And Mandy, I think you're handling the election of chairman. >> I am. Just trying to find the rule that I get to do this on. There we go. Um, we ready? >> Yes. >> We're recording. Yeah. >> All right. Being a presence of a quorum,
I am calling the uh 20 January 29th, 2026 meeting of the community resources committee of the town council together. Um, I'm doing this under rules of procedure 10.5 and as I am the president of the council and that gives me the
authority to do so at the first meeting after reorganization. This meeting is virtual by the power granted under the general laws. Um, if I have to and it is being recorded. Do I need do you want me to say anything
else Athena about that? Because I can look it up. >> No. >> Okay. Um, since we are virtual, I will take a roll call so that everyone can be sure to be heard, that they can hear and be heard. I will start in the order I've got on my screen. So, Pam Rooney,
>> I'm here. >> Mandy Johani is president. Jennifer Tob, >> I'm here. >> Andy Churchill >> here. >> And councelor Walker, >> here. >> Thank you. The first order of business is the election of the chair. Um once the chair is elected, I will hand the
virtual gavl over to that that person. We're going to run this similar to how the council elections were run. I will take nominations. I will see if they accept nominations. If if they don't self-nominate, I will ask if there were acceptances of the nominations. Afterward, if anyone has I I will ask if
that nominees have anything to say. Then afterward, uh any other counselors that wish to speak and then we will hold a vote. So, are there any nominations for chair Jennifer? >> Um, I nominate Pam Rooney.
>> Pam, do you accept the nomination? >> Yes, I would. Thank you. >> Are there any other nominations for chair? Seeing none, I will close the nominations. Pam, would you like to make any statements? I would love to see um for instance the
solar bylaw come to come to pass and um finalize that so we have a document that the council can vote on and adopt. Um, obviously I have just an ongoing interest in many of the items that the CRC
um has jurisdiction over and I'm always interested in helping facilitate those conversations and there's plenty of work to do as a chair, but also a vice chair would be very very helpful. >> Thank you. Would anyone like to speak to
the nomination? Seeing none, um, given that only one person is running, I will, I guess, make a formal motion to appoint Pam Rooney as chair of community resources committee uh, until the next reorganization. Is
there a second? >> I think Andy seconded. Did you >> second? >> Okay, we need it verbal, not just thumbs up. I was just giving a general thumbs up, but I'm happy to second it. >> Okay, there is a second. Uh, we will start a vote. Um, I am going to again go
in an order. Mandy votes I. Jennifer, >> yes. >> Andy, >> yes. >> Councelor Walker, >> yes. >> Pam, >> yes. >> Congratulations, Pam. You are chair. And I hand the gavl over to you for the election of the vice chair.
>> Thank you. Are there any nominations for the position of vice chair? Mandy, >> I nominate Andy Churchill. >> Andy, would you accept that?
>> Um, sure. >> Are there any other nominations or self-nominations? Seeing seeing no other eager applicants, um I guess I would make a motion that uh we nominate and and vote for Andy
Churchill as vice chair for the CRC. Uh is there a second? >> I'll second. >> Then we'll take a vote. Councelor Walker, >> yes. >> Jennifer Tob, >> yes.
Mandy Johan. >> Mandy Johan. >> Sorry. I >> And Pam Rooney is an I and Andy Churchill. >> Yes. >> Okay. Congratulations, Andy. We'll talk
more. >> Looking forward to it. >> Good. Good. >> Looking to follow in the footsteps of Jennifer Todd. she can hard to do. >> We are on the item of general public comment and I'm looking for attendees.
There are apparently no attendees in the audience for this meeting. Um, I'm just going to make a comment that once we establish a a schedule, I think it's important to let folks know in the community when these meetings are going
to be so that they can actually keep track of when to weigh in and participate in these conversations because um, our meeting times and dates are pretty random for people to follow. So, there will be no public comment at
this time. uh if someone shows up later, there perhaps is another opportunity to do that later in the in the meeting. Uh the next item is discussing the regular meeting schedule. Athena was
very good to um put together a list of probable dates and I wonder if anyone has had a chance to go through and see if there are any major conflicts with these dates that were that were presented. Andy.
>> Um, no conflicts with the dates. I have some concerns about one meeting in July and one meeting in August. Um, especially given the clean energy bylaw that will if if we want it in place as a council by
October 1, which is the new deadline we're being told. Um it it's going to have to be at the council in late August for actual voting. Um so I think particularly July might need a second meeting and that
August one that would be missing August. So July 23rd I would like to put July 23rd and August 27th on the calendar. Um, August 27th might be between the first reading and the second reading. If all goes well with getting this clean
energy bylaw over over the deadline, you know, over the hurdle, um, that that August meeting would be between I think between first and second reading, uh, which might be a very important meeting to have to discuss any concerns that counselors
might have after hearing about it. So I would at least like to pencil in the July and August 2nd meetings on the I guess it's the fourth Tuesdays of Thursdays of the month. And the only other question I had I understand the November and December reasons why there
isn't a second meeting. Uh I'm and I'm hopeful by then we are not backed up with a ton of stuff so that that we can get away with it. Um I was curious why January 7th, 2027 wasn't listed. I know it's after the first meeting of the new
year and so after reorganization, but the committees stay until reorganized. And so I I think that one could be set and then we just don't know when the in instead of January 22nd, maybe list
January 7th and then when the committee gets reorganized potentially by a new president, it would be a different date anyway potentially. So that those are the three changes I would make. Add those two dates and change January 22nd to January
7th. >> Yeah. My thought about January 22nd was about the reorganization dates and that it might be odd to have a meeting right after um right after the new year before, you know, oneoff meeting before
new members are appointed. But it's up to the committee if you want to do that or wait until the 22nd. Jennif Jennifer I'm sorry. I had raised my hand when um Mandy had mentioned why we would add these two meetings in July and August.
