Today is April 7th, 2026, uh, Newbury open space meeting. It is 6:03 and I am opening the meeting tonight. >> Awesome. >> And I think we have to just do a roll
call attendance. Mike Carboni, >> Christina Hoffman, Jim Dueling and Sean Mroy. >> Did that come through? >> And then we have guests Abby and Becca
from Green Belt as well. Um, >> okay. Yeah, I think next is citizen queries, but I don't see any uh citizens present. Um, and I apologize. The meeting minutes
came probably about an hour before the meeting started. That was my fault. Mike, you sent them a while ago. I just had not sent them out. So, that's my bad. Um, I don't know if you all had a chance to review, but we can also move that to the next meeting. we can move to
put that on the agenda for the next meeting. >> Yeah, let's just do that. >> Okay, sounds good. Um, so yeah, now we can get started with the presentation. Um, Abby and Becca, if you want to um if you want to share
screen or just take us through the the maps. >> Great. Thank you. And hello. Good evening everybody. I'm Abby Hardy Moss from Green Belt and I'm here with my colleague Becca Smallley to talk about um conservation prioritization work we
have done. So I'm going to just try here to share my screen. We can see if this works. Okay. Are you all seeing that? Yes. >> Yes. >> Fantastic.
Great. All right. So, yes, I'm Abby. So, nice to meet you all and thank you so much for taking the time to chat with Becca and I um about Green Belt's conservation prioritization work. Um I'm going to
start off and give a little bit There we go. a little bit of background really quick about Green Belt and then about the project and then Becca will walk you through the analysis. um the the actual analyses that we completed and then the results for the town of Newbury and then
I'm going to wrap up with just kind of some um examples of how we have worked with other municipalities to use this data. Um there's been lots of different ways, but just kind of wanted to give you all some um examples of of the ways that other communities have used this.
Um yeah, so I'll just jump right in. Um, you all probably know Greenbell, particularly because Mike, our colleague, is on the committee. Um, but we have been a land trust since 1961. We work in the 34 cities um, and towns in
Essex County. Um, in our, you know, history since 1961, we protected over 22,000 acres of land. We've opened more than 50 county. Um, and in our work where we focus on land conservation, we really focus on protecting land for
local farming, for public recreation, habitat, uh, scenic value, and increasingly we're focusing on climate resilience, which is something that I will and Becca will touch on, um, tonight throughout the presentation. Um,
okay. So when we talk about a conservation prioritization um one of the things that you know just kind of starting way at the beginning of the process right these are some of the questions that we were asking ourselves we're looking we are a regional land
trust we work across the county 34 places and just like anybody else we have limited time and resources and so when we look at prioritizing land for land protection you know one of the first really beginning questions is what
are the goals? And I'll talk in a in a couple minutes about what those goals were. Another really key, excuse me, question is what data is available. Um there are sometimes things that we would like to analyze and there just isn't data available. As an example, before I
started with Green Belt in 2010, another analysis had been done, a previous version, and folks were really interested in being able to evaluate parcels on a climate resiliency uh metric, but the data at that time was just not ready. Um it just wasn't where
it was by the time we were doing this work in 2019. um you know it we could want to analyze data um for a specific species as an example and that data may just not be available to us. So you know that is always a really important
influencing factor is what information do we have available and then a really critical factor we're always looking at is of the data that is available what's the best way to combine that um in order to get results that we feel are reliable. The graphic on the right, that
is not actual examples of data that we used, but it's just kind of a general um graphic that shows how you kind of stack data up and you add it together for a parcel and you can kind of see how a variety of attributes can combine across
parcels so that you can compare them. So talking about this conservation prioritization, um we first started this work really in 2017. Um and it was really two years project before we got the first final results.
Um and when we first started this project, you know, on a really basic level, we wanted to be able to look at parcels and identify which parcels were most important to protect a variety of natural resources. you know, really key factors to be able to compare parcels.
Um, you can look at two parcels. I'm sure you all experience this as well, where you might say, "Okay, well, these two parcels have habitat, but is parcel A better or is parcel B?" You know, parcel A has two different data layers going on. Parcel B has three different
data layers going on. It can be really hard to actually compare apples to apples. And so that was one goal that we had was to be able to look at two, three, however many parcels and say, okay, you know, when you when you just look at this scoring metric that we develop, you know, this is how they they
they kind of um can be evaluated. Um a really important focus for us with this project was in the past we had evaluated parcels for habitat for local farming, but um we had never evaluated parcels for climate resilience or drinking
water. And that was something we did want to do and we did complete with these analyses and we'll get into what that looks like in more detail. Um we really wanted to kind of integrate new data sources particularly around climate and drinking water but also um you know
we did include for example environmental justice uh communities where that was relevant. Um more data relevant to kind of human populations, human impacts of climate change and things like that. Um, and then finally, one of a really important goal that has become
increasingly important, I would say it was important from day one and then just as we've seen how this has played out, this has really grown importance. Um, was that we wanted this data to be important to partners such as yourselves. In the past, when we completed these analyses, they were really just used as an internal data
metric at an organizational level. Um, we would use them when we were evaluating our own conservation projects. But as we went through this, and I'll talk about this process, and you'll maybe get a sense as to why this was, like I said, a 2-year process. It
was a lot of work, a lot of time, and through all that work, we kind of felt like, well, I mean, selfishly for me, I would love to get more mileage out of this work if this can be useful to other people. Great. Like, let's try and share this. And we knew we were putting all this time in. Not everybody was going to
be able to or have the capacity to put the time in the way that we did. And so we thought, well, if this could benefit other people's efforts, great. Um, and so those were all the goals which really informed the process, which as I said was about a two-year process started
around 2017. We completed the first set of um parcel-based analyses in 2019 and then we completed an update to those um in 2024. Um in that process we did because
particularly because we wanted to um a goal had been to you know have data that would be relevant we met um with uh partners and I'll talk a little bit more about that in detail on the next slide but we also piloted the data the initial
um draft uh results with two different communities Gloucester and Essex. This is here are some of our colleagues pictured meeting with city officials from Gloucester. Um, and you know, we also had, I'll just jump to the next slide here, an advisory panel where we
had professionals and practitioners, GIS, uh, professors and drinking water people, farmers and ecologists, um, you know, all sorts of different folks who would have real life or andor technical experience that was relevant.
we shared the analysis methods and results with them and and we got their feedback. Um so that all all of that work took place in those two years. We had a staff committee where throughout that two-year period we did a lot of
really involved research into what the best practice was in terms of across the country what type of research and analyses were happening um and what was the science behind those analyses. So we used those and modeled our work after them where we found it helpful. Um we
also read every open space plan and MVP plan for every community that was available at that time to see what the different constituent communities that we serve were identifying as what was important to them in terms of climate and um open space goals. Um, and once we
moved into implementation, which really started in 2019 and we've kind of been doing ever since then, um, we have shared this work with municipal open space committees. Um, we've met with conservation commissions, DPWs.
