TranscriptPlanning Board Meeting ~ January 15, 2025

it's not on yet I that nothing showing yet George but it does ACT talking we're good I can hear enough so welcome to the regular special meeting of the Durham planning board uh on the 15th of January 2024 we will start with a roll call and determination of quum we have our five five regular members here so we have a quorum next step is the Pledge of Allegiance if you will join me in the Pledge of

United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for I will at the end of the meeting we just need to talk about future future meetings so seeing none no amendments uh

business there's none new business there's none other business is uh I guess the discussion on battery energy storage system regulations and we're going to start with public comment period And so um for those of you here first off if you would if you've got a cell phone on please silence it or turn it down I actually remember to do that this meeting but please uh go ahead and do that secondly uh public comment is on battery energy storage tonight so uh when you come up grab a seat with the microphone with the little red arrows are on there state your name and address and uh we will uh then ask any questions

comments it's not a discussion at this point so if you have a question or we have something we'll stop the public comment period and then discuss it and we may if you're W welcome to stay and we may discuss your uh your comments so in addition to whoever speaks tonight we have three people who have emailed us questions we'll discuss that uh as well so they they've been on our website uh and so we may have had a chance to look at those so uh public comment uh does

anybody hear from the public who would like to comment okay step to the plate speak into the microphone loudly clearly name and address okay uh Steven brazinski 52 Quaker Ridge Road and Durham uh don't have a lot uh doing some research looking over the NFPA guidelines for the site and stuff and a little research on batteries I don't really have a big problem with this uh but I do have several concerns one is that uh found some interesting information regarding batteries uh was reviewing an ntsp National Transportation safety board study of comparing electric vehicles versus gasoline and Diesel powered vehicles and I was surprised to find out

vehicle is like almost 70 times more likely to catch fire and burn than an electric vehicle vehicle if you look at the news you think it'd be the other way around but electric vehicles apparently are much safer than than the news portrays them it's because there's so few of them one catches fire it's like oo big news so uh

that made me feel more comfortable uh and that's not a percentage that's like if you take a th Vehicles you know you're gonna have one electric catches fire for you know compared to 70 gasoline and and Diesel uh powered vehicles uh regarding the sighting I'm

concerned about training of the fire department uh if one does catch his fire it's a big mess because they're hard to put out uh they're much less likely to catch fire than say an oil bulk plant but if they do Catch Fire they're a real big problem and I'd love to see the facility owner be required to have proper

firefighting gear and chemicals I mean you can't just throw water on it and uh make sure they train the fire department so the fire department also knows what to do and where the materials are and stuff because obviously the fire department will be there in 20 minutes you know where the facility owner could be could take an hour or two or more so

uh I think that's that's my comments any questions questions you you have of me we'll get to those uh when we're finished so okay thank you very much appreciate you being brief and succinct and for those listening at home this has nothing to do with you know electric car vehicles right I'm just it's more talking about the batteries I Goa next anyone else seeing none we'll

Pond Road um my only question is on on page one the 5.7.2 applicability you list different um types of batteries and they all have different the threshold uh where they're going to be subject to this uh ordinance is they're all different and I guess I wanted some explanation as to why you know a sodium nickel chloride greater than 20 kW whereas you know a lead battery it's 70 KW I mean it doesn't seem to be dependent among the safety Factor so I was curious what the rationale for the differences were and I also think that for example uh the lithium ion battery with a capacity greater than 30 KW is too low um a typical home battery is 15 16 Kow

and if that will only Supply maybe half a day energy for a typical house a typical house uses about 30 Kow a day so if people can can afford it they're going to want several batteries which will put them over the 30 Kow and then they'll be subject to this best ordinance which I don't think is really the the goal of this so I would like to see those numbers raised maybe all to 60

70 kilow whatever the number seems more reasonable but overall me and I was uh obviously a lot of hard work went into this and it's well thought out Road this is a brief thing and I went over that too and um there is a lot of work put into that I appreciate it this is a little bit in the weeds but when it got to the part about snow removal I was envisioning in my head what if it's a really bad storm first of all are they going to be responsible are they going to get there in time and who's going to be afterwards making sure that the snow was removed because you could potentially not get in a fence if we really got a bad storm so just kind of following through on that stuff um you know should it be Public Works checking you know right away to make sure the snow got removed and would they even be able to do it fast enough so so in the weeds a little bit but okay okay is that all yeah okay

chief I'm not forgetting it well well you're not public so I'm here for you here for you sir thank you very kindly um so we will close public comments and kind of go through some of the comments that these folks made and I'll start by saying thank you for your comments on the hard work I will credit uh George for The Lion Share of that but also some Town staff folks as well as uh the members of the planning board uh to put this thing together so um comments that

I heard is that um the point made that you know their electrical car electric cars batteries are not as dangerous as uh as maybe the news has made them out to be so that was a comment I'm not sure we need a response and then the other comment was for the fire department to receive training and equipment that is necessary so um George I think I see to remember we cover that is that not in here yeah uh in addition to the references to all of the fire safety codes uh every project will be required to have an emergency uh uh act uh response plan which is coordinated with the local fire department and so that pretty much spells out what training and other uh aspects of it would be required so I think it the uh draft of the ordinance adequately addresses that and the other point I would make which kind of leads over to the comment about the different types of batteries is that um over the last four or five years there's

been an intense amount of scrutiny of these types of facilities and the Technologies involved in them as you will recall we kind of started this process looking at the uh New York uh inter agency task force report which laid out in very great detail all of the issues with these types of facilities and the fires that have been experienced and also identifying the weaknesses in the local review Systems and Regulatory systems and made a series of recommendations this particular model that uh we used which is an ordinance in Carver Massachusetts uh Massachusetts like New York has been doing a lot of intense uh analysis and trying to address the safety issues and so this of

all the ordinances that I looked at and we now under the new uh digit digital codification of the ordinance have access to thousands of ordinances and uh of the ones that I looked at uh the the initial response of communities across the country on these was pretty much much written by the industry uh in terms of what their needs were and uh through the that experience of other aspects of these uh facilities causing serious uh safety hazards and issues now the government has kind of weighed in and counterbalanced that to play place a lot more emphasis on the um not just making

them acceptable within the community from a political standpoint uh but also making them acceptable from the standpoint of impacts on the community uh particularly with safety and environmental issues so this ordinance uh and the other point I would make is that we discussed early on the town does not have uh any budget for hiring a consultant to put this together so we pretty much did this without the needed expertise to address some of these issues however just based on the research that we did my understanding of the difference in the capacities of these different batteries is because some of them are more susceptible to fire hazard than others and so the idea is to limit the potential for what they call thermal runaway uh so I think if there's if there is a reason that's probably it uh but again I'm not qualified to give a an expert uh explanation of what the difference is between nickel based having 70 kilow

hour capacity and lithium ion lithium ion is is from what I understand kind of the vast majority of systems going in in the country and I think that the limitation on those is because of the potential for thermal Runway of those and again in the current draft reflecting the upgraded standards for all aspects of these installations so the connections to the grid the overall uh units that are put into the facility there's codes on that and there are codes on on the batteries that are used the uh monitoring systems the fire suppression systems the automatic shutdown systems there are UL codes and all of the other codes uh through this ordinance reflect to my knowledge the latest uh methods of of regulating these things and making sure that they're safe to

um couple uh things uh is there anything else anybody else wants to add on that no I'll go after you okay well I guess I'm on that comment we're going to ask Chief to come up and do that I do want to make sure because I think your the point that Michael made was uh reference car batteries and you know we we ran into this with solar and I can't remember the number so forgive me but we said 20 and that was with you know we ended up changing in the final stages because we didn't think that was enough so um what I would like to do is is get be comfortable as a board that 70

for this system is enough for uh and I think we need to differentiate between home use for you know recharging your car or your where your car is better excuse me versus uh the best the big system uh that's a commercial or uh other use so is as we have our

discussion I'd like to make sure we do that the other piece and we'll bring Chief up as and kind of finish this up um the other issue on that was brought up on training um and we we'll probably go into that more in detail is that the an additional part of this or um I don't know what the right term but is in support of this is the town is looking at something called contract zoning well talk about what that is but what contract zoning does allow us to do is say uh what kind of training you know we need training based upon what the chief says and you're going to have you being developer you're going to have to provide that initially annually quarterly whatever the the chief thinks is the is the right amount of that so we'll go into a little bit more detail so I think to your specific point that's something that'll come in in a additional document that's part of this um so other comments on what the folks

said I will I'd like to keep talking about the size of batteries um I was doing a little bit of research um some other states are setting it based on the size of the battery um and not listing out the different types of Technology just saying you know some are as high as 700 um but just setting the bar at the

size if we if we want to list the technology I mean things are changing all the time we're going to miss stuff we're not going to we're going to say things that are accurate now but they're not going to be accurate next year you know there's going to be a lot of things that we don't catch um things that might look safe now they might have things added to them in the future that make them not safe in the future I would really kind of urge us to go size-wise versus technology and maybe even scrap what we have in here regarding technology but as far as the size goes if or if if what we're trying to do is avoid you know anybody at their home trying to um put a battery in for their residential use if that's what we're trying to do then why don't we just say you know everything above and beyond residential use if we if something simple like that versus a size because you're right like depending on the size

of your house you might need 100 and that just might be for residential yeah like if we could just limit it to residential somehow with a word um not not homebased business because that could get bigger but just residential maybe just a suggestion um can I respond to that because tier one by definition in this is a battery energy storage system having an aggregate energy capacity less than half of a megawatt if and if in a RoR closed area consists of only single energy storage system technology and then uh section