So maybe we can wait till we get to that point in the agenda, but just I was going to ask Mandy if maybe for for those that weren't at the MMA workshop on solar bylaw, why there's this there may be a need for these extra meetings.
>> Great. Okay, we can we can hold them. Um but is there any is there any concern about adding even if it's at the point where we decide we don't need a meeting um to pencil in these uh the July I had also noted July 23 and August 27 as
potential meeting dates. Is anyone in disagreement with that? The other consideration and and I think this is more a question for David and Stephanie is that staff usually take vacations during the summer and so you might not have as much staff to support
for those meetings. Um so as long as the committee's aware of that when you schedule these and and know that if you do end up having those meetings in in July and August, you might not have staff available. Right. And is there is there a consensus
about January 21 or 7? >> I personally would would put in January 7. I think um even if it's just sort of a rollover before before the composition changes or if the composition of the
committee changes having something early. I think this year it's you know here we are at the end of January just meeting. So, I I also would prefer a J January 7. Any other comments about that? Jennifer says, "Okay, Andy,
>> I'm just making these as we go if because it doesn't sound like there's objections." >> Okay. >> I don't see >> regarding this summer. Bam. Stephanie and I will be on aid sabbatical for three to six months this year, so we
probably won't be around, but I'm sure somebody can fill in. >> Cool. Happy for you. >> Yeah, I'm happy for you. Exactly. >> Right at the clean energy time. >> Perfect.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll we'll we'll buckle down. We'll get this thing done well in advance and not and not infringe on people's summer vacations. Let's let's make that the goal. Um not seeing any um head shaking or uh disagreement with
these changes. Does anyone uh I'll make a motion to adopt this as now our 2026 meeting schedule for the CRC. >> I'll second. >> Okay, great. Uh let's go around the room. Um Councelor Walker.
>> Oops. Did we lose her? >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Oh, now we can. Yes. >> Okay. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, I'm sorry. My picture is at the top of the screen. We could we could probably get rid of this image. There. There we
go. Now I can see you. So, Councelor Walker Walker was a yes. Jennifer Tob. >> Yes. >> Andy Churchill. >> Yes. >> Mandy Johanni. >> Hi. >> And Pam Rooney is an I. So, we will share this meeting schedule with the
council and um put it on our calendars. Good. >> Um, since I see Stephanie here and Stephanie, thank you for showing up even though we were told that we probably wouldn't have um a document back to us.
Item number five is uh let's talk about the clean energy bylaw and getting a status of that would be really helpful. So, I can turn it over to you, please. >> Sure. Um, so we did receive the memo from councelor Heni um and uh town
manager Paul Buckleman uh requesting that staff review what had been drafted to date. The draft clean energy now so-called the clean energy bylaw um was not uh completely reviewed by CRC. There
were a few pages at the end that still had yet to be reviewed. So, we just took what we had and we had three two-hour meetings with many staff, multiple staff members um who contributed input. So, at
this point, I have um the draft with staff comments, side comments actually in the draft bylaw, some edits as well that I will get to you. Um I'm hoping to finalize and clean that all up and get it to you tomorrow.
Um we also have uh we also have answers to the questions that were posed within that memo as well. So um mostly we've the thing that you know of course what we anticipated would be taking time is
just really figuring out how this is going to work and the structure of it and um you know it's it you know this sort of the changes in the in the state sighting and permitting have really kind of thrown a a wrinkle
into sort of what we were already doing. So, um, we're just having to sort of think that through and I think staff has made, you know, great progress. Um, our recommendation is also that once we get that to you and then you start reviewing the staff comments and making sort of
final edits to come up with a final clean draft, um, that before it gets officially referred to the town council that planning the planning board actually has an opportunity to review it ahead of time. um before it gets
reficially um referred to them. Um because we just want to we think because it is so complex that we want to just give these boards some time to sort of digest it a little bit. You've all been working for it for quite a while. They did see the
initial draft a while ago, but it is quite changed from that and now we have another layer of complexity that's been added. So just, you know, just in terms of thinking about this timeline, we just want to make sure that we leave an opportunity for that to happen before it
gets officially referred. >> Any comments on that? >> I I was wondering, are you also thinking of um sending it to the zoning board of appeals since they may have some um jurisdiction over this as well? Yes,
we will definitely send it to any of the conservation commission, any any permitting authorities that you know granting authorities that will be impacted by this will definitely get an opportunity to review it, but we need we need a clean draft.
