[Music] Good evening everyone. Today is April 17th, 2025. The time is 6:04 and this is
the Aushna Planning Board. This meeting is being recorded for future viewing on the town's uh YouTube page. We are live via Teams and we're probably on the cable channel sometime. Uh can I get a
motion to open the planning board meeting? Motion to open the public meeting. Second. All in favor? I. Uh can everybody introduce themselves? Victoria Alaro, town planner. Steve Bush, member. Mark Francois, chairman. Brian Damps,
member. Rick Ellis, vice chairman. All right, gentlemen. Uh, Victoria sent out the meeting minutes to April 3rd. Uh, Peter, you were not here. Uh, not Peter, sorry, Brian, you were not
here. Um, it was a long meeting. Uh, Victoria definitely had an extensive meeting minutes here. Yep. Sorry guys. Uh, I did read through it. I did read through it. It all looks
pretty good. I don't know if anybody has any questions, comments, concerns. The the only thing that I would add is I on my for it's really not going to make much of any difference but on my form a plan I would note that I stepped away
from the board and retreated to the audience. I did put that I didn't I'm trying to get through the whole thing. As long as it says that that's fine. Rick Ellis recused himself and sat in the audience. Is that okay? Yep. Yep. That's just fine. That's just fine. Oh,
okay. I didn't I did not read the italics underneath. Oh, that's okay. But if you want it worded a different No, no, no. That's that says Rick Ellis recused himself. That's fine. I'll make a motion to approve the
minutes from April 3rd, second 25. We got a motion. We got a second. All in favor? I I Okay. Public hearing. Site plan review and special
permit for 211 middle road map 23 lot 29 29A 29B applicant is Rewild Renewables LLC. The representative is Bails and Thomas Inc. The scope of the work is a proposed
6 megawatt solar photovaltta development. The um applicant has requested that we continue the meeting to the next planning board meeting. They have
requested more time uh to make the changes that the um GAF peer review uh has gone over. Now their GAF review is not complete. Um, can I get a motion to continue the
public hearing to uh April 17th at 6 PM, please? Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody got the wrong That's something I would do. Mark, I'm just reading. Uh, motion to continue the
public hearing to May 1st. So, uh, got a motion. All in favor? I a second. All in favor? I seconded it. Who seconded it? Okay. Okay. So, now I actually need
uh proposed amendment for article 8 uh uh accessory apartments. Can I get a motion to open the public hearing? Motion to open the public hearing. Second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay.
So, first, uh, I'm going to read the notice of a public hearing. In accordance with the Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 48, section 5, you are hereby notified of a public hearing. The Kushner Planning Board will be
holding a hearing on Thursday, April 17th, 2025 at 6 p.m. to consider three proposed amendments to the town of Aussen's general bylaw article 8 zoning which was submitted for the 2025 annual
town meeting warrant. The proposed amendments are summarized as follows. Number one, to remove all references to auxiliary accessory apartments, references to accessory
apartments. Two, amend section 8 large scale ground mounted so solar photovalttaic installation. And three, amend the town of Aushnik zoning map. This meeting will be held hybrid at the
border selection meeting room town hall 122 Main Street at Christian Mass 2043 and over teams. The text of these proposed amendments may be viewed at the office of the town clerk in the planning board
office at a Kushner parting ways building 130 Main Street uh during normal business hours. The legal notice is also available on www.mmasspublicnotices.org. All persons, parties and corporations interested therein may appear and be heard in
relation there too. All right. [Music] Um, so basically the article is to see if the town will vote to amend the town of Ausha's general bylaw article 8 zoning
to remove all references to accessory apartments. The text of which is on file in the office of Tom Clerk and the planning board at the parting ways building 130 Main Street in Kushner. Um the explanation of the article this
is to remove all references to accessory apartments as it is non-compliant with Mass General law chapter 48 section 1A and section 3 which allows for accessory dwelling units by right. The new law
takes precedence over any non-compliant local bylaws. Um, well, we're here. Um, we don't we didn't have very many people show up for the public hearing, so I don't there
might be nobody on teams either. Uh, so basically how I read it, um, the state put out new, um, guidelines for, uh, accessory dwelling units, and we have to go by what the state has put out. So,
we're basically just deleting everything that we have in our bylaw so it conforms with the state's bylaw. Gentlemen, does anybody have anything to say regarding accessory apartments? I mean, know to me it makes perfect sense instead of having two
different documents that talk about the same thing. That's just going to add to confusion or when people want to do something with it. So just this state bylaw and that's that's what you got to comply with. Yep.