Um, and the maps have been used in a variety of situations, open space, uh, plans, MVP plans, master plans, and we've even made some maps for some municipalities, uh, grant proposals if it was relevant for them. So, that's
kind of an overview of the process. That's a very quick overview of like six years, but um, hopefully that gives you all kind of a sense of what went into this. Happy to answer any questions. Um, I should have said at the beginning, please feel free. We would love for this to be a conversation with you all. If you have questions throughout, please
feel free to just pipe in or raise your hand. We'll also, of course, have plenty of time at the end for questions. Um, but I'm going to pass it off to Becca to talk a little bit about the data. Now, >> thanks, Abby. Um, so this prioritization was really split up into seven different
analyses. Um, there are six maps here shown on the screen. Flood mitigation is actually split into two different analyses. It's just merged on this one map here. Um, it's split between coastal mitigation, flood mitigation, and inland flood mitigation. I'm going to go
through each of these analyses and we'll show you the Newberry maps. Um, I'm not going to be talking about urban cooling today cuz none there were no parcels in Newberry that um got a score for urban cooling. And you can go to the next slide, Abby.
Thank you. Um, so for all of the modules that I talk about, um, we do analyze all of the parcels within Essex County that are 5 acres or larger. For the habitat analysis, which is what you're looking at here, uh, we combined all the data
sets that we determined to be the most critical for defining habitat value. to this included climate related data such as the TNC's resilience data, ecological data like biomap or the CAPS data from UMass as well as priority habitats for
rare species, cold water fisheries, um ACE areas um and um SLAM, which is the sea level affecting marsh migration. I always forget that acronym, but um you can go to the next slide, Abby, so we
can take a look at the Newberry results here. Um so again for each analysis the only part of each parcel that is being analyzed are the unprotected and undeveloped portions which is why as you're looking at these results. Um
there might be some larger parcels on the map that you might be like you know why is this not scoring um or higher get got a higher score than some of the smaller parcels and that could just be because there's a good chunk of the area that might be developed. Um,
so just like a quick overview of the results here. It's not shocking to me to see critical priority parcels of land being near the Great Marsh for the habitat analysis due to just the ecological importance of that area. Um, but this just gives you just a quick
snapshot um of all the habitat parcels in your town. You'll also notice while looking at this map that critical priority and high priority parcels tend to be located next to um parcels that are already protected open space and that's you know just because
connectivity of open space matters for habitat. Um the larger the protected open space the better it is for the habitat. You can move on to natural resilience. So the goal of natural resilience is just to identify parcels that are
resilient to a rapidly changing climate um where species are able to move as they get pushed out of their habitat from climate change. So the big difference um between habitat versus natural resilience is more um that the habitat analysis is focusing on where
what's there today whereas natural resilience is really focusing on the future. and we could take a look at the results for Newberry. Um, and here's just a quick snapshot. Um, you could see that some of the, if you had compared like the habitat map to
natural resilience map, I kept going back and forth earlier when I was looking or reviewing the maps. Um, some of the habitat parcels that scored as a critical priority or a high priority, um, a good chunk of them were actually scored lower here for natural resilience. And I feel like that's a
good uh snapshot of what um like I said the difference between habitat whereas habitat is the now and natural resilience is the future um we can move on to drinking water. So since water quality and ecological
function are both so intricately connected we wanted to identify parcels that are important for drinking water. Luckily, Green Belt had uh our former president who was a hydraologist. So, we were able to get um good insight on what data to include for this analysis and
that just included things like wellhead and surface water supply protection areas, public um water supply intakes, watershed boundaries, which is actually a data set that Green Belt created specifically for this analysis. And then lastly, a newer data set that we added
recently called forest to faucets, which identifies wersheds important for drinking water as well as it identifies threat factors to forests um that are important to drinking water such as threats like development, insects, and disease.
And you can go on to the results. So, Newberry actually does not have a ton of parcels that score for drinking water, probably just, you know, due to the lack of public drinking water intakes. You could see those big orange dots up in West Newberry and Newberry
Port. Um those are public drinking water intakes. Um the few that are or did score for drinking water tip are pretty much on the western side of the town with I believe if you look carefully there's a couple um on the border. I
think there's one to the north a very small one to the north as well um that score for drinking water. We can go on to inland. Actually, can I ask a question on that one? >> Sure. >> I just am curious. Um, since so much of
the town is on wells, their own private wells, did that at all impact the prioritization of some of these parcels? So, that great question, Christina. This is p like public drinking water. We didn't have remember I I went back to my
data source. We didn't have we don't have data on private wells. So, um, it's really public like municipal type or water systems type parcels. That's what we're looking at for public drinking water supplies. So, if they're private wells, those were not necessarily
included. >> Okay, that's >> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. >> Yeah, it does. So, it's like a data set that at some point in the future could be evaluated, could be created and evaluated like as a as a project, >> right? >> Or a community. >> Okay. >> Yeah. and and if a community So I'm
actually I'm really glad you um made me think of this. One of the things and and this is a little out of order, but if you can bear with me here, one of the really helpful things that we do through this process when we work with municipalities is we get local feedback on this data because of course we're doing this at a regional scale. And so
if you all every community is a little different and has different data available to them or that they're interested in. So if that was data for example that you had available or that you could develop we could overlay that data on this map if you had it and wanted to share it. That's the kind of thing we have done with certain
communities. Um, you know, we've had certain communities that had specialized funding priorities based on their own communities. We were able to map that, you know, and also you may have maybe not as relevant in this situation, but if you said, "Wait a second, you're mapping a parcel's priority, but that
thing's been completely developed or it was protected. We can update our analysis with that information and revise the results." So we can kind of incorporate your local information from a number of different perspectives. >> Yeah. And I guess my last question,
didn't realize I had so many questions on the drinking water one, but um is the protection was the prioritization based on quantity of water like maintaining quantity of water uh to feed the system or was it quality of water or
was it both? if you said it. Sorry. If you could repeat it, that would be great. Just so I get my head around it. >> Yeah, great question. We We did not say that. It's really both. Um the thing that we're most uh heavily prioritizing is
um protecting natural land cover in subwaterheds to public drinking water supplies. So we actually include everything like we include groundwater and all that kind of thing but the most heavily prioritized in terms of the scoring metric is if you take like this
is a great example where you take a surface water intake and a reservoir as an example. We then are looking at the subwhed that is of the land cover that's feeding into that public surface water intake and we're saying what areas
within that land is natural land cover because there's a very clear as you all know relationship between the natural land cover and the quality and the quantity of the water within that. And so the quality probably I would say comes more from the presence of the
groundwater and some of those things but we're heavily also influencing that uh surface water and land cover relationship. Does that make sense? >> It does. Thank you. >> Great. And we will um the other thing we'll share is that we have a methodology document that we prepared
for the 2019 result. We're still working on updating um the the update, but it's largely the same. There's some very small tweaks to it. And what that gets in is it lists all the data sources but also the formulas the way we weighted the different data. So you can see there
and we try to make it as clear as possible. We tried to you know say okay here is how for this example this is how we deal with surface water. This is how we deal with groundwater. These are the points we assign. This is how it's weighted. All that kind of thing. And then if you all have questions on that please just let us know.