Sorry. >> Yeah. Yeah. Mandy. >> Yeah. I I don't actually have comments at this time with that. I I wanted to sort of summarize some of what we heard at MMA because
they had a clean energy bylaw workshop which was extremely helpful. But but after that workshop, I actually spent some time one one of the two people sort of presenting at that workshop was Carolyn Murray who is KP Law's attorney and who we as a town actually deal with
on land use items. Um, and I spent about a half an hour talking with her one-on-one on this and some other things. I I, you know, sort of picking her brain. Um, and I wanted to sort of update the committee on what I got from her and what I heard and things. Um, cuz
some of it's a little bit different. You know, I was asking her things like timing of when does she want to see a draft bylaw for legal review and things like that. Um, so she did reiterate that the state regs we were operating under a
December one comprehensive permit starts no matter whether you're ready or not. Um, they are moving that to October one. Um, yes. So, yes, Pam, that was a I think everyone's response in the
workshop was, "Are you kidding me? October one." Um, and so what does that mean for the council when we're look, you know, we just lost two months, right? Um, but that means given that our bylaws under the charter go into effect
14 days after we adopt them, it means the council must have a second read, if our goal is to adopt bylaws prior to the effective date of the regulations, right? um or the the latest effective date, it means we have to have our
second read at the first meeting in September, which means our first read has to be in August. Um which means it has to be out of hearing and out of go out of hearing from both planning board and CRC
in early August basically. Um go shouldn't take too long because presumably we'll have the legal review before it goes to go, right? That's the changes we just made in our charges. Um, but if if it's going to take a couple
meetings to get it out of hearing both by CRC and the planning board, we're looking at starting hearings. What? Like if you if you if you just start backing up, right? If that's that's early August, hearings should probably start in June.
Um, yeah. And so, you know, June, maybe earlier, depending on how quickly we can get these through hearings, right? Um CRC, as Stephanie just said, CRC's seen this a lot, but planning board hasn't really seen it.
So, I do second getting this into planning board, even maybe now with the staff comments so that they can start familiarizing themselves a little bit. Um, that gives us a very tight timeline. Carolyn,
things that we might see changed. Um, she I I talked to her about when would be sort of efficient and ideal for her to potentially see our draft and what we're working with. And she thought for us getting it to her about the time
we're going to hearing, maybe sort of at the time that we've sent it to the council for referring to hearing and then before those hearings start might actually be the most efficient time. She was talking about April, May. The spring town meetings for the towns she represents will be taking place. A lot
of them are going to try and get something in. She might have a little bit more idea of what they've been able to do. She might have worked on some stuff for various things and worked out some stuff there that she can counsel us on at that time. Um, we might have some MLU decisions from some of the early
early town meetings from the AG's office about what they see as problematic or not. So, so she thought sort of not now for a legal review but closer to the hearing stage um for the legal review. The biggest change though and I think
this is where we had questions for staff. So, I can't wait to see your answers to some of them. One of our big question was what do we do about the local government representative? There's nothing in the model bylaws. There's nothing that how do we identify that? Where do we go? Right? That was one sort of thing we as the prior committee
identified as there's this glaring miss here. Right? So Carolyn is actually thinking when I asked her, you know, and what does a comprehensive permit look like? How does it work? What are the processes and all? And I said, does she recommend putting it in a clean energy
sighting sort of bylaw or is two separate bylaws? And she actually is thinking, >> can you excuse me? Can you just say that say start that sentence again? Yeah. So, so there's the comprehensive permit part and I had asked her on on how do you
even do a comprehensive permit? What are the rules around issuing it? Um hearings, who gets it, who writes the things, all of that, some of which we identified as missing from the model bylaw that was first put out, right? Um, and I said,
"Do we put that in our clean energy bylaw or do we put that in a separate bylaw?" And she thinks it would be cleaner to split the bylaws up. So, one bylaw, a clean energy bylaw or two bylaws, a
solar sighting bylaw and a um battery storage say, or in one, right? that really deals with sort of the planning board side or the ZBA side of solar. So, sort of what we were working
on before we saw all these regulations. How how does that sighting work? What are the rules and regs behind the project getting the planning board's approval? Say, ignore the permitting process, but setbacks, glare, all of
that stuff that's in that part." um like it was before what we were working on before we got all these rules and regs. And then a separate bylaw that could be zoning but might not be zoning, might be a general bylaw um of dealing
with the comprehensive permit requirements for clean energy projects. um you know so naming your local government representative which may be different depending on what part of the
state you're in you know um naming that person who reviews the applications identifying whether they are joint hearings or not I don't have a good idea but sort of doing it as two separate bylaws now one thing Carolyn has that I have
not formally asked her for but I did talk to the town manager when she said it and she said it at the meeting that she early on drafted sort of a very rough model bylaw on the comprehensive permit side. She is willing to send her
sort of generic comprehensive permit bylaw to us if we ask. Uh I have not sent her that email yet. Paul did give us the go-ahad, me the go-ahad, but it could be from you, Pam, to sort of approach her and say, "Hey, can you send us that generic one you've got?" um that
would give us sort of a start of what we might have to move from the clean energy bylaw over to the comprehensive and see where she is with that that has the fees and this and that for potentially all of that. So that was just to summarize some
of the things I got out of that conversation I had with her after the workshop which was very helpful on a pick your brain sort of thing. Um, but it might require us to do a little bit more work with a with that second bylaw
if that's the way we decide to go. That would apply to in some sense any clean energy project. Whereas our solar clean energy bylaw that we named right now is really trying to just do solar and battery storage. Um, we don't expect necessarily an anorobic digtor or wind
project or anything, but they would fall under the comprehensive permit bylaw, even if we don't have other stuff for, you know, other regulations around it. >> You we'll come back with some questions, but Jennifer,
>> yeah, know I can um I have a question just basic clarification. So if we don't finish this by October, then the state regulations will guide us until that point. So
if we don't have our own processes in place with a bylaw that says here's who our local government representative is or here who X Y and Z is. Um, it just means the default in the regs
begins starts October one for who the local government representative is, which in the first draft was the town clerk is the one that's determining whether the permit application is complete. Not necessarily ideal for our town,
right? I don't know in the in the modified regs who who it is. They they got a lot of comments that towns didn't want the clerk to be the default. Um but yeah, we default to the regs. We still have that that year from a complete application to issue a comprehensive
permit, but but the thing is we don't have any sort of rules ourselves around how to go about doing that, right? So some stuff would be identified in the regs as to who the person that issues it is and all of that, but it would be better if we have stuff in place. If it's not issued in a
year, just like if even if we have all this in place, if it's not issued in a year, the default guidelines come into play. But we have to start what they said was October one is when towns must start accepting comprehensive permit
applications. Um, oh, the other thing with that that I tried to clarify with her and get an idea of that workshop said that the state will be that that there will be a state portal
to file the compreh comprehensive permit application that it will be filed under a state portal that then forwards it to the town. So, it won't be filed directly at the town's clerk's office if they're applying for a comprehensive permit. At
least that's what she said and that's what the guy at the state said during the workshop. I asked her, "How does that work when we're allowed to have additional permit sort of application requirements?" And she said, "I don't know yet."