That way too by by just eliminating it. If the state makes some other change, you know, 6 months from now to it, it we won't have to change the biology. Yeah, we just go by what I think it I think it makes sense to do it this way. And I I mean it's it's relatively new, so we're
basically going to go with what the state does for the next, you know, 6 months or so. It's a good possibility that we might tweak it and add our own come the fall meeting. Y um but that's something that we'll discuss down the
line and see if the if the state makes any changes and to see if we decide to uh make any changes uh for our own town definitely I think it's a I mean most of most of the engineers the option to do it you know whatever officers we got we
we have to hold a public hearing come up with language and all and and all that kind of stuff most of the engineers and surveyors are aware of this at this point anyway. So, okay. Uh motion to close the public hearing
and recommend approval at the annual town meeting. So moved. So moved. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? I I. So we closed that hearing. We uh voted
unanimously. So now this is going to go Does this go to the select board or this go straight to correct? I will send a memo to the select board with the um approved language as well for them to include in the warranty. Gotcha.
Okay, moving on. Next one. Proposed amendment for article 8, the zoning map. Motion to open a public hearing. Motion to open public hearing. Second. All in favor? I. Uh, can I get a vote to wave
the reading of the warrant that I just read? I don't feel like reading it again. Motion to wave the reading of the warrant. Thank you very much. All in favor? I. Thank you.
Uh, all right. So, I will read this. Um, this article is to see if the town will vote to amend the town of Aushnik zoning map in accordance with a list of changes on file at the clerk's Tom Clerk's office at the parting ways
building 130 Main Street uh or take any action relative there too. Explanation of the article. This is to reflect zoning changes that have been approved at past town meetings that were never put on the current zoning
map. Um, Victoria was good enough to put it up on the team's uh screen. the adding of flood plane overlay um districts as approved in article 16
at the town meeting warrant on May 10th, 2021, which is everything that you see in purple um is the flood plane that was added and the reasonzoning map of map 15 lots
482 and 534 from the residential a district to the residential village district as approved in article 13 of the town meeting warrant for article 17 2022 that was the one on um Bradford
Street Ratford Street that we approved uh the changing of the zoning. So basically way down in the bottom the orange where Victoria has her cursor over there the orange kind of got lifted up to cover Bradford Street where um Oh,
there we go. All right. Show zooming in on it. Sorry, it's a large file. Just got to think a little bit. Just got to think. So, basically, it just fills that in. And uh if I'm not mistaken, did they put the I mean, this is basically
just a clerical thing. I mean, the the map the zoning the zoning changes have already been made. It just doesn't show up on the map yet. Correct. Correct. Correct. And this is just and and the same thing with the flood plane. I mean, we if to get qualified for flood
insurance, you've got to adopt the FEMA flood maps and this is their current flood map. So, again, it's almost a clerical thing more. Exactly. Yep. And didn't did we have the uh street names on the last one or is that
something that they added cuz I see the street names? I asked to have a few more major roads put on there. Yeah, but that's not a change that needs to be approved. Okay. It's not. So that is that. Uh again, there's nobody here in the audience. There's
nobody out on Zoom to discuss. If anybody else has any questions, comments, concerns, I would make a motion that we uh approve the proposed amendment to the zoning map. We as as shown in in the documentation,
we have first we have to uh close the public hearing, correct? Yeah, we're going to want to close it and then recommend it for cuz we technically can't. Okay. So, uh a motion to close the public hearing and recommend approval at uh
I'll do it. We can do it as two. I mean a motion to close the public hearing. Got a motion to close the public hearing. Can I get a second? Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Motion public hearing's been closed. And now, can I get a recommended of approval uh at the
annual town meeting? Make a motion. We approve. Oh, we recommend approval of the zoning map changes at the next town meeting. Seconded. All in favor? I. I. Thank you very much. All right. One more time.