>> Oh Abby it's Sean here. Hey >> question. Hi. Um, so, uh, okay. So, uh, the what I guess what I'm saying is it's pretty clearly marked that the yellow dots are these are reservoir sources.
uh in the like I'm looking at the blue on the far left of this map for manubry and basically I can see in there there are there are two uh public water supply wells at least and I think a third in
there somewhere but um so you're saying that the orange dots that we're seeing here would only be if they're on the surface not subsurface No. So public public water supply wells are included. We do not. So we can add
those to this map. We just we include the surface water intakes because for a lot of folks it's the most intuitive relationship between uh the results and the uh input data. But we use all public water uh data that's available to us
including uh wells and surface water intakes. Great question. Uh I actually am thinking there may be a reason why it doesn't show up in your data possibly and that is um the wells
are actually in a separate district in the town. It's something called the Biffield Water District >> which is kind of a semi-public entity. It's not >> it's not actually a townwide resource. It's >> interesting
>> essentially paid for by the people that uh because the uh the supply doesn't it doesn't supply the entire entire town. It only supplies that far left section of the town and part of Georgetown I think. So anyways, uh yeah, great
question. Um what we can do is um why don't we we'll just make a map that has the um the wells the public water wells that added onto this map and then you can see where those are as well. Thank you. All right, >> great. Becca, did you want to jump to
the next slide? >> Yep, you can go right ahead. I was just taking a note to uh add that data to the drinking water map. So, all right. Um, so inland flooding. So, flooding is obviously something that's becoming more of an issue as climate change
progresses. Um, I'm pretty sure I said this quote in the last presentation I did on this, but I just find it really super interesting. Um, this quote comes from the EPA and they say that a 1 acre wetland can typically store about 3 acre feet of water or equivalent to 1 million
gallons. Um, which is a lot. And in addition to wetlands, upland natural land cover can also provide significant flood mitigation value. Um, for our flooding analysis, for the flood data, we use the FEMA National Flood Hazard
data. Um, that includes a compilation of the flood insurance rate maps. Um, we also included things like soil drainage data, forest cores, which is basically just large blocks of forested areas, 100 acres or larger, as well as land cover
and land use data, and lastly, environmental justice areas. So we included environmental justice areas because or these parcels received a little bit of a higher score just due to the fact that people within the EJ areas are typically the ones who are impacted
the worst by climate change related issues such as flooding and you can go on to the results. Um yeah, you could see a lot of the parcels are um going to be along some of those
like that river down to the south. Um yep, coming in there. Um there is no critical priority parcels I don't think for Newberry. It doesn't look like it. Um,
but we can go on to coastal flooding because because Newberry is a coastal town, there's going to be lots of critical priority parcels there for coastal flooding. Um, coastal flooding is pretty much the same process that in inland flooding is, except that instead
of FEMA data, we use what's called the Massachusetts coastal flood risk model as our flood data. This data set includes flooding scenarios for 2030, 2050, and 2070. And the reason why we incorporated this data set was just due to the fact um that h how this data
takes certain factors into consideration such as wind waves um storm surge wave setup over topping all of the flood related things. Um we also included environmental justice um areas as well for the scoring metric. Um, and you can
go on to the results. And again, here you can see a lot of um there's a lot of critical priority parcels over where the Great Marsh is um and some along like the little inlets and rivers um within Newberry. That's where a lot of the concentration of the
priority parcels are going to be. And you can go on to the last analysis which is agriculture. So unlike our other analyses, we had to create a lot of data specifically for the agriculture analysis. Um just due to
the lack of farmland focused data for the county, we decided to map actively farmed areas in Essex County and identify farm entities which is basically just a group of parcels owned by one farmer or farming company. Um so
unlike the other analyses which um basically looked at each parcel individually, the agricultural analysis is taking a group of parcels that's owned by the same farmer and um it the analysis is run using those farm entities rather than individual parcels.
So in addition to our own data, uh we also use chapter 61 status information that we received from all the assessor's offices for each town within the county. We also use NRCS farm soils um infrastructure data such as mass roads
and structures and buildings. Um, and if you can go to the results page. Uh, so the results that we're showing you here, uh, right now are actually from the initial analysis that we did back in 2019. Um, Greenville has a ton
of agricultural related conservation projects and as we were reviewing our prioritization data, we uh, decided to make some tweaks to the analysis. Um, so that's why it is the 2019 results, but as soon as we're done with our tweaks, we'll send you updated maps for the A
analysis as soon as possible. And I'm going to hand it back over to Abby to go over um some ways that we've used this data. >> Great. >> Before you jump before you jump into the next one, just want to reiterate that
all across all those analyses, it's all five acre parcels or greater. >> Yes. >> Correct. Yep. Yeah, good question, Mike. The one exception is the farming. So, if there is a parcel that is actively farmed, even if it's under five acres, it does get included.
>> Gets included. And and I know it would be another lift. I'm not I'm not like thinking for a spec one of the specific of the six, but like has there ever been an instance and it might not just be related to new, you
know, in any of your prioritization work where you've lumped smaller parcels together because of a critical aspect, whatever it might be, whether it was flood mitigation or or natural resil resilience or any of the
other uh target areas. So kind of um what we've done so in in a couple areas we so for like the Manchester Essex Woods if if folks are familiar with that area that's a part of the county where
you have relatively small parcel with that are together have very high ecological value but because of the land use pattern there where it was divided into small little wood lots the per part
parcel analysis result really does not convey the larger ecological value of that region. So what we did for those communities is we essentially drew a circle around that area and said this is a conservation focus area. So we didn't
it would have been cool to think that way but also the ownership in that area. I mean that's a whole another like conversation but so we didn't group based on ownership but we we just knew from experience that the parcels didn't reflect the reality on the ground. So in that case that's what we did there. Um
the other one is on I would say in very specific instances we have grouped parcels. We've done it at the project level and we've always and I'm glad you made me think of this mic because I totally we we presented to Wes Newbury last week and I totally forgot to mention this. Um, one of the things we
always offer is um, we actually have to fix it right now, but we have a tool that we can we can do just what Mike is talking about. So, for a project, we can group parcels together because, you know, as you all know, you might have five parcels owned by one land owner and
they're all analyzed separately, right? And, you know, if you group them together, they're all adjacent. That's actually the real conservation project. We have a tool where you can do that and then it will recalculate that area um and recalculate its results based on the actual project area. So it's not
something we can do every week because it is a bit timeconuming but if there is a project that you all are working on and you want to know that that is something that as long as we can like fit it in we're happy to do that. Um Becca do you have any other like examples that you can think of where we've done that? No, the the one that
comes to mind is the um Manchester Essex woods that you said >> where we I think we created maps for Essex too um showing those areas that we were talking about. >> Yeah, great question though. Yeah, it's a tricky thing and and we've
debated a lot because with the farming I mean that's part of what we're working on right now is that to go through every parcel and try to figure out how the ownership actually is organized is very very timeconuming as you can all imagine and so we did it in 2019 but we wanted
to redouble those efforts to make sure it was really rock solid. It's always going to need to be improved. Data is never perfect. we know this, but we kind of really wanted to make sure that the qual data quality was as accurate as it could be. So, we're kind of redoubling our efforts on that, but it's it's very
challenging to do that um on a larger scale, which all these other analyses are larger scale because another difference with the farming is it's only places where active farming exists if you follow me. So, there's just not as many parcels that are in the agricultural data set as in a lot of
these others. So, Good questions. Great. Um, all right. I'll just give a couple quick examples and then and of course, please feel free to keep jumping in, but we can also have kind of a discussion at the end here. Um, so the first one is the city of Amesbury. Um,
they were one of the first communities we worked with after we completed the analysis in 2019. Um, and so they were happened to be doing their open space plan right at that same time. Um, one of our board members is actually the chair of that committee. So, of course, he was