5.7.4 says tier one battery Energy Systems again that's half a megawatt um are allowed by right in all zoning districts subject to applicable provisions of the main codes so the intent of this is not to regulate inhome systems at all so so let's talk about that for a second so we're seeing tier one is 500 um or half a megawatt yeah 500 and less kilowatt hours and then you're saying tier one is is permitted by right just subject to the energy building and energy codes and site plan review uh

less Ines and a subject okay you're right yeah yeah that's what I thought too okay because if it was less than 500 then you know and I think the intent of that is that if it if you're doing a site plan review you might have a business with one of these and that's just part of the site plan review process along with all the other utilities I don't think that you this is saying you have to get site plan review because if you go to article 8 this would not trigger site plan review putting in one of these it's construction of a building or

discussion I hold mine temporarily uh um so okay sure I'll add to that so if I already have a solar panel system on my house and I want to add a battery storage system for my own personal use I have to come to the board for that no not unless it's over 500 kilow hours half a me well no I thought we just said um it's subject to S okay if you look at what is required for site plan review site plan review applies to non-residential development where you're doing building construction or you're adding parking over 2500 square fet that's the only triggers and then I think we added the solar Farms as part of site plan review as

way shape or form to individual Residential Properties I'm not sure that's clear though I I think it's um because if it isn't fact lith let's just say you're using lithium if you have a capacity greater than 30 kilow here you come over then and say tier one or lost

that page again a tier one is defined have an aggregate energy capacity less than uh half a megawatt which 70 K 30 kilow is uh so that that becomes tier one then you go over to 5.7.4 but it says tier one to me is you got to do the site plan so I've got my car batteries and it's 70 kilow and it is under the the half a

megawatt and which makes it tier one then I come over to the next paragraph and it says because it's tier one I have to do a site plan review that's the way I'm translating yep so I think the solution is just strike the words subject to site plan review or and uh to site plan review and is just be what other parts of the ordinance are applicable I I agree that does create some confusion those words in there okay thank you good yeah and uh can we think of anything else um that they would have to follow in the ordinance I can't and just clarify my understanding is that section 5.7.2 when it's talking about these different batteries I think it's talking about the batteries in one of these installations yes yes it is and

of listing all that to this ordinance only if they exceed the following capacities and then we list six five or six different types of capacity and sizes yeah I think the intent is probably to exempt these if they're less than these

installations right but we just talked about tier one now being pretty much exempt if you're less than 500 right exempt as and you still have to follow so it's two things it's to not include things that you don't want to include such as residential systems but it's also to limit lithium ion batteries for safety purposes would be my understanding of it now whether you need that or not I'm not

are we going by each Public's comments we will eventually that's what we're kind of want to get lost with all these different comments I okay that that is a good point so yeah this this comment um he did bring up so this is definitely I was I was trying to respond to com comments at this point we can hold that up this might be a good so I think we need to discuss this one further so give it some thought Chief you want to come up here and give us your thoughts concerns praise for what a great document it is I think that's been covered

for um the research sting all the paperwork my way uh keeping me in the loop of of your progress all of it so that that's just a team effort on the town's part it really is and uh should be noted um I happen to have a call in to the to the fire chief in Carver I know him uh I've worked down there uh their Department as I said before mimics ours volunteer fire department agricultural small town spread out limited resources limited water so they've thought of a lot of things so we shouldn't reinvent the wheel but if I have any other questions I'll certainly bring it to you okay I just have one after reviewing all of it and it's on the sort of the one proposed language for emergency access if you have that one it's a one one page front and back um on can you please refer to the section here I see that's just it they're not sections on this page George the one you gave me talking about the access driveway shall be I think what I

provided the chief with was a summary of report identifying what the issues are for local responders in dealing with these oh okay um I don't think we have that that's okay so I I can go through George with it there was just one maybe a a um concern of mine so we've gone over coordination with the local fire department so training yearly uh equipping the fire department so so if they have a gas monitor we should have a gas monitor if it's specific whether that would be carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulfide if they have specific monitoring for for gases then we should have that also um it it talks about the road width it talks about you know the grade the the weight limit access gating uh monitoring 24 hours um everything is

is doable for the fire department except the one a fire hydrant or alternative water supply such as a static water tank shall be located within 500 ft of the compound so we would need multiple dry hydrants if you will if that's what they choose uh one on each Corner due to the prevailing winds right so if we if we arrive and and the winds are at us we can't get to the hydrant so you'd have to have one on the opposite side and the only other concern is 500 feet is kind of far for us uh cuz that could be an open to interpretation where do where do you start measuring the 500 ft is that at the gate is that at the border is that at the hydrant you know what I mean is at the center of of the development so we just need to review the finites for the fire department 500 ft we only we're only carrying a thousand on each pumper supply line so if if we were 500

feet in and then had to take a left Rudder to go down one of the aisles we could be very close and very close to out of hose so if we button that up to 2 or 300 ft that would give us some accessibility um just for the 500 ft but certainly two two forms of water supply would help um and again we've seen around here with dry hydrants you know a snow plow hits it it cracks it and then it's out of service so you always want a backup uh or redundancy if if you will for that um otherwise talking with other Fire Chiefs uh in the area everything is applicable so the NFPA standards um you know there's the electrical code the 70 that that that citizens brought up 855 for battery storage uh George has um identified all of them that are applicable to a battery storage site um

uh reviewed them all um and that should suffice for for the fire protection uh we can get into the Dynamics of the water uh certainly they will have to provide an emergency response plan and as I've said before that could be let it burn we just need it in writing from them right like if one PO is burning Let It Burn protect the exposures or it may say copious amounts of water drown it o okay but you'll have to provide copious amounts of water so depending on what their emergency response plan says they may get into uh fancy fire suppression so you know carbon dioxide CO2 they may have total flooding in those pods they may have a a Halon type of system which excludes the oxygen their choice uh but they'll have to provide you know the the monitoring for that the meters for us that type of thing okay I have a concern sure uh in general Chief is referencing things that I don't think are in our

ordinance because there's no there's nothing he's talking about four is not is four we need two or whatever maybe I don't see that in here and the 500 ft I don't see in here it's on your it's on the list of things to consider but they're he's he's recommending which is good recommending these are the these are the things I'd like to see but there are other things on that list that are not in here I don't is that from what is that from uh George gave me the Highlight I think to consider for again that's not that's not this ordinance that is a guideline provided by the NFPA

for local fire departments I guess my thought would be are there things that are in that guidance that are not in the ordinance two of them right off the top of my head are water multiple water tanks and the 200 and 300 foot distance

versus other other things Chief I mean you're saying the other things are good but they're not necessarily in the ordinance um correct however as you know I was part of the uh listening group of contract zoning um that would provide other avenues um for US unless you're trying trying to button up specifics to batter I don't know that we need we're trying to cover the highlights I guess but so if there's at some point in time um I I think we want to we don't want to miss the fact that hey you got to have multiple water tanks you know what I'm saying so we get into contracts only five years from now you know is it something should we put it in the ordinance should we you know there's there's got to be something that as we're going through contract zoning that is a flashing light five you know uh you all will be here but I may not be so we're talking about B right now yes we not talking about contract zoning I

understand but with Chief's point is it doesn't have to be in here but it has to be covered my my concern is yes we'll get to contract but contract zoning doesn't say anything you know about these are the things that must be and contract zoning could cover lead smells building rocket launch whatever it may be right is is if there's something that we should be in there it it should be in there so I think if and we'll talk about I agree with you but it should it be in the ordinance now is it important enough I mean we've got all this other stuff about the width of the road and other stuff is there something in there that should be included now in the best ordinance I heard you discuss earlier sort of the the vagueness uh uh is is better residential commercial type thing you could put you know water suppression compensatory to um fuel load to fire chief satisfaction

you know less is more the Lang especially and and again I I heed to some of the experts but you know compensatory to fuel load so that can be argued all day long about how many gallons of water you would need to provide at that time I think we should look to f and g in here and I I like where you were going with that 855 that's where is pointed out is um yeah like it's almost like every project is is Project Specific right they prepare a plan for us to look at and review with the fire chief and if it's not up to Snuff it's not up to Snuff can you just what's FG okay can I I think there's an applicable more applicable okay and that is uh section

5. look on the next page one to 1 through eight provide the fire emergency uh procedures and components and I think that's the place to put it for sure yeah sorry I didn't go that's right there thank you also the same and this does not this does not address water supply and the point I would make is that we keep bringing up contract zoning as able to cover other things like we we're talking about and we don't need to worry about it here my premise in going forward with this is that this needs to be a standal law yeah in case in case contract zoning doesn't pass AG yeah contract zoning will add to that but and and as a matter of fact in some of that as we heard from the town Attorney At Last night's meeting um there could be modifications to this as part of the contract Zone but that has to go to town meeting and be approved so you get nothing we want something solid to look at too even through contract zoning so

agree this should be solid yes so if contract zoning doesn't happen you still need these standards um I just I guess I I don't think we can list everything in here it's almost like maybe list as much as we can as much as we want and then have something in there that say says you know we'll look at these projects specific if we need anything else we'll go back to the applicant and ask for more say better than that but and and I think what George's comment was that list is out of 8 U NFPA 855 whatever

thank you um and so I think we just need to make sure that in fgk um the fire chief gets gets actually gets to approve that and and whether it's as part of this process or if it's already written in a in a national standard and the chief's going to review it we're going to review it per that National Standard you're right I don't think we need to list it that's a good point and so do we have strong enough words in that paragraph that George just mentioned um an emergency operation plan compliant with f NFPA a55 is required so

um so Chief are you okay with that or do you think it should go beyond that to say and as approved by the fire chief well number seven as you referenced are there procedures as determined necessary by the town that that would also include myself to provide for the safety of occupants neighboring properties emergency responders so that's sort of that Umbrella by the town or the fire chief where are you at number seven number seven referenced the the k seven we're looking at the specifics for emergency operation plan okay so number seven just says you know other procedures as determined necessary okay I I think sometimes and I know C codes likes verbatim right he likes sort sort of not to have to interpret not to have to give an opinion read it look at it done but for the fire department you know other procedures as determined necessary water supply um two two dry hydrants Maybe multip sources of water uh for the

protection of the occupants neighboring properties and emergency responders so I'm not sure not legal and we do have a legal team but I'm fairly certain we could argue but I do think it' be important to put in the provisions that you talk about with the hydrants okay the distance as well as the multiple multiple we call it redundancy of and they'll understand I'm sure they they have the same with such a large footprint I assume they'll understand that you know if one is cracked and um

in cities and towns hydrants are spaced about 500 ft anyways so that if one is out your whole pumper truck with 1,000 feet can get to another one bypass the one that's frozen or or just wrecked by a car out of service that type of thing so it's redundancy of the water supply yep because the way this reads and I'm not trying to be too microman he said emergency op plan compliant with NFPA a55 855 doesn't say it I guess it says