Uh proposed amendment article 8 large scale ground mounted solar photovoltaic installation. I get a motion to open the public hearing. Motion to open the public hearing. Motion get a second. Second. All in favor? I. Uh can we get a
motion so I can wave reading the warrant again? A motion to wave the readings of the public hearing notice. Thank you very much. Second. Oh, thank you. Second. All in favor? Thank you very much. I was jumping the gun. Um,
all right. Let me read this one. Kind of gives you an idea of what we're doing here. Uh, to see if the town will vote to amend the town of Aush's general bylaws article 8 zoning zoning section 8 largecale groundmounted so solar
photovalttaic installation. The text of which is on file at the office of town clerks and the planning board at parting ways 130 main street at cushion and mass will take any action relative there too. The explanation of this article this was
proposed amendment is to provide further clarification in certain sections of the bylaw in relation to setbacks and security fences. So, uh, Victoria has, um, attached
the bylaw with the readouts and the changes. Uh, we have gone over this um, extensively here. We've gone over each pretty much each write out that at that last meeting. Uh,
Victoria, she did send this to all the other uh boards uh board of health, conservation, everybody got a copy of this and we got a request to continue this public hearing by conservation
because they're going to bring it up at give it to their board members, discuss it at their next meeting, see if anybody has any, you know, questions, comments, concerns, anything they would think we should add or remove. And then uh we'll get their input and then at the next
meeting we'll open the public hearing again and close it out if there's nothing else that needs to be or we'll review whatever they comment on. But have you gentlemen had uh a chance
to look at it? Is there any questions? The bigger one is uh if you look right on page one and you go down to the third um paragraph, it it says right there, within all zoning districts, the solar
panels and supporting structures of large scale solar installation shall be shall not be permitted within 300 ft um of away of away. So that's one of the biggest ones. We didn't have anything on there that kind of gave us guidelines of
what we're going off of. And we're going off of the solar panels or any supporting structures. Um, [Music] I mean, we went over all these. We really did. at the last meeting. Um,
most of it just eliminates redundancy and clarifies a couple of things. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a couple of, you know, just, you know, clarifications on wording. Yeah.
Um, well, I would make a motion that we continue our public hearing to May 1st as requested by conservation. Absolutely. I have a motion. You got a second. All in favor? I. All right. So,
this one's been continued to May 1st. Uh, well, that was an easy one. Anybody? Anybody in the audience want to say anything? No. Okay. Anybody out on teams? No. Okay. Um, thanks for your
participation. Gentlemen, do you expect to bring up anything else? Nothing else has come in. Our next meeting is uh May 1st. Um, I'd like to just put on the record that um, 211 Middle Road Solar is
being um, continued to May 1st. I would recommend that if you wish to come, call the planning board office the day before to make sure that they haven't asked for a continuence again, which is possible
that they might. They have that right. Um, so instead of coming down here and being disappointed or upset that they're being continued, please just call ahead in advance.
We have Did we get a motion to I mean technically it's not continued anyway until we vote on it. You know, I mean, you know what I mean? So I mean the the way the state law works is you say at this meeting when the next one is
continued to and it it can be continued and continued and continued you know for for quite a while. I mean it uh but we did you can't we can't necessarily expect people to get uh a week or two's notice uh every time you know the
proponent at the last minute wants to uh continue it because they need to respond to questions or change the plan or whatever. I um I know it's it's inconvenient but that's the way the process works.
We also um after the third continuence, we requested that the proponents send out another reminder via mail and they did that for everybody. They they're not required to. We asked them to and they did. So that was for the last meeting.
Unfortunately, they're just not ready. Um and um and you know what? If they request another, this is their first continuance after the notification. If they ask for two more, I'll ask for them to send out another mailer to remind
people of u of their next meeting. Can I get a motion? I make a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? All right. [Music]
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