aware of the work that we were doing. And so, very similar, we're, you know, we presented to their open space committee. Um, we made six or seven maps for them. Um, we always kind of just include the maps that are relevant for the community. The two maps here are just examples. Um, and they included
those maps as an appendix to their open space plan, which a number of communities have um, done. And then they used the results um in a number of ways, really interesting ways. Um but kind of a a really straightforward way here is
they used it to inform their open space planning as a community. Um and so on the left you have an example of a portion of the natural resilience results here where this is municipally owned land. If you can see my cursor, we
have Woodson Farm to the north and this is actually um Aimsbury Town Forest to the south. And a number of these parcels were not protected. They were municipally owned but not formally protected. And so the community really put a big effort into um formally
protecting these properties. And the image on the right, we have a trails app called Green Belt Go. Um we actually own a big chunk of land right in the middle of the town forest. So we uh we included Aimsbury Town Forest in our um our Green Belco trails app, but we also included
Wood with some farm here to the north and then our Rier Hill reservation properties to the east. And so really great um projects that the the city's really been really excited about where you know they were able to kind of use the data as a part of their thought process to say okay we we felt like this
was important but sure enough you know here's how these places ranked. um they were existing recreational resources but they were also able to evaluate them through the lens of habitat and natural resilience and some of these other factors. Um, so that's a pretty, you
know, straightforward just open space planning kind of the ways that we would have expected. I will say Ames just because we do know the chair of the committee and I keep chatting with him and hearing updates. I mean, they've used that data to evaluate um zoning proposals at a parcel level. They've
used it to um, you know, inform all sorts of projects and each community has used it differently. It's been really interesting. Um, a lot of folks have used it in ways I never would have expected. Like I told you, you know, some folks have used the maps for grant proposals and all sorts of things. Um,
but the next example, which is kind of the final thing that we'll wrap up on here, is a conservation project that we worked on with the town of Lynfield. Um, this is the parcel here on the map in yellow, a relatively modestsiz parcel, 20 acres that was very expensive. Um but
really critical within the context of the town and the watershed. Um this uh you might be able to see there's a water body coming in up to the north and that is actually the headarters of the Ipsswitch River. Um adjacent to this parcel was hundreds of acres of
protected municipal land protected largely for watershed purposes. Um and they did have an existing trail network within that protected land. um our partner, the Ipsswitch River Wershed Association had identified this parcel as being extremely important for uh
drinking water protection and then the community also had identified this parcel as being very important to be protected. Um but they hadn't had a lot of uh land protection experience. Um and of course the purchase price was really really expensive. So you know h how do
we use this data in this whole project? So first of all, we evaluated why is the parcel to important to protect something we always do. So we had known it was important for uh drinking water. This is our 2019 results because this project's a few years old now. It was identified
as a critical priority for drinking water. Um so that is always nice to know because everybody was assuming it was good for drinking water, but it's always really helpful to get an analysis results back which is not looking at your assumptions. It's looking at data and it says yes that in fact this is a
critical priority for drinking water. But we were able to expand that evaluation because we knew that it would be important for public recreation. There was an interest in um establishing a parking lot and a trail head. But we also found out that the parcel was important for inland flood mitigation as
well as for habitat and for natural resilience. So it expanded the conversation around why this property would be protected. And then importantly, um, we worked with the community to protect this land. Green Belt now owns it. Um, but we made maps
for a MVP grant that the community applied for. They had actually um talked about the importance of drinking water in their MVP plan. And then we were able to tie the importance of this parcel to drinking water. And the community had
wanted to use MVP funding to protect it. They successfully applied for a 1.6 6 million MPP grant, not 100% because of us by any stretch, but our maps and data were able to support that effort. Um, and then there was a larger fundraising
effort by the town and by Green Belt to go towards the $2.7 million purchase price. Christina, >> sorry, when you were saying MVP earlier, I was thinking that I was thinking that that was Marramac Valley Planning, but I'm not totally sure. So, is that what
MVP stands for here? No, thank you for asking that question. I'm I'm uh I was the victim of using acronyms without defining them, so I apologize. That's the >> Everybody else probably knows, just me. I not >> No, I I'm really glad you asked. It's a municipal vulnerability planning
process, which is the um municipal planning process to identify climate risks and climate priorities for the community. >> Thank you. >> Yep. Yeah, great question. Um which I should have I should have said. So yes, Lynfield had in their um municipal
vulnerability plan said drinking water is a really important focus for us as a community. And so then we could say the community said we would like to protect this land to um further our drinking water efforts and and we could say okay this is how this parcel scored on on our
analysis. Um and and you know we in our own efforts too have used our data to support funding applications um on land grants on behalf of municipalities where we've made maps of our results to support a community's land grant application as well as our own state
grants um and other foundation grants to say okay you know we know that you value habitat this is how this partial scored um and just always want to kind of acknowledge the partnership effort of these projects because I mean most to all of them are at this point
partnerships and this was a really fantastic partnership with the um Lynfield Center Water District, the town, the Epster River Waters Association and of course Green Belt. So to wrap up um oh I just noticed Jim do you have your hand up? I'm sorry about that. >> Just a quick question. So you were the
Aimberry uh one was you mentioned the open space committee uh or the plan at least the chairman chairperson etc. Was Lynfield driven by a similar group or I saw the conservation commission was listed there
like which town entities were sort of spearheading this? I I'm I'm posing that more not as a question to answer right now, but like here in Newbury, we have this, you know, our re our committee here that has been recently rejuvenated and because we have
to get the plan, the OSRP done. Um, but we also have a conservation committee. We have obviously planning and all of that. So, you know, I think having this data, seeing it here, and knowing then other entities in town are going to use it and that we can all, you know, sort
of align on what direction we're heading, uh, is making more of an observation about it that it's just good to see two different examples there. >> Yeah, great point. And and I would just say, you know, in our experience, it it varies town to town and even project to
project. like we, you know, we've presented to D staff of DBWS to planning boards. Um when we presented to West Newbury last week, it was a combined group of open space committee and their climate committee which was really
interesting. Um we're happy to talk to whoever and we're really excited when when the data gets used. So it's like whatever we can do to support a municipality's efforts is really exciting. Um, and I would say, you know, it's really customized to each
community's situations and experiences. Like, it's really cool. I mean, we we did this with the city of Methuan a number of years ago, and they've used it in their open space planning, but they also used it uh so, you know, Newbury doesn't have urban heat islands, but Methuan certainly does. and they used
our heat data that we generated as a part of that analysis to apply for funding to remove um pavement on a really hot urban area in a municipal parcel and because they had the heat data which just was not even available back then we had to create it that's one
way they used it and they also used it to apply for funding for tree planting you know not at all what I envisioned but such great projects you know what I mean so um that's what Mthuan's thinking about but of course for Newbury and Gloucester and all these different communities, it's different. So, um,
yeah, really, really great observation. And I would say, you know, as we work on projects with municipalities, each project is a little bit different in terms of which municipal department we're working with, which staff person, which committee members. So, I hope that that kind of I mean, it's yeah, it's
more of a conversation, I guess, than a question. So, um, great. So, >> question. Sorry. Go ahead, Christina. Yeah, go ahead. So when you work with in partnerships, you know, with the city of Lynfield, say on conserving that and everybody like
managed to round up like I saw the funding sources came from lots of different places and so is it do does Essex does Green Belt work just kind of independently side by side in parallel
to make an effort like that like push an effort like that forward or does like did the city of Lynfield have a contract and pay Green Belt to work on the project with them? Like how do you all contribute and do you like need to get
paid for it when you are contributing to something like that a conservation effort? >> Yeah, great question. We don't get paid by municipalities to do any of this. Um whether it's open like the work Becca and I do or the work that our colleagues in the land conservation department do.