500 ft what you're saying is it should be 200 or 300 feet and there should be you know multiple storage tanks is there a storage capacity yes but uh 855 is all encompassing I'm not sure you have it all that's for fire suppression I believe in water distribution of a battery energy storage I got you um then compensatory to local needs and that could be a hydrogen system you know City fire hydrant system and that's not what we're we have I got you I guess what I'm saying is if it's not an 855 and I'm a developer I'm going to say where and we're not doing contract zoning where do you require me to have multiple water sources sure where do you under other procedures as determined necessary by the town to provide for the safety of occupants neighboring Properties or emergency responders so I'm the town and emergency responders I want more than one hydrant because if the prevailing winds are at us got then I'd like to go

to the back of the property y I got you we're not going to specifically say it in here but it is up to the fire chief in town to review this and provide I got you I'm good I think we should specifically say it just are we we commenting now I'm sorry yeah well if we add if we add specific Provisions for water source like the chief has just outlined tonight so I'll add a provision nine on

fire water and I'll work with the chief to get the wording on that uh and do a little bit of research on it what you know just put that in what what our community is doing on water source um and then you'll still have other procedures as determined necessary so I think we can cover it double I kind of have an idea on that specifically because the chief as the chief mentioned they might put in Halon I mean they might have a fire suction system for these systems that are better than water that they might put in could we do something blanket like make number nine a um fire suppression plan approved by

well under the codes Under the codes that are referenced in here they're going to need to put internal suppression systems within the units the question becomes keeping it from spreading both internally within the project and externally outside that's where you need the water okay but but I I'm going where I thinking where he was going is is it's not always um I think it could be subjective um and it depends on the type of battery and what's around and all sorts of stuff so I think having a blanket statement as far as like we need a hydrant X feet away or we need something X feet away I think that is subjective to the project so I'd almost like to roll it back and just reference 855 yeah and then we look

at every project specifically specifically and every technology specifically and see what they're already planning they might not need additional water where they are or they might who knows but but as a developer wouldn't you want to know right away if you're citing a project whether or not you need something 500 ft away and 1,000 ft away to bring water to your project well you should know if you're up to Snuff on what you're developing no because it's not written in our standards you have no idea5 aren't we referencing these things we're saying if it's outside of 855 the the way I understood Chief is there's a I don't have it in front of me but is there a standard for hydrants or water sources in a55 and the second half of that is are you satisfied with the standard in 855 I mean if 855 says two sources are good do you want four if a55 you know what are the key things that you're not satisfied that you think are we we ought

to up because I think yes there's one thing about there's other fire issues that are involved you know they going to have buildings and other stuff that we want to Chief's going to want to have the cap bu I think what we had one of the key points in all of this is these guys are used to in my I think they're used to going to Rumford and putting it on next to the dam in downtown rord they're used to putting it in industrial park goram's is in an industrial park Lincoln is going to be in a paper mill where the infrastructure is already there everything we're going to do is a natural site so there may may not be you know enough water there and what I want to do is make sure particularly in safety um and again contracts don't even change it but if there's no contract say what Chief I guess what do we want what are you comfortable with what does n you know that list of stuff you had yeah I I can't recite NFPA 855 for the water

distribution uh and usually that's based on a Municipal Water Supply not on what Durham's looking at again I I I call into Carver because they're looking at the same thing right limited water supply dry hydrants um and I understand where you're going with it uh you know we've done things with h George and I on uh

residential developments that says we'll have a high hydrologists sign off on the rainfall um you know what the drought uh conditions for main are uh how big of a of a surface you need to retain 120,000 gallons that type of thing so we've done that before uh but I can't on this until they give us a plan I can't recite how much water we'll need here's another here's another idea that would be to say just put in here a generic statement about and water supply acceptable to the fire yeah something along those L and if he doesn't think he needs any then that's acceptable form nfca is acceptable okay

if if it's not adequate for our particular needs he can say you need more Brian thoughts does cover have a Municipal Water Supply you keep referencing that sure uh it only on the outskirts it it is we have zero Municipal correct they're pretty much the same make sure we yeah no I mean there there's no Municipal well I mean it's been a few years but but their their Town mimics ours considering you know it's next to Plymouth Mass which has it but then to the outskirts you you're talking uh you know systemns dry hydrant uh that type of thing so it it really doesn't have a municipal water source volunteer fire department tankers that they have like ours that they bring the water to you uh Mutual Aid agreements with other departments that have tank um you know the line up up to 20,000 gallons type of thing well I we thinking about you know the initial fire suppression system and then a secondary

so we have no I'm being hypothetical here but to bring water supply to the town would mean the developer would need to carry it from an an adjoining town that has a uh a water system not necessarily no okay the standard says something like yeah provide 250 gallons a minute for 2 hours on a repetitive basis whether that's a plan that they write that that says that that can use eight tankers or we could provide you a tanker if you need you know a second one or we could do a um dry hydrant with a with a pond a fire Pond uh and they can do depth area that type of thing that could provide I think we're doing what 230 180,000 gallons currently in a residential so it sounds like a lot but that's not a lot when you get depth and surface area and whatnot well and I think that's my thought is this more generic statement that it has to be approved by the chief as part you know he reviews it and if 10 years from

now there's no water involved and somebody comes in they don't need to provide water but I think for now Chief would say I don't have a dry Pond anywhere near there you know I'm going to have to haul it a mile and you know parts of where we are um so this is what you're going to have to provide me and I think if they want to do the project you know I'm not talking contract zoning but they have to meet you know the chief's approval which I don't think is arbitrary or capricious I think he's our expert on fire safety and he doesn't think the the site is safe without something then then you know and I think we can always defer to a fire protection engineer so you could write that into the language Fire Chiefs determines Consulting with the fire protection engineer uh you know they write a check for that that type of thing yeah we might even want to put that in there seriously we've never done

these things before right not this no yeah so I so get give to and Brian please give me some latitude here when they when they go through site plan review they're going to put up an escrow and you can get the planning board will be able to get whatever expertise you need whether it's hydrology for whether the Pond's going to go dry or not or it's uh you know the water supply uh any ISS traffic what every any issue that you're dealing with that you that we do not have the in-house capacity to deal with that you can require the developer to fund that cost so the chief if he's looking at this system for the first time this says acceptable to the fire chief the fire chief can get the consultant that you're talking about through the peer review escro system okay is that okay

sure so have we beat this has no stake in the project no they would be working for the town it's kind of like we're doing with residential peer review kind of stuff so um any other fire safety questions also did we land with what George's recommendation was um your two options are put in specific standards or secondly put in a specific statement in here that the water supply has to be acceptable to the fire chief I lean towards the second one I do too I think that's more around the room do

to guess I live with that I think it was your idea well I don't think it I I I don't like specifying just water I think it needs to be the entire thaten I mean we're talking about fire plan yeah that covers the entire sight well why don't we that's a good point can we say instead of water say fire suppression well it is water supply for fire suppression that that is the issue that we're talking about and that's the one that he has a problem with I know but your your statement again was didn't specify water it just had a fire plan approved by the chief like you can use other stuff for for fire suppression aside from water yes but I don't want to give them a choice so to protect their

investment they would do a fire suppression system yes of you know gas of whatever they want to do but for us to protect if that fails thus the water but would we not want to use a fire suppression as well I don't think we need to I think the Georgia statement if you say it again covers it so if Chief if they come in and say we're going to use foam Chief said no you got to have water so so that gives him the power to

to say hey planning board they not they don't want to put in water I recommend don't you know you don't approve it so it's not what your statement didn't have water specifically okay so again I I see two different parts of this what I think you folks are possibly talking about is the internal unit fire suppression systems no no those those are all specified by the codes I understand that question is what does the fire department need for spread of fire from the facility or across within the facility outside of the units that don't have those systems yeah and I guess the point is an alternative to water I'm just saying I think they should provide a plan yes inside out sitewide right on how to fight the fire that has to be approved by the chief yes that's the units within outside the units the entire site correct yeah there should be a full plan and should be approved by the chief right I think we

say is this would not be limited to water correct yeah this entire Emergency Management operations plan has to be acceptable to the fire chief yes and I think you be looking to them you are you approve this yeah and you'll be looking to the fire chief Andor a fire consultant to say is this

adequate and I think is is what's there now cover that or you had made a statement that I the only the only part that doesn't make any mention of water in here water supply and the chief is saying there are things Beyond NFPA like the issue of two sources on opposite sides of the facility may not be covered in NFPA correct 855 and and I'm not saying that his decision is based totally on NFPA no no I'm I'm just saying highlighting that as just the water supply necessary uh I think would be

helpful as you know NFPA is best practices right it it um you can reference it in an ordinance specifically but there's also local control if you will and for Durham dry hydrants water always a local issue and and you are the controller of that I guess what I'm saying I don't know that we need to specifically say water in this because they should come to you you

know as in this and remember we're not talking about a 12 13 unit resid development so they need to come to the town and the various people and say is this and probably one of the most important is a fire chief and have that discussion early on and say what is it you're going to how are you going to fight fire show me your plan to fight fire in and out and they come and we're going to do all foam and so on and so forth and you say what's your plan for a brush fire what your playing I don't see that here and you've got to do that you set the the requirements is part of that we're giving the fire department broad authority to to do

need water sure I I defer to George and your board for prepping them that water not not as a cost analysis but for Durham you'd have to provide that I think what we always say is all these projects is you better see the fire Chief you better see the Public Works guy and see what he's going to is he okay with your plan and then there's a verbage in here say if he's not you're not going to get approved so that puts the onus on the developer to get with you and these guys and I you can't rely upon it but if he comes in and says I we always use you know whatever it may be foam and we say you can use whatever you want it that the chief approves that that's should be it that's the statement I'm trying to get in here and and I think it might already be in there K the Emergency Operations plan an Emergency Operations plan complying with nfba 855 is required a copy of the Emergency Operations plan approved by

the Durham fire department shall be given to the system on the local fire department and local uh code enforcement officer so I think the whole plan it doesn't say if it's a what this says is if it's compliant with NFPA 855 if it is and there's no mention of water he's going to say I'm compliant with 855 but you go over to I keep losing it

here uh number 7even other procedures are determined necessary by the town to provide for the safety of occupant is approved and just at the end of that is approved somewhere in there they have to get the fire you know I see I think it ties back to approv by the fire dur it doesn't say approved that's my problem George it does say approved where I copy a copy of the Emergency Operations plan approved by the Durham fire

department but do you see that where you at K line the K the second sentence of K but in that it says compliant with 855 that's correct so I come in and say that's that's the minimum it goes on to say and I'm not sure that 1 through seven are all in NFPA 855 yeah that's why I'd like to see something in there whether it's a nine or it's an addition to that to say you have to get on fire safety how and it could be in the main paragraph of K George is it right now it just says compliant with NFPA 855 that's the starting point but then it goes on to say the Emergency Operations plan approved by the Durham fire department shall be given to everybody that's involved in this is that and maybe it's just me is that clear that if the chief the fire department wants something different or Public Works want something you know different well this is all fire not Public Works the Emergency Operations

