole menu. So, I'm going to go back to the to the list completely. And then what's the next step? Where do we go from here? once we've gone through all the decision making. Well, I think Go ahead.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Wasn't the plan here for George to kind of to lay it all out for us and then our next meeting would be for us to kind of discuss these recommendations and anything we might want to change or include and then start the the real big

process after that. That's my understanding, too. And ideally, if this is going to go forward, uh if you folks could come on board and be the advocates for this part of it, uh there's no constituency in town more appropriately uh targeted to

uh deal with this stuff and try to come up with some reasonable policies and then uh it'll go back to the planning board for consideration for amendments. And so at some point, having, as Juliet's been pushing since I've been here, get the planning board and the conservation committee together, uh, you folks will have had all of this background and hopefully we'll have good understanding of it and, uh, and some hopefully consensus on what direction the town should go in on these different, you're probably going to get some push back from the planning board perspective, uh, working with land owners and developers who come in and, you know, hammer them all the time to not restrict their property rights. So there needs to be a balancing act here between private property rights and public interests. And many many communities have found that proper balance and come up with workable. And part of this is not just to pacify the

developers and land owners. It's to say, look, if you want public support for these programs, you've got to get people on board. And if the the people are not feeling like this is being done fairly and equitably and based on good data, uh the political opposition to any environmental regulations that you try to pursue gets really intense.

and just say that we would definitely support, you know, this and help talk about it and um be advocates for whatever the decision is, right? Everyone. Yes, definitely. Juliet. Yeah. Okay. Like anyone. I think we just need to digest our major Thanksgiving dinner. And

so, as with last week, I'll print this out as a PDF and send it out to you. And, uh, if you'd like me to come back after you've had time to chew on it for a while and discuss it among yourselves, uh, be happy to come back again and, uh, see if you have some direction. If we come up with questions, George, can we just Is it possible for us just to shoot you a quick email if there's anything uh if there's anything really fast? Oh, okay. Very cool.

Oh, yeah. For sure. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Also, um I was wondering I don't know if Ruth's still here, but if George is going to send us an email, it's right in the middle of the transition. you better um transfer that to I don't know if it's okay to put on your personal email for now or somewhere else just so that you have it because I think maybe it'll disappear.

I think our new emails are working. I was able to get into mine. Oh, maybe it already did it and I didn't even It was so seamless that I didn't even notice except I think I have old emails on there and I think they were supposed to disappear.

April 9th, I believe. Oh my god, my email. just that made me happy. Any Sorry, continue. Yeah, I think we got to figure out the next step for I probably for Jess, but at least for myself about getting a Durham email because I never had one at all. Um, so yeah,

we can Yep, we can figure that out. Yep. So, looks like April 22nd is the like would be our typical uh fourth Thursday of the month. Do we want George to come or do we want to digest and discuss? Let's I I I say let's digest and discuss and uh it sounds like George is open to us uh reaching out if we have any questions or we need you know further clarifications on anything. I think uh there's been a lot to look at today. I've been just sitting here like just just watching this and uh it sounds like we have a lot we'll need to hash out because uh uh you know we've I think it was Samantha mentioned you know having you know a a somewhat consistent strategy uh to approach this would would probably be advisable to help us kind of hammer out all the work that needs to be done over all these uh lots essentially. Um let's do that. Great. So, 22nd, uh, we'll set that up.

Uh, thank you again, George, for your time. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Was a delicious feast. Thank you. I really hope you guys could hear. And we have to confirm none of this is a April Fool's joke or anything. This is all the real deal.

6:30, right? Yep. 6:30. See you then. Thanks everyone. Everybody