So, another big, huh? But yeah, there's a lot going on. >> But the state wouldn't determine when you send it to the state portal, they won't determine if it's complete. >> They'll just forward. >> Definitely.
Um, not to start getting into the edits that the staff have made, but just wanted to say that in terms of just the language for the bylaw, staff um, came up uh, with sort of a unanimous agreement that
the language for the person who the application materials get submitted to is the town manager or their design to make it just kind of a leaner, easier language to sort of move us along. But in the meantime, staff has worked on
sort of a process and work flow. We're starting to sort of figure that out. So that will be part of the responses from the memo. Um so I would and hopefully I will um I I think I have everything. So I'm just trying to sort of clean it up and package it for you tomorrow. Um so
it will go to um the town manager and he will make sure that it gets to all of you. Stephanie, just on that note, if just having heard what Mandy has relayed to us, are there are there adjustments that you think maybe you ought to do now
before you turn it over to us? Well, I think that suggestion of doing a whole other um comprehensive permit bylaw is really adding a quite a huge wrinkle, I think, because everything right now is contained in this as a
clean energy bylaw. So, it's it's very comprehensive and addresses all of the different points that we've brought up already. Um, so I think I think at this point it would be best to just sort of get you everything staff has responded
to. What I what I actually don't recommend is even getting what we have to the planning board now because I'm just afraid that each time things get changed, >> you know, staff already said, well, we've already sat down and done this. It's like, well, it's changed substantially, so we have to do it
again. So, I think we want to have a final draft that we think is the draft that would be submitted to council and have that be what gets distributed and reviewed by other committees um prior to officially being submitted.
>> Thank you, Andy. Yeah, I I guess I was just going to ask um this idea of having two bylaws versus one. Um whether that means that we have two simpler ones that are easier for people to understand or whether it's better to
just keep pushing with the the single one. I guess Stephanie addressed that to a certain extent, but um how do we how do we proceed with the the legal suggestion that we have two versus continuing with the one?
>> Mandy. >> Yeah. So Carolyn obviously hasn't seen what we've got, right? It was just as she was talking about addressing in bylaws the comprehensive permitting part of the state law. Um, I asked her one or
the other, right? In the in the one or the other. Um, you know, at this point I wouldn't necessarily draft one. I think it would be good to see Carolyn's sort of blank draft because it would give us ideas potentially of how to if we're
missing anything, right, that that she thought was important. um no matter where it goes, whether it goes into the clean energy bylaw or a separate one, we'd get to see KP law's initial language that was, you know, sort of a a very rough draft of a of a bylaw that
would address the original rags. Um and we obviously don't know what there's changing. So, I think it's worth seeing what she has um just to help us along in our draft. The benefit I see and I don't know whether this is worth it or not is
that comprehensive permit applies to all clean energy systems whether that be wind, solar, I think hydro's in there, anorobic digesttors, battery energy storage systems, whereas the current clean energy bylaw we're drafting only
applies to two of the three and well two of those. And so if for some reason the town got a wind power application, if the comprehensive permit stuff is within the clean energy bylaw that only
really deals with solar and bass, it doesn't really then translate to that wind system. Um whereas if they're two separate bylaws, you might be able to have the one apply to everything if
application received, right? You know, and she cautioned in the workshop about ensuring that if your bylaw doesn't actually allow wind projects, say, well, if your your zoning doesn't allow wind projects, don't make sure anything you
write contradicts that for, you know, I don't know whether that would even be legal to not allow it, right? But um um given zoning law, but you know, and so maybe a comprehensive permitting one can address that a little cleaner. I don't know though. So that's why I say it
might be worth getting what Carolyn has and then deciding once we see it which is better. >> It would be interesting to see what she has. Yeah. Um, Stephanie, >> I absolutely agree that you should
definitely review what she has. Um, and staff would be very interested in seeing that as well, obviously. Um, and again, I think, you know, at some point it's really on you all to sort of decide how you want to address that. But, um, certainly incorporating anything that
isn't already in the draft would be important. And also I think um you know as far as other forms of renewable like I mean wind largecale wind is Ammeris just isn't situated for it. So I don't think it's anything we'd ever have to worry about. But certainly there's geothermal which is you know certainly
something that does come through the town um fairly regularly. So, you know, we do have to sort of think about those and I think they are referenced in even though I think there are other forms of renewables that are referenced although the regulations seem to very focused on
best and solar. So, um I think it's just a matter of making sure and ensuring that the language for those other forms of renewables are are referenced at least >> and also scale. I just wanted to say one last thing is that you know
this also you know the very large projects are going to be addressed by the state. So the scale to which Ammerst like you know residential solar residential best storage you know might be addressed for for best but for solar
rooftop solar you know maybe that's just a by right you know I think there's just there's um levels of scale that I think need to be applied to this process and I think you know what we the one thing I will say that staff has sort of brought
up is like you know when looking at all of the require requirements. What we don't want to happen is someone who wants to put solar on their roof have to comply with like the many many many many submitt requirements that we've listed. So just sort of keeping all of that in mind and I think as I said they are um