that that it is not just meeting the minimum standards of 855 I think so I agree with you with me or George with you that it goes it should go beyond NFP yeah I mean I think it needs this is saying that Chief needs to confirm that it meets NFPA 55 and that's it yeah that's the way I read it and know we want to be clear with that so that it doesn't leave a okay you know I'm going to talk to my lawyer because we don't think that's what it says and then we're into into that kind of contest so some the word the verbiage you that Mark used that you had used to have whether it's a nine or it's part of um so I think if I rework uh K basically

combining the first two sentences I can clarify that as long as it's clear that it's it's not just NFPA make clear y I got Chief are you good with that yes sir now do you do you still want to have a reference in in one through eight or nine on water supply or not I think if if it doesn't have water then Chief doesn't and he he wants water there's no water there he he doesn't approve it so this if we fix that first part then you won't he'll have whatever he needs for water without specifically I would ask Chief first are you good with that what he just asked yeah do you want somewhere in here to say specifically

town right more is more in this in this case more is more to to protect um but you know continuing those paragraphs before you get to 1 through eight there the last sentence up top the Emergency Operations plan shall include the following information and again you go down to seven other procedures you could put other procedures such as water but other procedures as determined by the town to provide the safety

um or one sentence number n you can you can add number nine or water distribution as per the town fire chief you mentioned adding to number nine is that what he's I was just hitting on the the complete fire suppression plan but I mean I I I think reworking reworking the the start of K and then also you can say I like I kind of like other procedures such as water supply that that put notice that you know be prepared because if there's a major brush fire we got you on if they there's 40 acres five of them are best and 30 30

of the acres are burn and there's got to be enough water to put it out before it gets to best yes and and they need to provide that and just like the municipal development it's not just for the development it's also for the surrounding areas so if you provide a dry hydrant it's not just for their investment it's for the entire town betterment of the town in that area okay my head is beginning to hurt so other procedures such as water let let

me do some wor yeah okay but I I want to we'll talk about timing after this but we kind of not tonight but we need to get to an end on this so is there anything else from your perspective chief that if we cover water some way and you'll get a chance to look at it so do he is annual fire drills he has monitoring fire detection systems remote access compliance with inspection um Road access I know that you know talks about cuz the road commissioner would have to sign off on that particular part he has gbw you know of the road uh turning radius gate access parking unit spacing yes George has okay

if if your car if adding such as water and I I get your concern but you know um this does give you through us a lot of of power or ability to to to require stuff you know such as water so I would assume that and on record like to say just for the safety of their investment or anybody's investment right in the town okay that that's literally the fire Jeep right somebody's investment in the town y That's so they've got to relieve my cranial pressure the water water we're done with as discussed ICP is high no problem is that a real thing in cranial pressure y um so I have a drill for that

but you let me know can you get you get I got a new drill for my birthday so anyway uh we are trying to move along so do we have any other questions and concerns for the chief I think uh we did get comments back um and there is one relating to the fire sure I yes we that's a good Point yeah 5.7.3 a who's whose comment was um this is from Rachel so this is from Mission Control yes yeah uh 5.7.3 section A all

permits required by state codes including but not limited to building permit an electrical permit and a fire department permit the question is what is this what is a fire department permit perhaps I should continue shall be required for installation of all battery energy stor storage system so maybe we're we're I don't think there is such a thing I mean I think yeah I think the fire department review or fire well that's part of our site plan review so let's get to yeah some

municipalities it would cost um plane review could cost you know fire permit to to pull that could cost currently I believe the town doesn't have a fee schedule for a fire permit if you will there is no there is no fire yeah there is no I mean that's part of my is is there things that that she provided she did that company did a very good job but I don't think we're I don't think we're going to ask a fire for a fire permit uh is this what we're going to ask the chief to do Fire review is to review it as he does other site plans yes and other municipalities would charge for that currently we do not have a a fee scheduled for for the fire department side of things okay yeah okay sure that's that's a good point different subject though that's all I saw joh okay are we ready to let the chief go home and sometimes those permits are based on the totality of the of the investment right 1% something like that

but Durham does not have any of that for the fire side it's is Chief ready to let himself go home I will check no any other questions again you can go through George you can go through John you're always welcome to email me you know at the town website um very important right because it's the safety of the citizen so uh

anytime super and we if we have if George writes up the language you'll get a chance to look at it yep I'm CC in a lot please let us know okay okay so I think the next step would be we've let Chief go let to kind of part of this still going through the comments piece is we did get comments from others so can we go through those comments we're still responding to public thank you thank you thanks

I got a note for that okay I guess the first one that submitted was uh Jason Queen and um he had I think had some comments but I don't I don't see any specific ones from him George did I miss something bottom yeah he referenced uh somebody that within his Network that was talking about systems in California other parts of the country touching on a lot of the same points that we've been discussing okay fire buying a new fire truck and so on and so forth M

anything in here that we need we've already discussed you know he talks about we require a large water tank and hose hook up on site if Chief thinks he needs it they will do that and some of that stuff may come out of uh if if we have contract owning so moving on one one thing sorry that he did bring up I'm not sure if we have a section it starts the the new systems that are contained in a cuber pack have the best fire test ratings um new laws require that each manufacturer perform heat and fire tests and rate their own equipment local town would be best to mandate in their ordinance that only certain manufacturers with these types of systems and that certain rating be allowed um I'm not sure if we talk much about fire ratings in here but maybe that's against so that we can reference or could be referenced in 855 not sure the UL stuff I mean I think yeah I think if they meet the I think what we said

was you got to there's like five or six things you have to meet UL this NFPA that uh UL whatever so yeah I don't think it's our job to limit manufacturers no no no but what this person is seeing is that some of them require that the manufacturer perform heat and fire tests and rate their own yeah that's in that's covered in 5.7.3 uh D okay all of those codes okay

they require that kind of testing okay great and those are in here they might they might not have picked up on that great yeah that was what I saw so moving on I appreciate if they're listening I appreciate the two gentlemen taking the time to do that and working with George on it uh next on my list is John Simo uh

had I think three comments uh and so um you know one if you've got that in front of you so 5.7.1 paragraph 3 uh he didn't he's talking about putting it in the table of land uses which is something that uh we did right yes the town attorney has uh have drafted that which I have if you want to talk about that she did so in all um zones aside from ra so yeah let's

hold on to that we'll talk about that if you don't mind we'll talk about that table specifically uh the next one is 5.7.2 paragraph or whatever five okay somebody's got to help me with that because as as I remind you I failed my final and left go engineering at one point so uh are we misspeaking in our thing um so what he's talking about is that when we're talking about energy you know flowing it's kilowatts when you're talking about consuming energy you need to add the hour to the unit so kilowatts per hour or something like that so I don't know if he was speaking to spots in our ordinance where we're not so Juliet if you look at um

5.7.2 under applicability y we reference kilowatt tier hours I'm pretty sure that's what he referring to yeah it is but I mean which is right is my question well megawatts and kilowatts are the same it's it's just bigger or smaller no it's a is it Dash is it kilowatts per hour or is it is it just

hour or 25 Kow over 2 hours or 10 Kow over 5 hours the total amount of energy that it stores I think kilowatt hours is the proper term for the storage yes okay you don't get a vote but but he's voting for you uh but thank you for that so but Brian did you say where there's somewhere in here where we're just mentioning um kilowatts or megawatts yeah everywhere we don't mention kilowatt per hour he's saying we should be kilowatts Das hour we say we do we say hour do MW KW oh

yeah batteries themselves are kilowatt hours think reading that comment his specific thing is with number five which is which says flow batteries I don't know what a flow battery is um but it's battery so I would think it's kilowatt hours but I think his issue is With the Flow Part it says oh I think it's right the way it is probably okay um I again I don't know what a flow battery is but I think his issue is with flow and if it's flowing electricity it's kilowatts not kilowatt hours is the way I read it I get you I could be wrong so we're going to leave it a kilowatt hour kwh can we make sure we're on the same page with this

page I'm messing with you I'm sorry well the consensus seems to be it should be kwh I mean Michael you know and I would agree that uh and we've already doing that so we if if the word flow bothers people change it to batteries I don't you know that'll that'll confuse everything so I don't know what a flow battery is you're saying it's a specific type of battery oh that's what saying would you up that way people can hear what you're saying I appreciate your your expertise I'm not sure if I have expertise turn it on oh hit the button please and wait just a second you have to hold it I it may be out of battery proba two we had three people talked a flow battery is a specific type of battery just like a lead battery or nickel battery it's a liquid based battery I got you so I think the flow is confusing you I got you okay so it's just the title for the battery just lithium it's a specific type of battery

that's based on liquids okay um which is why it's called flow but it you know solid state doesn't have liquid in it okay for example so I would I would suggest we're we've done what what the what Mr Sim we're good yeah I think we're all set on that uh and then 5.7.3 e what is an all weather surface I think you changed that language George to to reference the town Town standards okay so then the next one thank you John yes

um so then the next one is uh Rachel Walker yes Rachel Walker who works for looks to me like uh someone who might be work for affirm that it might be interested in doing that um doing this a project not necessarily the project so looking at her comments the first one is 5.7.2 applicability I think she's correct it says bylaw George that's been changed okay so that's already been changed the next one is uh fire department permits we don't issue that um and it says all permits required by state Clues

permit so so it would be more than just stay code which I had not noticed before yeah and I think what it looks me like her suggestion at the end of this is to rewrite this to read all permits required by state federal or excuse me federal state and local codes shall be required to drop out the including but not limited to I'm I'm okay I think I think good recommendation I think that is a good recommendation looking to my left everybody so we would change it yours to uh all permits required by federal state local codes yep good and then we're moving on to uh