So um so Vanessa Johnson Hall is our director of conservation and if you guys ever want her to you know discuss this with you and of course Mike can speak to this as as well. Mike is director of stewardship field operations but you know Mike and Beck and I all sit and sorry Mike to call you out. We all sit
in the same department. Um I did used to be in the conservation department so I can speak a little bit to that. Um but essentially we work very much in partnership with communities on projects. And so, you know, I I don't want to speak for my colleagues, but I can I can hint at it. Mike, if you want
to jump in, feel free. But I think that what we do is if a a community is interested in a project and there's a an opportunity that a land owner is interested and willing to conserve their land because that's key. They're ready and interested, right? Um and it is
something that Green Belt is interested in and that we can do. That's kind of a key evaluation process. Um that will all be looked at first. The land protection staff will evaluate parcels based on this data based on local priorities, a number of different factors. One of the
things our staff does and is really fantastic is evaluating funding opportunities and figuring helping communities figure out if they're interested and need it, what's available out there? What can Green Belt bring to the table in terms of funding? Um what can we support the community to do? we
often will support um communities grant efforts for partnership projects, you know, whether it's where us making, you know, prioritization maps or assisting in whatever way folks need. Um and then the other thing that's very much a conversation is kind of how is the
project going to be structured. So sometimes green belt will purchase the land and the community might hold a conservation restriction. Sometimes that's reversed. Sometimes we hold no conservation restriction. It really varies um with each situation. Mike, did
you want to add to that? >> Yeah, I was just gonna piggyback off of you speaking to our um our our ability to, you know, figure out the the right funding avenue to go through for for projects. We we also
switch I'll switch my hat to green belt. We're also have the staff that are very good at fundraising and educating for fundraising opportunities. municipalities as well. I think in the Lynfield situation, I I I want to say
that the property was on our radar, but I think Lynfield came to us to figure out how to go forward with being able to protect it. And we worked in partnership with them to fund raise, to identify, you know, grant funding opportunities
and things like that. So, it was kind of multifaceted for the for that acquisition. >> Yep. I think that's right, Mike. And each situation's a little different. You know, sometimes we approach the communities, sometimes the communities approach us. Yeah. >> Sometimes a partnership organization approaches us. I know this was a huge
conversation. As I mentioned, Ipsich River Watershed Association was very interested in that parcel. And these conversations happen often over years and then something maybe changes and it's like, okay, you know, so >> Yep. >> Right. >> Exactly.
>> Yeah. But we we do have great colleagues um you know who work do work on the development side and we will do things like um work on town meeting campaigns and mailings around that and getting the word out and trying to createformational posters and things like that. Becca and
I will do a lot of work on that kind of thing because we work on the mapping and kind of graphic side of things if you will and data side. So great all good questions. Um, okay. So, very quickly to wrap up because I I kind of don't want to keep talking because this is such a great conversation and I
I don't want to I feel like the questions you guys are asking the conversation is more interesting. But, you know, just to kind of the the final piece here is and we've touched on a lot of these things in our conversation already. So, you know, I think that hopefully this will all make sense, but you know, we green belt and hopefully if this is something you guys find helpful,
you know, this is just one tool. It can help make strategic decisions around resources and help inform planning decisions. As I mentioned, landowner readiness is a critical factor. Funding, community support, all critical partnerships, right? All critical to successful land conservation projects.
So, you know, I think you all know that, but just I always have to say that. Um, one thing I really do need to add to the slide. I keep forgetting to to add it, but but I want to say it is that, you know, we really appreciate your on the ground knowledge. We do know some of the
parcels that are included in the results uh you know on a firsthand basis but a lot of them we've never been to in our lives. So you know again it's just a tool and making sure that parcels are evaluated on the ground and looked at in real life ground truthing is really
really important. Um you know we have found it helpful to take these results with all that said and tie them to you know use them for outreach. It helps us when we're evaluating, as you can imagine, for us it's thousands of parcels across the county that we're
looking at. And so it can really help us narrow things down and inform fundraising and decision- making around priorities. Um, I should say we still we get questions about this sometimes. We still protect parcels that are not mapped as a priority in our prioritization. Sometimes we have like
we just completed a partnership project with the city of Beverly, tiny little pocket parks in downtown Beverly. Um, and we are we are holding a conservation restriction for the city of Beverly because it was very very important to that community that those parcels be
protected. They are too small to be mapped in our prioritization. But because that was so important to them, we we did work with them on that. and you know so I never want to say this is all we care about but we have to have somewhere to start you know um but we
have found a really helpful way to inform you know and to really try to help us be strategic everybody has limited time and dollars land as we all know is incredibly expensive in our region and so we're really it's important to green belt to make sure that we're using the most up-to-date
data um that's based in you know relevant and recent scientific research but also that we're getting a really high conservation impact for our time and dollars. Um, and I think that's everything. Yep. And I'm going to stop sharing so we can all see each other.
Um, and I would love any other questions that you all have or comments or or thoughts. I have I have a thought. I'm I'm I'm back on the uh drinking water map, but uh one of the things that uh popped in my
mind uh when you moved on for a minute was that the other aside from uh private wells and the uh the water district that's in Biffield, uh Plum Island is actually serviced by the water supply from Newburyport.