Rob Moira and Nate Mallaloy met and I think drafted some sort of tier structure um and you'll be able to review that hopefully by next week. >> Great. That was going to be one of my questions is how how do we how do we separate how do we address those but
keep them separate from the from the ownerous um requirements that we're talking about here. Dave? >> Yeah. No, I would I just wanted to echo Stephanie's concerns or comments. Yeah. About too much complexity and and having
two separate permits. But let's see how that plays out. But Steph, I wondered if if you might say um uh what your process was with staff just here so everybody could hear today because I think it was great. Stephanie, it was it was good. I attended a couple
of the sessions, but she locked us all in a room and who was there because I think it was the best representation we've had of staff areas of expertise that I've seen all in a room reviewing the draft to date. So who was there? And
it they were on Fridays, right, Steph? So that was that was the double trouble, right? >> Sure. Um I will say that um it's the same actually the same uh staff representation that we had that did this process a while ago to review one of the
original drafts. Um that was I think from the solar bylaw working group. Um but it was um the building commissioner, the assistant planning director, planning director/economic development director, um uh Erin
Jacques, the um conservation agent, uh Amy Ruski, assistant superintendent of DPW, um Chris Baskam, and Steve Gone from uh from the fire department, and myself. and everyone couldn't make it to every
meeting, but I will say that um Nate, Rob um and myself were the consistent attendees for all three meetings. Um, and again they were three sessions that were two hours each on Fridays and they were really actually even the last one
people stayed longer. Like we just were really getting into a lot of conversations much as you all have >> about the complexities of of this um new permitting structure that the state has kind of imposed on the municipalities.
Um, and I have to say that you know again I am not concerned about Ammerst. I we have great resources. we have a great structure with, you know, your all, you know, your input and what you all do. Um, in addition to staff and I think with those two,
um, bodies that are spending time and reviewing this, I think we'll be okay. My concern is really more for the smaller communities that just don't have the resources to do what we're doing. Um, so I think we'll be fine. I I think we're you know I think we're once we get
our feedback to you all um I think it'll be um you know as long as we sort of efficiently go through the comments and sort of move it along because we've seen it so many times now I think discussions probably don't need to be as maybe um detailed as they were in the past at
this point so we can maybe move it through but I think um the process to me is the thing that's going to really be the challenge. you know, even though we have resources, just sort of figuring out how that's going to work. And again, staff has, I think, come up with some at least
initial um flow for how that might work, >> like a flow a flowchart, just a >> I didn't see it yet, but I believe there was, if not a flowchart, definitely a flow a process. I'm going to interject before I call on
Andy or Jennifer just to ask um in your in your memo to us as you as you transfer it back. Um would it be possible to do just a very basic outline of of h how you've structured it? I think it goes to one of the early
questions that we had um that Mandy just touched on. you know, this is this is the basic structure. Regulations versus versus um bylaw versus whatever else. How are we how are
we packaging this? >> Um sure. I think at this point, you know, we looked at um even, you know, we had a brief discussion about special conditions and I think we just sort of took that off the table. Um, so I think really right now the focus is just on the bylaw, not
even specifically the regulations. Um, I think it's just getting the bylaw language finalized. >> Thank you, Andy. And then Jennifer. Yeah, I I I sat in on the session at at the conference, so I I got a little
crash course on on this stuff, but I'm my curiosity is are we trying to align what we're doing with the state or are we trying to go beyond what the state's doing or do something different? What what what's the difference between what the state is going to promulgate and
what we want to do? >> Um, >> yeah, >> Joe, I don't know if you want to jump. I'm sorry. I didn't know if that was directed at me. Sorry about that. I'd like to hear from Stephanie. >> Sure. Um I think we're mostly looking at at you know at scale. So really what the
state has done is like um projects over a certain threshold will just automatically be reviewed by the state. Um anything of a smaller size is then given to the communities to sort of review and look at whether the
application is deemed complete. Um, and this is sort of the challenge is for us to sort of look at what the state is requiring, but then also what we in addition may require for our own purposes. Um, and to be consistent with
our own zoning and other bylaws. So I think you know th this is where and and again sort of staff has some suggestions but this is where you all will have to sort of take a look at what staff recommended but I do think there's some
belief that you know especially for residential we don't want to be imposing really burdensome permitting on residents for just wanting to put solar on their homes or putting a very small size battery storage in their
attic if that's where they put it or their basement. You know, we want to make sure that we're that it's being scaled appropriately. So, it is consistent with the state in that that is what the state is guiding municipalities to do under a certain threshold. The impetus is on the
communities to review those projects. >> Thank you, Jennif Jennifer. Then, >> no, I just quickly wanted to say thank you, Stephanie. Um, I feel much reassured knowing that you're all have been meeting and are meeting because I didn't know how we were going to do this. So, I just wanted to say thank you
and I feel better knowing that you feel like this is doable in the time we have. >> Yeah. Cuz know, there were some uh I heard one person from well, one person from small town at the conference during the session said, you know, they they