5.7.4 um it talks about a special permit do we mean we're not talking about a conditional use permit cor or are we I guess if it's just Standalone best ordinance it could be a condition use permit so I'm talking about 5.7.4 permitting requirements for tier

one it would be conditional use it would be okay so if we could change special to conditional use that's actually 5.7.5 I'm sorry I read the wrong one what about site plan review it would just be a conditional use permit yeah in site site plan review as well but that's not really a permit yeah it says under that that they're subject to S revie yeah okay so then the next next uh is 5.7.5 E on setbacks um I think they are taking exception to the 100 ft uh setback uh my feeling is that it could be less than that in the Lincoln paper mill it could be less than that in Rumford sites but we're talking about putting these out in in for lack of a better term Virgin Territory and I don't think a 100 foot setback is is um it's different than the

uh industrial sites and all those other kinds of things and that's consistent with all other non-residential development endur good point is everybody in agreement we leave it at 100 ft the setback yes I am okay yeah uh she's asking for a 7t high chain link

with Barb Wire uh barb wire may be required by U utility um I don't see a problem with leaving it eight and if they need barb wire it becomes nine or whatever the width of the height of the barb wire is well if it was eight and seven and had the barb wire thats up to 8 ft it' be 8T I think what she's looking at is be more specific about the type of fencing to make sure it meets their security and safety requirements it's we say by a minimum so if they want to go seven plus barware it equals eight yeah but I think what she's looking at in terms of other potential companies coming in as well is that you want to make sure that they have adequate fencing in terms of chain link as opposed to you know some of the things we looked at for solar are not as as

we're stuck with chain link yeah is my concern you know so if we would if there was another option I don't know what it would be off the top see so remember back with solar you didn't want chain link yes for the Aesthetics here you may

need chain link and the board would probably accept chain link if it if it's in an area where you're not as concerned with the view impacts again these are going to be screened MH with vegetation was solar or as will be solar I think we can push back on this comment and say what we have is fine for now in other ordinances it's just 7 feet 8 feet whatever blank and then the developer comes in and proposes what you know and then we go from there yeah we don't preclude chain link in this one in solar we we prevented it or didn't allow it thoughts got Juliet's fence works for me okay yeah

yep next one I think is vegetated buffer uh the AR the discussion is uh it could be a fire hazard uh an old cake fence to screen um it is a pretty big buffer we are asking for quite a big buffer around where it's needed yeah visual impact analysis I did add that we talked about that so if they have a landscape architect that does a visual impact analysis of the site and they say this side on the road needs the foot buffer that side is all Woods does not need a buffer that side is power line does not need a buffer so the visual impact analysis will get into that as far as the safety and ter terms of fire hazard um you know there's going to be a 100 foot setback and as we discussed with the solar Farms within that you're going to have the 50ft buffer and then there's another 50 ft and then you get to the fence so there's and and the standard will require the 30 foot clearance from any types of any type of vegetation for

fire safety that's what she's talking about right but 50 ft isn't pushed up against it right where did where is that piece of it in it the space is there do we talk about the space between B the battery and FEG I think we do right I think so so I think that's what she's talking about it's just in a separate

that I am not uh prone to to reducing screening buffering other things again because of where it's located now if as George says there's it's in the middle of a 40 acre or bigger site and um you know there's plenty of natural vegetation around it um the problem you know is it's up against an agricultur field but somebody puts their house in there and I I'm a big fan of buyer beware uh you know that that that best system is there but I guess in an effort to

U uh protect the natural beauty or rural setting I'm not prone off the top of my head or this early to say we change minimum standards on so the standard for 30 ft you found it yeah I found it so it is in there okay super well well the 30 ft on each side be clear un of combustible Edge so that's what yep so they're going to have that's covered start at the road again assuming this is next to a road uh you have the the setback 100 feet within that you're can to have a 50ft buffer so there's 50 ft there to play with then they're going to have the fence and they and then the units are going to be inside that fence of distance to be accessible all the way around them so I don't think that's an issue no I don't think so either so John back to what you were just saying are you okay with what George is talking about regarding the buffer yeah yeah I I am and I think I guess it's too early to say about whether if they came in and

somebody said we don't need it here I may not agree with it but at this point the verbiage here is fine okay I think next is noise um and they are recommending uh an increase in the allowable noise um from 55 during the day and 45 at

night to um I think it's 80 uh and 45 um and I again I think the same thing we're putting this out in rural areas where there is not a lot of ambient noise and the you know the Sawmill that we approved couldn't exceed 55 at the property line yeah and that was with the generator right yes that was you know their noise level on that site canot exceed 55 and why would reduce our requirements for this yeah I mean I if that's a pro if that's a problem there are ways to mitigate noise for this and there's another aspect of this that I will now bring in the contract zoning because uh we heard from the town attorney that basic basically any standard in here can be adjusted through the contract zone so for that zone because it's in an area where sound is not as much of an issue you got gravel pits and other types of Sawmills right there or whatever it is uh the the contract Zone could specify a higher

noise level uh so that's one option just for that just for that one project in that one location under under those conditions uh but also there's there's sound attenuation it could be done walls for example like you see along the highway uh that cuts the noise so you could have sound attenuation and you can also have negotiation it's part of a contract Zone to deal with that noise if you issue if it's necessary to go above those levels yeah that's a good point that would again I would leave it the way it is now at at 50 because we other

other uses are required to meet that I think we've covered V I'm looking to see what their next uh um decommissioning decommissioning which is a good point so she's asking to be more specific on how much like the bond is for um typically what I've seen is that

it's there's an estimate provided within the decom plan yep to what it would cost to decommission the project and the basis for making that estimate that's correct and then usually a um escalator every year and that a bond is needed a ahead of signing the building per for that amount that's in the decom plan but I'm trying to see if there's I guess my question be we would that would be part of the discussion that we would have with you know I mean we would just say it's when you come in if it's a million bucks to decommission this in 20 years that's what we're going to expect yeah well what she's saying is she wants to see more details of what we would

expect so that they can plan I think we would leave that on the applicant to say how much would it cost for this to be commission right but we don't sorry sorry Brian no it's okay go ahead so we yes but what we're not saying here is we're not saying you know a bond required ahead of building permit per the decom estimate

provided in the decom plan we're not saying that we're just saying generally I think like in an amount to be termined by the town is what we say okay but I mean they would come in we would ask and I would think that would be something we would want to review so if they come in and say hey it's only $100,000 to haul this stuff away yeah oh yeah and we we would well that may set off alarms but we would also say hey you know what is it really you know we could say Okay prove it to us you know we want you know $10,000 to to determine that uh

and I'd like to wait for George to come back because there we've gone through a whole bunch of legal questions about Bond you know the language I think is fine which can May funder other Ser shy acceptable to the town and I think that's the language we've used for other um esos yeah like the solar I think that's close to probably close to line that we've used so that's my thought is you give us an estimate of what you think it's going to be and you know we'll we'll have somebody tell us whether that's good or not or we just go straight to to uh somebody who handles this business and we get an estimate from

Security shall be borne by the applicant Juliet are you concerned with the bond no okay no all right cool George we on the commissioning fund and uh two two things one is it maintain a fund or other sure to acceptable to the town and I know we've had this discussion multiple times like solar and other things what is acceptable we don't need to Define that here but that's is that's is this the same language we use in solar yeah and we've already kind of gone through that and then the other pieces of it they're asking for uh parameters and how that is done or how it is calculated and my thought would be you two things we either you pay us to hire somebody to tell us what that's going to be because we don't know or and how to how to calculate it and and or you give us something and we'll bounce that off somebody to see if it's an amount it's the correct amount is that yeah is that am I am I going the right

way folks is that yeah so I don't see any changes comment consider making a table or further clarify the timing for the materials listed um I guess the materials are required when they have apply right George and is there is there materials uh what she's saying is hey some of these things um are not available at with site plan approval yeah I think what she was referring to and I haven't had a chance yet to go through all of those comments getting everything else ready and dealing with the last two nights meetings uh so I will spend a little bit more time going through all of these uh beyond your comments uh but I think one of the issues that she was Raising on that point if I can remember was uh what was the what was the topic again that particular one well she says usually cannot provide spec sheet at time yeah the spec sheets what she's saying is uh they don't know exactly which units they're going to be using necessarily at

the time of either contract zoning or site plan review but I think in order to for you to verify that you're going to that uh they're going to meet all the safety codes you have to have that yeah so and then I would point out that if they come in with a proposed unit then they want to change it it's a pretty simple site site Amendment as long as the Alternatives meet those same codes there's no problem yes I think we're covered with that the way that it's written right now I think I tend to agree as I get I hear what you're saying but you know we we're talk if it's just this at this level we're talking a few months I mean what would normally take because and it may be six five months if they don't you know we'll get the contract zoning at some point in time but we move fairly quickly on site plan applications and the timing is if you get us this stuff we'll review it well I think it's more

the issue of they get their permits and then they're going to find somebody to build it they're the developer but they're going to take proposals from companies that are going to be submitting their their equipment and so they wouldn't necessarily have picked which company which equipment they're going to be using at the time they're applying for their building permit because they they don't have the permits yet so that I think is what they're trying to deal with and they want as as much flexibility as they can have but you have to make sure that these all meet the safety requirements so I think you got to have them and if they want to come in they could Pro propose to as part of their application well I think we've covered this so if you look at 57.6 a preliminary equipment specification sheet that preliminary that documents the proposed battery energy story system and then a final equipment specification sheet shall be

submitted prior to the issuance of a building permit right so basically if their batteries change uh between uh the site plan approval and the building permit they would just have to prove to the codes guy who would have them reviewed or however he wants to do it that that the final selection would be okay I mean I think we've already kind of done that what she's asking but yeah I'm going to put words in your mouth here sure I if you base the building permit based on a certain specification things change after the building permit process the subcontractor could propose a different system or piece of equipment that's differs from what was uh presented for the building permit and in the building permit process the contractor should be telling the CEO of

any changes through that process and I guess that's but if there so we'll get a we'll get specs for the site plan that will that will have reviewed or whatever then they're gonna come into the codes guy and say we're ready for the building permit at that point you're saying they have not finalized the battery type cuz they've got to you know the building permit is going to say the building's going to be so big and this is what all the layout may not be a building it may just be the unit spread over 5 Acres like WR no no building but they're going to have to have permited electrical permits whatever permit it is yeah that's change it so so this gentleman is not here tonight I'm going to call some people outd there's a public comment by a um Town resident who works for an electrical contractor let's say that electrical contractor bid and won the award to build this thing and in his contract he says it says that you should

under the owner's best interest provide us with um equipment that could help uh reduce the cost of the project and so they based their bill on the spec y But as time goes on whatever supply chain issues occur or better technology occurs and they say hey we can get you equipment B sooner than equipment a at a better cost in a in a better timeline that would change the spec that came upon the building

permit well I mean that's honestly on the developer I think I don't I don't know if we have anything in here that says if above and beyond minimum changes happen they're going to have to come back right I don't think they have to come back I just think C this this covers us I really do think this covers Us that that that under the building permitting process we would somebody would be notified of any change in Sp that's right and they would have to verify at that point that it still meets all the yeah we're saying the same thing here yeah yeah I think and we didn't make these up these are like set requirements for these types of projects across States like these aren't you know yeah yeah I think the only question is George if you had said there may not be a building permit because it's going to be multiple containers are we using the wrong term for should we not should we the codes guy is going to prove

something is that not a is it an electrical permit it's a structure right isn't all structures need building permits some of these are not struct structures I mean the I mean right but if they are a structure they're going to need yes but if they're not like again I keep bringing up Rumer Rumer is just like eight or 10 12 conics those are