And I was was just thinking to myself that uh the critical areas on a map like that would actually be located not in Newbury but in Newbury Port. And uh when it comes to uh this is
probably nothing to do with open space in Newbury, but uh I can see uh people on Plum Island having a concern about how uh that land in Newbury Port is
conserved, for example. Um yeah and it may also be an issue if >> for example uh uh we wanted to extend that water supply to some other part of the town say and uh you know what would be the impact on
that and these are things that of course a state would be interested in and of course there's the regional impact for of multiple communities all sort of uh uh well using the same ex water supply
essentially is I guess what I'm saying is uh most of the maps I'm seeing have the geopolitical boundary of the town and and don't seem to uh extend beyond that. Is that something that you guys are able to do or and in such a way that
it doesn't become >> uh because I mean I'm thinking from our perspective it you know our focus is going to be on Newbury but yes there are these other things that sort of have to fit in there. Uh anyways, >> yeah, I totally hear what you're saying, Sean. Great question. Um yes, so we have
sometimes, to your exact point, we have sometimes, particularly with drinking water, included parcels in other communities because of exactly what you're talking about. We've also had projects that align with what you're talking about. We um protected a property in West Newbury called Artichoke River Woods and new the city
of Newport also I'm sure you guys are familiar this is your neck of the woods but or some of you may be but the city of Newport actually contributed funding to that project because it's right on the line and the city of Newberport is also it's a huge drinking water it's you know right on the reservoir it was one
of the orange surface water intakes that was on that map um and so the city of Newport was interested in helping to protect that land because it is benefiting the drinking water that is going to their constituents. So, we can turn the results on for the other um
communities. That's not like a secret. We just really do it to try to help focus, you know, because it's not relevant for in a lot of cases. Um, another exception is if a farm goes into another community, we often will include that as well because sometimes we have
farms that are in two communities, but it's one ownership. So, we're happy to do that. And um we can also make a version of the map that includes those uh community wells. >> Okay, thank you. >> Mhm.
>> Just taking notes. Um excuse me. Um I have a pretty uh maps for dummies kind of question. Um I so you have protected open space on all
the maps labeled. So the um like on the drinking water map there's the drinking water prioritization parcels labeled. So are those those are all not
protected open space correct? They're not already protected. It's it's a really good question. So the way it works like yes, but let me add a little addendum. So >> okay, >> we look at the unprotected undeveloped
portion of parcels. So in some cases you could have a 50 acre parcel and 25 acres is protected. Okay? And so let's say just to keep it simple, it's for whatever reason 25 acres of this 50acre parcel is protected
and you have 25 unprotected undeveloped acres. So we are only looking at that remaining 25 acres of >> so it's not necessarily parcel by parcel. >> It's parcel by parcel but it's only the unprotected portion of the parcel.
>> Okay. Okay. I see. >> Yeah. So it it's a little confusing, but it's like I'm trying to think of a good example. Um, so yeah, you see this a lot on farms, I'll say that. So especially like a 100 acre farm and like 20 acres
of their fields are maybe protected under an APR, but then there's a whole another chunk of it that maybe they acquired later or is under a brother's ownership or something like that and that portion is not protected. So, we don't want to say, okay, you have a 100 acre farm and 20 acres is protected.
Forget it. We don't want to say there's no no project potential there. What we say is of what's unprotected, what's the value of what's unprotected? >> Okay, I see. So all of these labeled parcels
um that have a certain priority attached to them depending on what the analysis was it they are not necessarily the whole parcel is that status. It's it's just that part of the parcel. >> Exactly. So each parcel that pops up as
a priority it is either completely unprotected or it is at most partially protected. >> Okay. And and all of the parcels that you've analyzed are
town or municipal or is it municipal and private? I think you might have said this, but I I wasn't sure. >> No, no. Uh municipal and private. It's everything. >> Okay, gotcha. Cool. >> Yep. These are good questions.
>> So, you might have just said this, but I don't think so. So, you have the data that could prepare a map that shows the town owned parcels that are not developed and they're unprotected. >> So, you're uh you're asking if we have a
map of that. >> Well, if you have the data that would prepare a map for that. >> Yeah. >> Uh I mean, we can make a map of that. We have all the pieces of that. So we certainly have because we have the ownership and then we have the way it works and I don't know if this will be
helpful or not but um and Becca if you want to jump in too if you can think about it often I talk about cookie cutters with parcels. So pretend the land is dough and the parcels are cookie cutters. Okay, we're looking at which part of the dough is worth protecting. And so the first thing you do is you
remove anything that's protected out of the dough. And then you remove anything that's developed out of the dough. And then you look at what's left and you say, is this worth a conservation project? Is it worth a cookie conservation project? And so that's kind of what's remaining. Uh in the background, we have all sorts of data.
We produce, I mean, Becca, hundreds of data layers probably, but we do have the ownership and we do we essentially erase, if you want to think about it that way. you take the land and we erase what's protected and we erase what's developed and so you have what's left afterwards.
>> I think we've just as a as a committee we have had conversations about what town owned lands are out there that haven't been protected yet and should we write that into our action plan for the next years to kind of at least protect those. You know, it' be interesting again to do the analysis of how many
partials are that, how many acres is it, where are they located, and how would it compare to effort spent to conserve other partials. Like maybe we wouldn't want to if we looked at the data, but I just think we haven't >> fully appreciated what that data looks like. So, it was just interesting to know that you've got the data that you
could actually tell us that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. So, I think I better understand. So, I would recommend two things that might Well, you can tell us if this is helpful. We can give you a list. We often do give towns lists of the results in a spreadsheet. And so
what it'll look like is the parcel ID, the owner, and then the different analyses like habitat, natural resiliency, etc., etc., with the score. So it'll say critical priority, high priority, etc., etc. So then you can look at privately owned parcels, you can
look at municipally owned parcels, and you can then say, okay, this is where this this parcel ranked. and it allows you to kind of have a snapshot. The other thing we can do and I would so this is up to you guys but we try to keep these maps as simple as possible
because the more information at some point you keep adding information and you can't see anything it's noise you know so we don't generally do this for if somebody wants to for example include a map in an open space plan but for your own planning purposes we can create a
map where like we and Becca please pipe up here and tell me if this is a bad idea so I'm not promising things that are bad ideas but we can do something like we can put an outline on all the municipally owned parcels a a special outline a certain color or something like that you know um so that as you
visualize them you can say okay of these these are the municipal ones and to your point about well this point I'm making but asbury that was the kind of thing they really wanted to look at too and how they used our maps because they said to your point okay we have all this city owned land it's not protected where
should we start and that was one of the ways they used this as well so if those things would be helpful. One or both, we can make those for you guys to help inform your process. >> I think >> I think I think Christina in the um the
uh o open space inventory section of our plan that included a table on municipally municipalowned land, not necessarily protected. So I think we have an inventoried table of those parcels, but we haven't mapped it, you
know. So like at least we we know the parcels that are there and then you know maybe that in turn could have some of these analyses run to figure out you know if if one is a higher priority than another for XYZ reason but I think we have inventoried it at least at this
point. >> Yeah. Nope. Agreed. I was thinking that I actually opened up the plan. I was like oh yeah we have that table already. >> Yeah. >> So just like Yeah. The overlay or just having the map would be interesting and then overlaid. I like the I like the table that shows based on green belts
prioritization which prior which parcels might have fallen into the one of those prior you know six priority areas of habitat or resilience or whatever. Sorry. Abby, a lot of the municipal parcels that Newbury owns are small.