have very few people in and large acreage. So they're just the kind of town where this would be built and they have five staff members. So total so they're overwhelmed. So I feel like assured. So thank you
>> Mandy. Um I I have one question on timing and then I I will address go beyond what Stephanie said to Andy's question, but are we then looking at you know I I guess the question is how many meetings do you think the planning board
would like before this sort of goes to the council for hearing? So are we then as a committee here with a goal of we know the regs are not finalized till March 1. This is a problem, right? But are we as a goal trying to get
through in February the whole thing to say, "Okay, it's time for the planning board to review even though we haven't seen the final rags, you know, um but let's get the planning board in with their comments and we'll monitor the regs, you know, we'll we'll see stuff." or are we aiming for plan, you know, and
how many meetings do you think the planning board would want for this sort of preliminary familiarization and potential um comments, right? You know, I I can see
formal hearings going two ways with CRC. Having drafted it, you can imagine the CRC hearing might not be too too long, right? Because we'll have already spent a lot of time with it. Yet, we saw with U drive, even though the planning board had spent a lot of time with it, it
still went a while. Um, I could see if we've got the planning board really familiar with it, maybe the hearing is a little shorter because they're already familiar with it. Yet, I can see the public having a lot of comment on this when it goes to hearing and being ready
to to address their concerns because there's a big state law that was not there when the solar bylaw working group was working is a huge difference, right? So, I' I'd kind of like to know from staff what their thinking is on sort of prehering planning board time so that we
can try and start planning out when we as a committee have to be done to get it to them like how quickly are we do we have two meetings February to get through all of your comments or do we have three you know what are your thoughts on that to address Andy's
question a little bit further as Stephanie did when Kathy and I were going through and sort of reddrafting reddrafting because we tried not to change language that this committee had already gone through. We did a lot of
reordering, a little bit of comparing. We tried to highlight where what we'd already sort of come to agreement as a committee with was different than the guidelines that would be defaulted to on say setback or something were because we
don't have to follow those guidelines. But we tried to highlight, oh, the state guidelines is X feet. We had drafted Y feet. What do we think now that we have guidelines? Do we want to stick with what we had drafted because we can, or do we want to go somewhere else? We tried to highlight them. There were not
a huge number of differences between the two that we had to highlight. Um, a lot of what we did was bring in stuff that we didn't have to deal with that we hadn't dealt with because it was a comprehensive permit thing. Talking about site suitability that was in nothing, right? Um so I I think we tried
to we were already close to what if the permit is not granted in a year our draft was already close to what would be default. So there aren't a huge number of differences and I think the reason that is is because that original those guidelines a lot of them were pulled
from Shootsber's bylaw and and permits and all is my understanding and a lot of our solar bylaw working group referenced and went with a lot of shoots bylaw because they've done a ton of work on this and so I think that's why we were
kind of close to begin with. Definitely. >> Um, as far as the timing for the planning board, I mean, I I would have to sort of defer to, you know, the planning director/economic development director as to how he wants to approach
that. But my sort of instinctive how I would approach this myself would certainly be to say this is a priority. This has a timeline. And I would just give them sort of a a time frame to
which we have to have comment back. Um, which may or may not um be within a meeting or two, but I think we would have to sort of give them a time frame and just say like because of the states process,
>> we have to sort of move this forward. And so we have to sort of push them to sort of maybe work. I mean, I think it's going to take a lot of, you know, they're going to have to do a lot of their own sort of private time really reviewing it and trying to digest it as best they can. Um, and I was asked by uh
Jeff Bag to uh at least before appear before them to give them sort of some some frame of reference because there are new members that certainly were not there and seated when we sort of had this process start way back when
>> given that it was five years ago. >> It's taken some time. >> It has. It has, Mandy. >> So would it be helpful? I'm thinking like months out here as as I'm I
thinking about the formal referral for hearing that comes at some point. Um would it be helpful now or certainly at that time? A lot of times we say you have to start the hearing within 65 days. And it sounds like it would be really helpful as CRC is getting closer
to holding this at the council level to say to know when that council referral will happen so that maybe the hearings can already be scheduled before the formal referral and notices ready to go in the paper so that the hearing can start quicker um potentially. But would
it be helpful now to sort of set forth that timeline of when the council's meetings are and so that you know just to give them another heads up of this is this is a tight timeline to be out of hearing and we're going to try and get enough hearing dates in there when you
start it to have the time. But would that be helpful now if Pam and I worked together as president and chair to get some of that information to you to give to the planning board? I think that would be enormously helpful. Okay. >> Because it's just going to reflect the
reality of what this time frame is. >> Right. Right. I was going to nominate myself to put a draft timeline together >> and um in this case, I think I would share it with Mandy and Stephanie and because you two are the most familiar
with um the the entities that have to weigh in. So, let me draft that up and I will get that to you in the next hopefully just day or day and a half. >> Great. That sounds good to me.