structures right so why don't we just put building and other permits yeah that's fine yeah I don't know good question but I don't know because you don't go inside some of them uh so I think we've covered [Applause] her we don't agree with them but uh we we' discussed next one is 57.9 abandonments we talked about this a little bit we started that discussion your

she suggests 12 wants so I think our definition of Abandonment is what is might be concerning or not concerning but uh confusing we're saying abandoned as in it's not operating consistently right not like oh we had an off day here and there we're saying it's not running for like or they had to shut it down mon to replace all the batteries something that yeah and that they're not communicating right because I think didn't we talk about it they're communicating with us there's a weather issue something like that maybe we could it doesn't say that in here just but did we talk about that we discussed the definition of operation we did yes and and I think we agreed that uh

it is op you know it may not be storing energy but in my mind as we discussed last time if they're in the process of replacing batteries or if something is you know the ice storm of 98 and all the power lines are down and they can't operate they're there they're you know the is functioning they to me abandonment is at we're broke we're gone uh so if and I don't know if we need to Define that uh specifically but I I think um they're operating it they're guarding it the security is in place they're working on it uh or they're waiting for the power lines to be fixed whatever it may be plus what happens with abandonment is then decommissioning starts and so either the developer is going to do that themselves or if they default the town's going to do it and so the town's going to be contacting whoever owns the property to say it appears to us this is aand after 90 days with the town will say wait a minute that has thing hasn't been

operating for the last three months then they will contact the property owners to say we're going to invoke the decommissioning bond they come back and say no no no it's not abandoned we're doing whatever we're doing we're still here yeah if we agree that they are do it's automatic and all of a sudden it's all done right the town now Town Begins

the town begins a process in 90 after9 days and they can stop that by just saying no here's what we're doing yeah and the town agrees that that's okay I think what she's picking up on is that in other jurisdictions they do have a lot longer time frame than 90 days but

I mean honestly for something not to be operating if I owned an asset not operating for 90 days that's a long time well what's going on and if you don't have any atttention to to uh do that I mean I guess if the codes guy drives down the road and you know doesn't see anything going on or there's there's been no I mean first off I don't know if we know it's working or not I mean if it's a good system they don't know you know if it's a good system it we shouldn't know if we you know we shouldn't hear it we shouldn't see it uh but you'll notice that they're out there mowing the grass like they're supposed to yes if that exactly good point if if the tumble weeds are blowing through that Circle and fing the road we're in the wrong St we're assuming her definition is the same as ours um she might be thinking abandonment is similar to

decommission I I think there may be concerned with being no cited for a violation you know maybe we need a definition of Abandonment I don't to operate is you're there you're doing the things you need it may not be storing because of whatever reason power lines are down you know I have 98 all I wasn't here but all I do is remember my in-laws and and people up here complaining about it's been a long time and I still don't have power um I I'm not prone to change that I mean I think that um if you want to go something different I guess I one way or another I'm not going to lose six months uh a year I hate to just think that they have in fact truly abandoned it we one a year and you know then before we can start do

say we have yeah we're just Happ I mean PE businesses walk away from bonds you know because they don't want to screw with cleaning up environmental issues or whatever it may be and so I think sooner rather than later we need to move on from that so I guess I'm open to other thoughts but I I'm okay with 90

okay and I think 90 we leave that as is okay so now we've covered all the comments and so are there any other things that have not been commented on that we see in the uh in the thing that we would want to uh for me it's the big ticket items oh actually I did have one thing so well it might be big ticket discussing the tier one tier 2 tier three thing again the size um section

when uh we split out B section no not section b e uh 5 point uh 5.7 five 5 e 5.7.5 so we have a through whatever letter we go to in here we talk about we say the following requirements apply to all tier one tier two and tier three best except where it is specifically noted to apply to apply only to tier two and tier three best um I think the idea please let me know if I'm wrong is that almost all of these if not all of these are only for tier two and tier three if is that correct like are we requiring a 50t landscape strip for tier one

projects no okay so then G we need to say tier one and tier two I mean sorry tier two and tier three wait where are you I'm sorry I'm sorry G yeah specifically G we don't mention only tier 2 tier three um we don't mention only tier two tier three for um

there any of these letters that we would require tier one like would we want to deom fund for tier one projects I see so I I think what I'm hearing you say is we've already said tier one does not apply well tier one residential is not one residential well tier one still has to meet all of those safety codes yes but your question yes exactly one do they do they have to meet other stuff in here right and it specifically references only tier one and tier two for some of these things but not for all of them right tier two two tier twos and three tier twos and three certain things it says these all apply uh where it's specifically noted to apply app to only tier two and two three otherwise all of these apply to tier one is I think the way we should read this that's the way I read it um and also we said before that tier it says above that tier one except for residential as we discussed earlier is

subject to site plan review so but we're taking that out right didn't we decide to take that out we did take the yeah we were going to take the site plan review out and leave it us such provisions of the ordinance safety which is where we're going specifically safety tier one still has to follow safety and building permits and electrical permits well I also think that if it's if it's tier one non nonresidential then we'll catch it site plan because of just the regular conditional use in site plan review process I think I think you're right well how would we catch it if we say tier one is not we don't say tier one is probably going to be either within a commercial building like a room or something with a bunch of these or it's going to be I don't even I think even one of those containers would be a megawatt right those are typically a megawatt so it's not even going to be that so the question is should we go

down through these and I can do that before the next meeting and just look at and maybe we can just give get some guidance right now which of these should apply to something which one doesn't need to because we could add that same language for tier or separate them put everything that applies to all of them including tier one at the beginning and then the following should apply to tier two and tier three yeah exactly or if we decide there's none none that apply to tier one just strike that sentence and say the following requirements apply to only tier two and tier three yeah but I think things like the signage the safety signage on these units those probably would

how big is tier one what are we talking about when we say tier one again that's uh half over half a megawatt under under I'm sorry under a half a megawatt under a half a megawatt so 20 kilowatts no it's half 500 right yes but is it 20 kilowatt it well it's between the size limits in 572 and a half megawatt right because

we're saying if it's under 70 kilowatt for lead acid it's acceptable but if it's more than that but less than half a megawatt it's tier one do that right yes well I think that tier one would include battery like Assemblies of batteries that would be composite up to cuz that's how they're all made right yeah yeah yeah yeah I thousands of those individual batteries with those limitations that we talked about not to confuse the issue but in my mind it's we haven't really defined what a residential use is I mean maybe that's where we start is that you know going back to that is we had I whatever six

different types of batteries and one of the comments was for lithium 30 is too much excuse me not enough uh wait it should be great it should be greater than we should allow greater than 30 is what I'm saying here so if we can create a residential Thing by saying it's 60 kilow or whatever it may be or we stick with 30 but to me it's not real clear what if somebody has 60 kilow of lithium then they are a tier one system and they whatever rules we come

up with would tier one apply can we just say say residential what's wrong with that residential use we don't put a li I don't I don't I don't my question is is that okay like what is a house going to use 100 500 kilow for well that's they can't they can't they're not allowed to no I understand that but if if it's 70 the way this is written now if it's 70 kilow it's a because it's greater than 30 lithium yes it's greater than 30 and and I'm hearing that 30 is not enough because there could be 60 50 70 whatever so if

it's 60 or 40 then it becomes a tier one right but what I'm said exactly that's the problem but so why don't we just say residential use instead the problem with that could you have somebody who's going to do a residential is that open a door where somebody could put in a 100 they can and not follow any of the rules and and and sell it I guess if it's because you've got solar that's residential but you sell your excess so it's not being used for your house see what I'm saying I see like net and maybe that doesn't happen with batteries yeah so I I'm kind of okay with coming up with some and it could be a 100 or whatever it may be and I'm I think we should have a residential one so if I'm doing a residential system I look at this and I say okay mine's going to be under 60 or 100 I don't have to follow these

then then we get into that is there a number so on you know lead nickel lithium sodium well it looks like 70 is the highest there but why don't we just say 70 or 100 then if we have to put a number in is this from Carver mhm let let me Mike or somebody your expertise has been useful um what is a good number you you've got the batteries in your home I have I have one battery so I'd be Exempted yeah they're expensive yes well I get it but I don't know is 30 oh you I think you said 30 was too well I think the average if you look at average household use it's 30 KW as an average that's the average usage by a home and so if someone wants to be able to be off the grid for a couple of days they're going to need you know 60 Kow would provide you if there's no sun would provide you two days of power so it's not a ton and I think for consistency these should all be the same 70 and I mean yeah I mean I think 70 100

those are reasonable seem more reasonable to me I mean I mean that would if if you pick 70 that would be you know four batteries that's quite a bit Yeah I me they don't have to put that in but they could no but you would allow that I mean that's reasonable to me that we shouldn't discriminate against battery yeah I mean I you know I if you want to pick a safer number I don't know I don't know what the magic number is but somewhere between 70 and 100 I would think I agree I agree with that I also agree with why I I don't know why we need to list all these different types yeah it's confusing and I think I can't really see the rational why you would why sodium Which is less flammable than lithium would have a lower threshold it doesn't make any sense to me and you know solid state batteries are safer still but they would fall under the other battery technologies confusing smaller 10 how about if we just

go uh subject to this orance are only those that exceed the following capacity 70 kilowatt hours we eliminate the whatever five or six optional things there I think that'd be simpler and probably more reasonable from my perspective dots planning board I'm okay with 70 I'm okay with 100 too but I mean I guess what happens if someone wants to put in six batteries to their house then what I mean just hypothetically well at some point time we have to draw a line I mean if well if six batteries is 100 kilowatt they can't they have to go through the tier one process yeah at the way the way I just proposed okay okay so I mean okay well I mean we have there's there's got to be a line or something because what happens somebody wants to put in 40 want to fill their basement you know and store it's true it's true I think if you put in 70 that'll that'll take care of 99% of applicants okay George do we have any rationale

behind why CRA came up with these numbers as I said I think it's probably due to the relative fire hazard of these different Technologies okay it doesn't make sense though why but I don't think we want to limit homeowners like you were saying with like certain battery I don't know I don't think this is intended to limit homeowners I think it's intended to limit battery storage projects well I agree it's just that right now to in my reading of this there is uh it does limit them because it doesn't nowhere do we call out residential no I understand that yeah yeah I I get the intent so if if we go with 70 then is is there you know for the homeowner is that way letting them do something

building in a flood zone yeah you know some of it's got to be on them but it's also the First Responders that have to come into it yeah but did the fire chief have anything to say on this piece no here's Here's my thought is we go at 70 just my proposal we eliminate all of the six battery options um and we just say that exceed the 70