They have a lot of small parcels, right? So, like we we'd have to reconfigure the analysis to look at these acre, twoacre pieces that the town owns >> or maybe some of them but one another too and could be lumped together. I think that was kind of what was in the back of my head when I was asking if you
guys ever do look at, you know, a bunch of smaller parcels together to um figure out, you know, you know, the values there. Um >> y >> cuz I think that's the case for us. I think a lot of our municipal lands are small. There are plenty that are above 5
acres, but you know, there there's a bunch that are under. >> Yeah. And um that would be something we could do, Mike. We could take like if you guys have three three acre parcels all right next to each other, we could merge them together, make them one parcel and then rerun the analysis and
score it based on that new 9 acre parcel. Um, and now it'll get analyzed whereas the three three acre persons would not. Um, so that's that's definitely a thing we could do. And then what we can also do, I'd love to have, if you don't mind sharing that table, so
we can make sure that the information we have on what is protected or unprotected at the m municipal level is tracking with what you have, if that makes sense. Um, because we have it, but you know, our data is only as good as the state's open space data, and your data is
probably better than that. So, we can make sure that our data is as good as yours is. >> Yeah. And I think mine was Frankenstein between level three and the actual like assessor output from like the town's assessor to me. >> So, you know, really only
more updated than the last time it was submitted to the state >> at that snapshot in time. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, >> how I past that table, that's how I developed that table. >> Yeah. And probably um hope well, yeah, we can talk about it more, Mike, but I think, you know, it's probably going to
be more up to date than what we have a little bit. So yeah, that would be really interesting. That's the kind of stuff that's really fun about bringing this out to the like community level is to kind of get into the weeds a little bit and and tighten things up and improve it. So that'd be cool. I'd be curious to see what happens.
Hi Well, I was just looking in in our open space report which we're working on now. Um uh one of the maps that is required or apparently required was pointed out by uh Marmac Valley Planning Commission was that we
needed a map number seven. It's uh based on data from the Nature Conservancy uh on the uh climate change section and uh I I I put together a map by just going there. But the question I have for
you is do you know if uh in your experience have you been able to put together maps similar to that um for other towns uh based on that data? So I I mean some of the maps you've shown us have that as
a data source that that the that the state would consider a reasonable uh uh substitute for something that is you know essentially what I came up with naively which was just directly taking a
you know cutting and pasting from the nation conservancy maps. >> Yeah. which is on. So that data is one of the most complicated data sets that we use. It's it's very very involved. Um there's some others that are really intense, but that's one of them. It's up
there. Um so we've not done that. Um but we as you said it is a primary, it's the number one data source in our natural resiliency analysis. There are others and then it is a data source in the habitat. Um we have not made standalone maps for communities necessarily. I even
with our project staff, I even encourage them to like use the Nature Conservy's tools if they're wanting to make like a a calculation of a parcel with the Nature Conservy's resiliency data because they keep that page really up to date as to which is the data they're
like the most recent version because there's lots of iterations of it. So, um I don't think that's a bad way to go um because it is reliable and it's consistent with what the organization is is like is um using
>> Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. >> Great. Any other questions? I don't want to cut anything off, but >> um another really basic question. Um so you said that um
all the analyzed parcels are undeveloped. Um, I guess for for agriculture that's obviously not considered developed, but I know that uh are you including parcels that have
like a barn on them or like other like agricultural related structures or is that considered developed? Like I'm just I'm just curious about your criteria there. >> So agriculture is its own thing. So, I'll talk about that in a second. And
Becca, if you want to jump in, please feel free to do that. But, um, so everything minus agriculture, we remove any development. And so, that is everything. It's it's um roads, it's
buildings, it's de, you know, particularly like if you can think of a large parcel that's then been subdivided and completely developed, that all gets removed. >> So, that's that's kind of again, we like we literally erase it. So it it's like a hole, you know, um because there's no
natural resource value. Obviously, there's other values, but no natural resource value to that land anymore. Um agriculture is different because in that case, the infrastructure is actually benefiting the resource, right? So barns
and green houses and farmer housing are critical to support local agriculture. So in that case, we actually give them points for it. So, it's it's a funny like flip, but in that case, we say,
okay, if this farm has they get points for buildings of a certain size, again, barns, green houses, you're providing food, you are growing food in those spaces. And then the other thing we give them for uh points for is road frontage because for two reasons. One is that
farms that have significant road frontage and are scenic are often easier to fundra for, which is kind of a funny thing, right? like communities, a lot of local folks love their farms that they drive by all the time. The other reason is that the likelihood for a business
operation to be established where there's significant road frontage is increased. So, if a farm has a tiny tiny little area of road frontage with a driveway and that's all, they're not as likely to be able to have a place where the community can come and have, you
know, a place to buy vegetables. Having that place first of all is beneficial to the business operations and makes the farm more viable. It also makes it more likely we can fund raise to protect that farm. So two different answers based on those situations, but you're right, for farms,
it's actually a bonus if they have buildings and structures. Otherwise, they're just removed because we don't want to analyze pavement for its ability to absorb flood waters for obvious reasons. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, that's super interesting. Thanks.
Good to know. >> Well, we really appreciate you both being willing to come and present to us tonight. I know we've been uh playing tag on on finding a good meeting date on both sides. So, um it's good that we were able to to finally pull this all
together. I think it's super helpful um for just us as individuals and to influence the the plan as we try to work towards a finish line. >> Great. Well, I'm glad and thanks for all your patience with us and rescheduling. Um please feel free to reach out with
more questions or comments if you think of something tomorrow or the next day. We're happy to to get back to you. Um I'll share my slides and that has Beck and I's emails. Um, we will revise the maps as we've discussed and get you guys updated maps. And if you wanted the
table of the results, we'll we can get that to you. That might take a week or two, but we we can get that together so you can compare that. Um, and just let us know, you know, if you have additional input or thoughts or changes if particularly because I know we got the maps to you today. If you're looking
at them and you say, as I said earlier, you know, we know this parcel has been completely developed. It's a neighborhood now or it was protected. please let us know that and we will either you know we'll remove the parcel from the analysis and that just that helps because if something has been
protected for example now a parcel that's not been protected somewhere in the county will get brought into the results if that makes sense. So it it is really helpful to make sure the data is accurate. But yeah, thank you all. We really appreciate your you guys had great questions and really interesting conversation. It's really fun to hear
your perspective. So thank you for your thoughts. We really appreciate it. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate you making the time. >> Yeah, great. Yeah, >> you guys are doing great work. Nice job, Becca and Abby. Thank you so much and >> thanks. Have a good night.
>> Can't take credit for for that for sure. >> Good night. >> Thanks, Abby. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Well, that was awesome. Um so yeah if they send anything to you Mike or myself we'll share it with the
rest of of you all. Um and um I think we just have if any committee members have updates um I have a little thing um there or actually David sent me
um a um an email from Storm Surge. there was a um a um making space for water talk um at the New Bridgeport Senior Center. Um
it was happening during this meeting, but I think there's going to be a recording online if if people are interested, I can send you more info. Um but he just wanted me to make you all aware of that. So that's my update, but if you all have updates, please feel free.