>> And then once we once we sort of flush that out, I don't want to get everybody anxious if if I've made a mistake in my in my informal table. Um, I would then, you know, once once we agree on the
probable time frame and schedule for various committees, um, I would certainly turn around and share it with the rest of the CRC. Andy, >> you're muted, Andy. It's CRC's been doing this for a while,
but it sounds like we're going to have a hearing and then the planning board's going to have some hearings and does it make sense to invite them to our hearing so they can be educated on it or or to to do I don't know if it'd be a joint but it would be invite them to participate in that or if that would be
helpful or not. I don't know >> Mandy. So obviously it's up to the chair. Generally the planning board the planning board tends to start their hearing and finish their hearing. We might start ours at the same time but we
don't close ours till after the planning board has met. That does not preclude joint hearings. I will say that joint hearings in the past and Pam I don't know if you tried to hold some when I was chair a lot of times we couldn't get a quorum at either of the meeting times for a joint hearing
because we meet at different times and it just didn't you know in that sense the joint hearing didn't necessarily work. Um there can be though and and I'll put my president hat on here. We would Athena
and I as clerk um in terms of budgets and all noticing hearings can be very expensive. We are lucky we do not have to publish all 22 pages of this in the paper or else that would be insanely expensive. We can just say find it here on the
website, put a copy at the clerk's office and summarize and that will be a lot cheaper. But but we would like to explore um saving some money by doing joint meeting, joint notices where you put both hearing dates if they are
different in the same notice, which means you start the hearings close together because they have to have different notices, but that would at least in some sense have the cost of noticing the hearings um and all. So something for for Pam for you to
consider. Yeah. and and speak with potentially your compatriate at the planning board when we're doing hearings to see if we can put it all in one notice with two different dates and two different Zoom links and all. Uh but you know, we should try maybe some joint hearings even if only the first one is
join and the second one have to go to different days potentially. >> Would those have to be noticed separately as the fall I assume? Yeah, I don't know whether you could start with a joint hearing and then
adjourn each individual or postpone or you know continue each one to different I don't actually know the the answer to that. >> Maybe that's something staff could tell us. >> Andy? >> Yeah, I I understand the the concern
about that um getting a quorum of both of both bodies. So may maybe it's just we have a we we have a hear an initial hearing and we invite them to come to to to to listen or or just not notice you know make sure it's on their calendar
that that they know this is happening so they can get educated themselves. It might not doesn't have to be formal. >> Any other comments about what we're facing? I think I Jennifer,
>> no, I'm not. Um, so I think you might have also, Pam, we I tuned into the planning board meeting a couple weeks ago where the Jeff Baggy was um and he talked about that they were going to be sending some perhaps zoning bylaw
recommendations to CRC. I don't know how soon that's going to be, but it just sounds like this will not be the only thing on our plate. >> That's a good segue into item number six. >> Yeah. Uh uh Dave,
>> yeah, I don't have your agenda right up in front of me, but but I I just wanted to comment that I think this is I think staff would really welcome this kind of cross layer coordination more and more as we think about the complexities and
the pressure to to move this through our process and and make state uh deadlines. But, you know, um Jennifer just mentioned um you know, potential other zoning that may be working its way from
or with staff and planning board. So, you know, Jeff has alluded to that. I don't think there's anything on the immediate horizon, but you know, certainly the downtown design standards is something that um that we want to be
working with with various boards and committees, obviously the council and CRC and other boards and committees. So I think this kind of strategic thinking about dates and timing uh we would welcome that more and more and more and
it it leads to more efficiency and potential cost savings as we were talking about with with joint postings and whatnot. So legal ads and and all that. So we're we're all in on that. Um so um just wanted to put that out there that I think it's a great idea to be
doing that in 26 and 27 as we look ahead. >> Yeah. Great. >> But but now so agenda item number six um which is just discussion of committee topics um that is certainly one of them.
Are there are there elements that the planning staff planning board want to bring to our attention? Excuse me, my cold bring to our attention um to give us some heads up as well.