kilowatt have Chief take a look at it and see if you know we'll put it back out there and so other people who are involved in this uh you know I know the chairman of the pl Fleck board you know we get there to say you know you better tell us by the first month day or first Wednesday of whatever we're sticking with 70 so Chief comes back and says n sodium is extremely dangerous which I'm not what I'm hearing I mean what I'm hearing is it that it's less environment but anyway we go with 70 if he comes back and then when we final review this we come up with different ones I agree I like that I'll second that well we're not voting yet but so we would make that change that vote is probably coming next meeting is that everybody okay with that and then does you keep the um last sentence here under six b b to read it but other Battery Technology you keep that which wait say say that but the best that do not exceed

the thresholds which be 70 kilowatt are not do not are not are permitted by right so what we're saying is if it's less than 70 we have to call it residential they don't have to go through the rest of the state the things in the ordinance but if somebody comes in with $ 499 that's a tier one and then get go back to where we I interrupted we would decide what applies to the 499 yep do we

do we have to bring the word residence into I'm in my opinion but I I'm looking guess if we're putting if we're putting a number I guess not I was just thinking of the use you know that's what we're I guess you know if get and go wants to since it's one of our few businesses but if get-go or The Sawmill or whatever other bus you know an automo Jonathan's Automotive want to put a they want to put 60 kilow in um

it's not necessarily but we don't we don't necessarily require them to meet all the site plan stuff they want put $4.99 yeah so you want me to lump them all together Battery Tech technology is greater than 70 Kow hours yeah I would say only those that exceed the yep the 70 Kow and leave as somebody said that best does not exceed is not great so I think the only other thing that we have maybe might need to do is go again through the a through whatever and talk about tier one tier two tier you want me to take a crack at that sure just kind of look at it for the next time M the only thing I would say is please get it to us soon enough because we have a timing issue and getting it back to the you know getting it finalized and we're running out of meeting opportunities is my concern so whatever we look at in February we're going to have to come up with a a final you know a final draft to send to the select

board and send us back on so that George I'm fine with that you do a great job of that I would just say that we need to be prepared to look at come into that meeting prepared to say you know George made these changes are we good with them

minutes just why I apologize that's no problem that's that is fine um is there any other things that are that we need to change that you as you've gone through this is there anything else that um uh locations of the batteries is that where you were going for it no okay um

you not not looking at CZ but um where were we saying that these are allowed everywhere except currently without contract zoning they're allowed everywhere yeah okay so do we don't want them everywhere do we that's what contract zoning is about right but can we not add some of that into this or no no doesn't the comp plan cover that no no I mean that came up specific that no yeah that was a question they asked last night wasn't on the radar screen 2018 right yeah so well that was asked to the attorney last night and she said no you cannot without contract zoning you cannot restrict them as our that's because currently the definition of uh of these Falls within essential Services which are that's why which are permitted everywhere okay except Shoreland zoning and uh resource protection where they are conditional use okay remember the power line they had to for those parts they had to get conditional use got it

okay thank you yeah that's all I have okay anybody else is there anything that we need to that hasn't been covered part of the comments from others or I just want to touch on one thing that was brought up from a public uh comment um I think under General requirements 5.7.3 um I think that's where this might apply that we ask that the applicant proves that it complies with means um an

act relating to energy store it's a 90 page document oh no I mean where is 5.7.3 General requirement yeah we don't specifically say that here but I think I think it's important that we do specifically say that because it was an act that the governor um enacted um are you are you

referencing what the what John sent over so that was um I don't think it's it's sealed yet I think it's still a work in progress yeah I don't think I didn't take anything he sent as you know all that was this is what we'd like to do this is what we recommend but maybe I missed something in that discussion I did a quick summary of that the whole report and what it boiled down to is that really those are the goals the recommendations goals yeah exactly and as part of that then they're going to try to work out model ordinances to have local communities allow it Y and I think John mentioned that I think he said it might be too early at this stage to to reference that motion okay we could in the future possibly yeah but I anticipate the pushes to get this in yeah and so they're going to be coming at it from the standpoint of we want these allowed they're not going to be looking at it like the priority is

protecting your local community is there a way to be proactive about that prer going and try to adopt these regulations yeah I mean be proactive with the act that might be forthcoming but the ACT again the ACT is to get up to was it 200 megawatts with it by 2030 and then adopt model ordinances to give to the community so that they will be as good with having that in their communities we're ahead of that curve quite a bit and I think this gets us unlike the

affordable housing we were behind the the whole state was behind the power curve on that one this we will have something if they do mandate something we can take a look at at this and say yeah we're in compliance or we may have to make changes yeah either because they come up with something better that's more protective or they say you cannot do this requirements yeah like they did with the affordable housing so and actually if we go through CZ can we bring that back or no I can't remember if we vote for storage to just be a contract zoning MH and then in the future we want to like make it an ordinance instead can we do that well it is an ordinance here right the standards this are we um the St um how do I say this yes the standards are but the only way right now to to go through would be through contract Zoning for tier two basically tier tier two and three right could we bring that back and

say actually you know what we we want this to be an ordinance and you can just go through site plan review instead yeah oh eliminate contract elate elimate you may be required by the state at some point in yeah okay in the future we could change that I don't think so but yeah right right and and I would not be in a hurry to do that because the only for two reasons one is the only tool we have to control where it go could have I mean if everything contract zoning gets approved this gets approved the contract zoning gives us the ability to say no to that site uh which we don't have now and then the other thing is it gives us the ability to require stuff you know the special fire truck the you know the example somebody gave was whatever town that he lived in made them build to provide an extra long big fire truck so that they can reach the top of the paper mill is it example so is there something that's

going to spray chemicals that we don't have and not just for best but for other you know I guess we're talking best so I don't again that's down the road but I certainly wouldn't recommend yeah I was question okay okay one last comment sure um is there any um how do people think about eliminating tier three altoe

megawatt comply with the comprehensive plan um how do you all feel about just eliminating tier 3es all together what do we say in the comp plan about it you're saying don't allow them what do we say in the comp as opposed to allowing them by contract own no no I'm I'm saying only allow tier one and two

never allow even for contract zoning so what you're saying is we would never do anything greater than one megawatt yeah that's tier two and and it's getting back to maintaining moral character I could probably site several items in the in the um comp plan um but just throwing it out there only allowing tier one and tier two in town I will just say that I will I I don't think that's a good idea okay yeah yeah I would tend to agree I mean I think if we're going down the battery storage route uh one megawatt isn't a lot quite truthfully uh and you all know my previous feelings about uh uh battery storage but I I think that you're not getting we're not going to get much doesn't it's too small I guess it's one megawatt is what I'm saying and it'll only be allowed by contract zone so they so so you will be looking at I don't want to talk about contract zoning right now best so no but that's part of it because if they do these as a

contract Zone can only do it as a contract Zone you the planning board will be reviewing that proposal against the comprehens of plan but I think Brian be able to bring up that issue of Royal character and next to the power line versus in a farm field you'll be able to hit them with a of character but yeah but it just gives us more about yeah but and I think but to Brian's point is that we've talked about it is we have we're we can't assume the contract zoning will pass correct so you know we have to have something but they're permitted use right now yes and so if it doesn't the town meeting says Nope we don't want contract zoning um then they in this passes if if

neither pass it's kind of Katy bador then they're then they're home free to just come to but changing at this point I I wouldn't favor to something less than that Mr dur if you get were me um but that's not the track that select for done yeah so I don't know if we would get through them changing it as well so I my thought is we leave it we leave it at tier three leave tier three in there excuse me and if you have enough argument about it not wanting it because it doesn't comply with the comprehensive time then presenting it to the town's people more than likely would voted down

that's my opinion and my challenge has always been with preserving the real character right is why is this doesn't work but a sawmill does or or other kinds of things I mean you got it's IM balance between preserving the Ral character and trying to do something on the tax side and Commercial side and economic economics I guess the highest priority to town so I guess the question is is there anything else that that's one is there any other comments about uh that was in here that we want to change and George do you have you are you comfortable that you know everything so that you can get it back to us and we can come in and we'll talk about that schedule here shortly but come in at the next meeting and take this to a vote you so and I'm kind of looking at everybody else so my only other thing and I mentioned this last week um the

5.75 I the noise and this could just be my misinterpretation but the the way I read it is that it allows an increase in ambient noise a good point by 55 DB not a limit of ambient noise to 55 thank you so we we would limiting any

increase to be you know to be we say it has to meet the standard but then we say but the limit we can increase it to an additional 55 so it' be 110 but isn't that in our land use ordinance this is right from our land use ordinance so we'd have to change that no it's written different ly um so it I have it pulled up noise limits 5.19 um says the maximum permissible sound pressure level uh of any continuous regular or frequent or intermittent source of sound produced by any activity shall be limited by blah blah blah and L 55 and 45 but the way I read this is it says an increase in Avi strike out any increase in in that sentence and I think it works yes yes that's we don't want to we don't want to come in and say hey it's 55 and we can take it to 110 or there one of the requests I think it Lees wiggle room for interpretation good good reminder anything else because what we want to do is give George the

opportunity in the next two weeks or whatever to uh clean this up and and present something that we can vote on to send to the select Bo get you marching you're good to go yep so let's talk a little bit about schedule then um coming up and what's what's in front of us so uh the March I'm not sure I S I turned my phone off but what's the first Wednesday in March anybody know oh excuse me February February February I think it's the fth February 5th yeah February 5th so at the February 5th meeting here's what I think we will have to do we have um have a

submission from Deer Creek to change two things in their existing Ordinance one is the the what we approved were um use of sprinklers instead of a fire Pond they've come back in and said we'd like to use a we'd like to go back to fire ponds or allow fire ponds not exactly want please well there are two issues number one you you gave them a conditional agreement so they didn't have to put up a performance guarantee for that 600,000 plus infrastructure uh and the the condition said you cannot get any sell any Lots or get any building permits until the uh infrastructure is all completed they're about 90% 95% done so they want to remove the Restriction so the process for doing that is they come in and they had to get an amendment to their plan to remove that note from the plan that restricts the lot sales and building permits until the infrastructure is complete they put up a performance guarantee for the remaining amount which

is about 72,000 and then they're free to start building houses so that's what they're coming in for that's one of the issues well the oh yeah sorry the other issue is oversight of the consultant uh they they went to the fire Pond the originally proposing sprinklers without a fire Pond and we brought up the issue that you can't do that under the or ordinance uh and so then they said okay well we'll put in the fire Pond but we'll take out the sprinklers and they intended to do that but they left the note on the plan so now they have to do both the pond and the sprinklers which was never their intend and wasn't really what the board was so they're going to come in and amend one of the plans to take that errant note off so they don't have to do sprinklers so it's was kind of administrative I guess and chief has confirmed worked with them and with George he still needs to do the pump test on fitting so he's they're almost