We would we would appreciate that. Mandy, >> um I had I had one that that goes along with this. When we were discussing the housing production plan that is now adopted by the council and and the
planning board, um there were a lot of strategies in there for potential implementation, right? Um, and we had mentioned the possibility and I I I want to bring it up again to see if we can get this to happen because I think it would help with that cross conversation
of bringing the planning board, CRC, and I think the housing trust together to talk about which of those strategies might be the best to be pursued first, say, and and narrowing that list down as
sort of the three bodies that deal with sort of housing planning in town in various levels, right? And so I don't know how that works into what what Dave uh just said and and what Andy asked,
but I think that would potentially be a good first start of trying to find a way to have a joint meeting to say where what do we want to concentrate on? And whether that's picking one and all three groups the staff working on that and and you know
consulting all three groups on that or you know to throw out something else picking three where the housing trust works on one of the strategies CRC works on one and planning board works on one might be too much for staff and I'm going to absolutely say it might be too much for staff but we're we're not sort
of we're working together instead of maybe at at at competing against each other for strategy discussions that that it's it's cohesive and maybe a little more efficient. And I think that starts maybe with a meeting of some sort
or planned discussion. I'm seeing heads nodding here. I'm I think there would be consensus that that would u be a really viable and valuable thing to do. Dave. >> Yeah, not too much to add to that, but
let me commit to having that conversation with with Jeff Bag about, you know, what's kind of been, you know, prior to Jeff coming seven weeks ago, what was percolating through the planning board and their subcommittee. Clearly, you know, we're all aware they
were looking, you know, there are members uh and and and the subcommittee looking at um some zoning ideas for North Ammerst and some others and then combining with what Mandy just mentioned about, you know, the housing production plan and some of those strategies. So
let let me have that conversation with Jeff. And there may be maybe maybe an interim step before a joint meeting might to be have Jeff come and and address you all and talk to you all maybe at your next meeting. And um so so
let me work on that a little bit. Um, I'm reminded as Mandy was speaking, I'm reminded uh of many times through the years uh where where you've you've said um Dave, you know, bring us bring us zoning and not projects. I'm
paraphrasing. Um, and that has always sat with me and and I I feel like we're poised to bring zoning ideas forward, zoning, uh, updates, reform, uh, looking at our current many of our current
outdated uh, parts of our zoning bylaw. So, um I I'm always motivated by that um that you have shared with us through the years is projects are one thing, but you know, zoning reform is is uh bigger and
broader. So, let me talk with Jeff about that. I'm meeting with him tomorrow, as a matter of fact, and I just added that to to our agenda to discuss tomorrow before the weekend. >> Um and I'm going to ask the question then of the CRC members. Is there interest in in having Jeff come do
exactly that? Just nod your head or Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah, we have we have >> good consensus, strong consensus to to follow through on that. >> Let's plan on that next meeting. That'll be one topic. >> Great. And that will be that will be
February 12, I believe, without looking at my calendar >> as long as that works for his schedule. And I'll talk with him about that tomorrow. Right. that will go on as a future agenda item. Um, we could talk about what's going on in
town, you know, for a long time, but let's wrap this up. Um, we have no minutes to discuss and I guess that would be a question for Athena and Dave. Um, we had a pretty dismal
uh list of of minutes from last year and a half maybe. that we just really haven't held our our end of the bargain, I guess, as far as meeting requirements of having open open meeting and and whatever. I'll
stop talking. Um, but if there is a way that we can help facilitate meeting minutes, that would be very good. >> I would defer to Athena on that. Yeah. >> Yeah. Athena
>> um if I will be having a conversation with Minute Takers in the next week or so and I'll have an update for you after that. >> Great. Is there I mean is there any way to use some of these AI products that could help synthesize meetings into you
know one-page memos? >> I have looked into some of those. I mean um from my point of view ethically utilizing an AI product rather than a human being is questionable. Um in
addition um I none of the options that I reviewed meet the standards that the council has set even the more you know summarizing to the extent that the council has allowed in the past or in in more recent minutes. Um, and we also
have requirements in the charter and the rules about the record of votes and how motions and votes are recorded that AI is just not good at doing. So, it it doesn't save a lot of time to have AI produce a set of minutes that
doesn't meet our requirements because then we need staff time or or minute taker time to go back and and do a lot of corrections. So, in my mind, it's not a savings and it's not a practice that I support. >> Thank you very much. That helps. Good to
know. Okay. Um not on the agenda, but this is sort of typical agenda would be um future discussion topics and we've already mentioned them. We're going to be talking about clean energy pretty pretty
deeply for the next several months. Um and then obviously this hopefully a meeting with with um director of planning and economic development to remind committee members economic development
is one of the um items within the charge of the CRC and we never we we rarely talk about it. So, I think that would also be a very healthy uh perspective to get from Jeff what what he's thinking about just in terms of economic
development and what can our what can our bylaws or zoning or andor council actions do to help facilitate that? That would be something I'd love to hear from him. Um, is there anything else that we need
to discuss at this point before I suggest that we end the meeting? I see no hands. We will be meeting Oh, I got to reach my calendar. Sorry. Uh, we will be meeting on the 12th of
February as uh the next CRC meeting. It's really good to see everyone's face and uh welcome to Councelor Walker and Andy Churchill. The other three of us have have been in this before, but it's
really great to have you. >> Shall I make a motion to adjurnn? >> That would be great. >> So moved. >> So seconded. Uh >> Mandy, I uh Andy Churchill. Hi.
Jennifer Tob. >> Yes. >> Councelor Walker. >> Yes. >> And before I say yes, I'm going to say thank you very very very much. So Stephanie, if you would pass on that to the folks that have been sitting down
and working through this uh solar bylaw. Uh we really appreciate it. It is it is hard work and it's really complicated and we're just trying to do the right thing for Amorest. So, we appreciate it very much. And Dave, thank you always.
Athena, thank you. And my vote is yes, we adjourn. We'll see you on the 12th. I will get the uh the timeline memo out just for consideration. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
>> Thanks, Dave.