there well I think we need that done before we we you know so they're still not quite finished I guess so those are the two things that we have for Deer Creek I don't see them as being if they get the pump test done I don't see them as being long long discussions you know

obviously we've got to uh they have to show us at hey 72,000 Works here's the engineer's estimate and so on and so forth but that is something and and we're going to have to take time to to review those two things and approve them so Deer Creek is one and that would probably be first thing on the agenda the second thing on the agenda um would be battery energy storage this our our you know the final draft that George is going to clean up for so we do we really do and you guys do a great job so I don't want to say quit slacking and make sure it's done but we do need to come into that meeting and say yes what's in front of us is good to go send it to the select board we've already done that with resource protection the third thing is as George was mentioning we don't have a lot of time but last night and if you have not had a chance to watch it please watch the select board discussion on contract zoning so

the attorney did I think probably a little more in depth presentation to them particularly as the chair person was asking a lot of questions so there was a lot and then they went through uh paragraph by paragraph to say this is what it means they then turned around and said and I thought they were going to take this to to public hearing level they then turned around and said okay now the now the planning board is going to pick it up right so that what that means is we have to have in my opinion we have to have like we did tonight a public information piece to that would be in the March 5th meeting we would you know so that the public can comment on it they're not going to get a lot of the February February February damn it February 5th meeting so if I talk about the next meeting is February 5th but the February 5th meeting we'd have a public then we do like we did today we would put something together that could go back to

the select board and say this is what we recommend you put on the warrant so that's kind of you know there's best there's contract zoning so then the next thing is George could you tell tell us where we are and the expectation on the historical you don't need to go into what the changes are but what's happening with that because this is a potentially fourth thing we have to accomplish okay so going back I've been working on that for three years now and I had made recommendations provided a report that basically call for an overhaul of the uh historic preservation regulations of Durham which are really geared toward communities like topsum and casine which have historic districts Durham doesn't really have anything that qualifies as as a historic district not enough buildings in the compact area and so I had made a series of recommendations the the uh the historic district commission wanted to take a

different approach and we wanted to just refine some of the language to clear it up uh basically maintain the same system and so the select board back in uh November December ask the town attorney to look at the two proposals and then make her recommendation she has now done an analysis and determine that the current system does not comply with state law or federal law and needs to be changed and so she has come up with a series of recommendations she's going to be presenting a draft of her ordinance changes to the select board on January 28th and so as I explained to John earlier tonight um basically the select board has taken on the contract zoning and historic preservation regulation changes yeah now I'm going to come on board and say they've taken on part of it and they're because my initial thought was and the way we discussed it was they were going to do it all and they would give us the what was going to

go before that they're taking on the initial piece as they've done with contract zoning but then we pick it up and we have I had not planned on us doing public hearing or public information meeting and really do doing that kind of stuff so I will say yes they've taken it on that's where that's where I'm going okay go ahead so so the select board has taken the lead and they've had their all their meetings publicized and everything so my my take on the situation is the select board is simply passing on the um contract zoning

and the historic preservation once they finalize it with the attorney's recommendations they will then pass it on to you to do the formal public hearing not to go through a public participation process there's no time for public participation process so as I said you did your public participation process on best it was very extensive similar to what we've always done but on these two issues because of the moratorium there hasn't really been the time to do what we always do spend a whole year on something like this so they want to get those two pieces ready for the April town meeting so I don't think you should feel like like you need to do a public participation process on either of these and I don't think they're expecting you to do that I would like to clarify that cuz you know that's I took away something different listening to it on TV and and maybe when they talked about public meeting I took

as information they you know for instance what they're giving us on on contract zoning is what you know it's not the actual warrant which we get for the formal public hearing we we would get you know the because we went through this at the special town meeting what they gave was confusing to people and so what we're going to hold at the public hearing yeah so what I suggest you do is get in touch with Joe Roy and ask for ask for clarification of what they expectation of do I think the intent is what I just described you may be thinking no they're expecting you to now start a whole process I don't think that's the case and I don't yeah I want I want to be clear that not start from scratch as we did with best but my question is you've never really had public input on either one of these in the way that you do it the yeah as they're doing it so um in the last so the question would

be we'll take a contract zoning do you should we hold a public information meeting where people can comment on it and however we do it it's it's scrunched down a lot but I am concerned that you you present something that the town has had no input on um and they haven't uh if if we say okay look it you know we're just going to schedule a public hearing on that you know that is could lead to uh issues I remember when I first my first public meeting yeah we we W scrunched uh was it

backlots or something where they had a public hearing no previous input whatever and went to the town and and crashed and burned and it wasn't necessarily bad what they did I think the town just said first we're hearing of it you know or I guess it was a form there wasn't enough transparency yes and so if that's what they're going to tell us that and I'll talk to Joe I'm not saying that's what they are but my recommendation to him will be like it or not I think you need to have the opportunity for public input on on contracts on because that's a that's a new alien and I don't mean that in a bad way but the vast majority of the town has no idea what that is um so you know

we have that public information meeting a little quick presentation uh for it and then we basically at that one I think we can say hey we're okay with what they provided us for contracts they'd be in the select board yep and you know there's there's a good idea that comes out I think Julia gave you out those copies of this she did okay so please please look at that and I'll ask him or Joe do you just want to take that us to take that and go straight to a public hearing yeah public me yeah public hearing a formal public so but then the same thing is um with historic district right you know and I think as much transparency as we can get on both of these is necessary yeah so

but if if they do if they come to a hey planning board take this on the 28th of January which they may that means we have to look at it in the on February February 5th so that we can then and we'll have to schedule P formal public hearings on resource protection battery energy storage contract zoning in historic district so sometime in the month of March we have four four formal public hearings or have one public yeah I mean we have to but it's yeah okay okay we're done with uh RP so can we knock it out in one meeting or two that's that'll be challenging uh to do that there particularly there's a lot of discussion about any of those what I think you could do is is schedule one but give enough time that if you need to continue it because there's so much public input coming in you could then continue it to the following week yes I mean we can always count on conservation coming in and coming up with good ideas but the

but again at that point you can't make changes yeah at the public hearing yes in March you cannot make public we cannot make changes but if you remember even last year with solar it was a probably an hour plus because a lot of people still wanted to make com we still have to let them make cont yes yes and if you need to you can continue we we so I guess my point is we're probably going to have four topics that are going to have to we're going to require a public hearing and that has to happen between I

don't know was no more than 30 and no less than seven so basically the month of March um and I don't know if our March 5th meeting Falls in that window because I can't don't know what the April town meeting is point is so that that's what we're next meeting we're going to do Deer Creek we're going to vote on uh on B we're going to do something based upon what I the discussion I have with Joe um and then

uh on on our uh contract zoning and then whatever they give us and we won't get the historic district till the 29th of January so it's only a few working days before the 5th of February no April 5th is the time meeting and April 5th is the is the time is that the time meeting yep so like is the 5ifth of March should work 30 days within 30 days 31 days oh was it 31 one nice thanks March has 31

days yeah don't ask me because I can't remember what month we're going into meeting in March you may have applications Comm to do well that's the other piece of so the second Monday in uh in February second Wednesday and if you need to continue March then you you need to you could go another way yeah I think that's so we probably need to take a look at on March 5th February 5th what

days work in March for us y for a public a public hearing hearings so 12th 19th you know 12th is the primary we didn't finish we'll go on the 19th so that's I guess those are the kinds of things we need to be prepared for at the next meeting I appreciate you bringing up the um historic district stuff um because I was on my list of things but I don't want to be SC Chen for time you know I know that we it was you know something we were you know tasked to do but we've been we haven't I haven't seen anything yeah that's yeah I know there have been been drafts and dra no I think that's going to I I think but basically contracts owning is one thing in terms of you know do we have some public input and then say this is what select board this is what we recommended the because I think they need to Prov provided to us in a in war at language um that's contract zoning but

you're right I mean I think based on getting it on the 29th of January the best we're going to accomplish on the 5th of February is we're going to have a a public hear uh I guess we can we can put out information on it and this is what this is what the select board gave us folks so if you want to you're going to take public comment on contract zoning right yes you can also take comment on historic at that I think that's what I'm saying is that we would have to and then we'd have to but I think a discussion about rewriting either one of them quite truthfully we're probably not going to get there so whatever they give us for um historic district or contract what you will do for both any public input you take on February 5th on historic and any comments that you have can be communicated to the S board and they finalize it anyway and they are they are generally at those meetings and I will recommend to Joe that they uh and I

they're working hard I'm not this isn't a slam again but the thing is they're in budget now yeah it's a challenge yeah so which is I think part of the reason why they passed this off on to you yeah can we get any kind of summary of where we are yeah well those aren't the same day yeah no sorry I just had all public meetings the select board has been dealing with historic district on my calendar any is is contracts only Sol too yes I think that into the sense that

um we haven't really talked about there is a table of use out there on which things will require uh no but I I wonder what the threshold is and that that's well that's part of the it is part of the discussion we need to have when we get contracts only because what should be the solar threshold what it does do is for um and I know it's getting late so but what it does do is it gives conservation been working on where should solar go what contract zoning will say this is where we don't want it to go right no it be it's a it's a really I think a useful asset but I think the devil's in you know how big a

solar well I think people need to come on the 5th of February and say all right yeah it should be you know the public comment piece it should be and Juliet I think brought that up last night but it should be 10 10 acres 20 acres or one

acre whatever the the I think right now we're using mehz Mega s thank you so yes so is that what do we want to have for I mean my when I think of the acreage size 20 acres that's what I my parcel that could be that's big to me it is but but most commercial solar Farms are that's small that's the minimum that's that's where they start yeah they go from 20 up to 100 and so if you use contract zoning you could you could put in extra buffering and some other stuff what I think it prevents is the issued green had where they came in and said you see these 600 acres that we want that to be solar Farms the town could easily say we're not may or may not but we're not going to go with 600 acres yeah Taxas millions of dollars which depreciates I mean there's one in Farmington that's 500 and they said over the lifetime there's going to be 17 million they are potential so I do need I'm sorry we I do need uh a motion

to close some move seconded second raise your hand unanimous michae we should have let you vot and closing get out thank you for your input sure I'll be there in AIT please anything this no it's just for review I will not be here on February 5th

somewhere