So, I just was trying to refresh my memory. I was looking back at the um our meeting notes from the last meeting >> and I know that Satie, you were maybe you and Kristen were working with MVPC on
ways to advance the action plan section of the plan. Um, and you guys were going to get together and review. Maybe maybe that's still >> Yes. >> pending schedule calendar adjusting. >> Yes. I'm I have to get back to Bill and
Mike and Martha about um setting up a time. I think we're trying to figure out a time that those those three can um get together to kind of um go through the old action plan and just you know analyze if something's been done or if
it can be brought over into the new action plan. So I think that's the next step there. Um and then whatever we um the results of that meeting can help us um
get started on you know getting the getting our updated action plan together. >> Yeah, the three of us have been trading schedules trying to find a common time. Um, I am hoping to to get a first pass through it uh sooner than later here
that I could then because depending on the three of our schedules just at least get it out there um to both Bill and Martha to then take another look especially Martha cuz she's spanned you know the timing of the last plan into the start of you know updating this one.
So um that that's my on my short list. >> Nice. That's awesome that you're gonna do that. Um, >> the never- ending short list. >> It's on the short list, which is probably not as short as you would like it to be.
>> Never is. And then how about the rest of the sections? Can you can we just refresh on where we're at on those? >> Yes. Um I think I had uploaded
the Oh, why am I signed out? I uploaded the um draft with MVPC comments and um I think that I had
asked the committee to go over or just read through that draft and if there are comments in your section to um do some rewriting and um if if questions came up
then um I could ask or I could communicate those to MVPC if if questions are still coming up. Um so can you maybe share your screen or I could share my screen because I'm just going in to look at the current version
and I see a clean OSRP Newberry Oh, I see an OSRP Newberry draft from February 15th. And then I see a clean newberry drop from February 15. And so am I not looking at >> the most?
>> I think I might have put it just in the general folder, but I'm I'm moving it now to the OSRP draft folder. >> Okay. So, it's the MVP C comments version from February 19th. I
kind of thought that didn't we already all go through those comments in our individual sections and have we not addressed them? Um I thought that I shared it right before
the meeting with MVPC and the next step was for people to go through. But if if people have already done that then um that's great. We're farther ahead than I thought we were. Um
I I still I see still some unresolved ones. Uh well, that's in my section. That's that's on me. Um there's a couple in section three that I don't know if Jim has
addressed just yet. Um, yeah. >> I'm just, so here's what I'm going to throw this thought out is that if we don't finish our drafts by summer, it's not going to get done because then it will be summer and everybody's going to be super busy. And so I just feel like
we had a goal of trying to maybe get this out. And I know that we also have MVPC um like labor and budget available, but that's like till the end of the fiscal year, which is in June. So like the next month is really critical in my
mind to getting the document to a stage where we're ready to take the next steps. And maybe actually it's worth looking back at our schedule of like what are our next steps. >> Yeah, the the spreadsheet. Yeah.
>> I think. >> Do you know where that might be hiding? >> Is it or do you mean the OSRP draft status? >> Well, yeah. Getting that up to date till we get like everything lined up. But then we also had a and then what are we
going to do? And there was like a 10step of what how we what we're going to do when we had it finished. So I think it's worth looking at both of them if we just >> the general timeline for OSRP approval process. I think you wrote that >> list.
>> Yes, that's in the the general folder as well. Yes, I think and I've talked with Kristen and Martha about this a bunch. Um there I think maybe we're at that stage now where um you have all done your, you
know, your part. we've gone to MVPC, they've given feedback, and then it's kind of on me and um maybe the chair um and I'll probably loop Martha in as well cuz I always do um to like, you know,
polish things and get them ready to submit. So, I think that might be where we're arriving at now. Um if you agree. Yeah, I think we are dangerously close there. So, it looks like um let's see if
I can share my screen. Oh, can you >> or I can I'll I'll give you permission if you want to share. >> So, I don't know if everybody can see that if it's too small. I'm not Oh, there we go. Um it was like okay submit
our final request for anything to MVPC and incorporate their comments. So all of us are responsible for item one here. So maybe we could as part of our notes here like what's our goal to review and incorporate comments. Um and that's for
all the sections sections like one through five I guess right and it's only section six that is the action plan that has a little slightly different path. And so could we maybe talk about what is our target date for number one and then
what is our target date to submit the draft and I know that there's an action plan in here too. 1A is um write the action plan >> because we obviously need that before we can get to number two. I think we hadn't quite fully appreciated that that was going to be hanging out there so long.
So assume there's a 1A in here and I'm happy to go in and and modify this document because if we're trying to get to like final version to letters, you know, even the draft version to DCR, I would love to have that even submitted >> before the end of the fiscal year. I
don't know how long it takes them to get back to us. I just don't want to lose our opportunity for MVPC unless you think, but even then it's like now we're into the heat of summer and it's >> I agree and I definitely want to keep this thing rolling as as you all do. I
know. Um so yes, I I apologize. I know we had this the question of um so I think we'll be submitting to our town you know groups first before
submitting to DCR. I think that was a question before. Um so I think that yeah the next step is is assessing the old action plan.
Um staff can take in the draft and polish it um on our end and then we can um create the draft action plan from the results of the
subcommittee analysis. Um I'll definitely talk with MVPC about you know action plan process um
once we have that analysis done. Um yeah and I think that we have like a template set up right I think they'll put together a template based on some of the other OSRPs that we've seen and look like came up with a really efficient design. And so hopefully it really actually won't take that long because it's not like a whole narrative. It's
just, you know, some bullets. We want to do this and this is how we're going to get there. So I know every bullet and every word matters, but um hopefully it's not a lot of narrative, which can take a long time to review, read, and whatnot. It's just like throw them in there.
>> Yeah. Um, so, >> so I guess maybe should we like Mike and Sean, you know what seems reasonable for your sections to incorporate MVPC comments if we haven't already nailed that down. If you have any in your sections, which
I don't even know if you do because I haven't opened it to look at it. >> No, I I I do. I can see it in my notes that I took during the last meeting. Um, I just have to get it back in there and and final finalize it. I know one of them was on open space equity. There was an edit I had to make in there. Um, so I
should be able to wrap up section five without much effort. >> U section 4, we're missing a map. Um, so it say maybe do do you know what
happened to the map the TNC resiliency map that >> we had from before? I think it just didn't make it into the >> uh the section for some reason. But um I think if we could just put that in there somewhere. That was their only comment on 4F.
And I just had a comment about u making sure that we reference the hotspots map even though it's not really applicable to us >> because it is actually mentioned in the uh in this in the state planning document there.
>> Yes. Let me just >> So those were the only two things in my my section. Um looking through it, it actually is starting to come together pretty good. Um, it it seems like there's a lot of little
stuff that needs to be done right now. Um, but >> yeah, and I think that I had asked data and I feel like they were maybe not able to provide some of it. So, I'm just going to revise the sentence to not say that. >> Um, you know, to revise it, so to not say it the way I wanted to.
>> Um, so I have a few little cleanup things doing like that as well. And I feel like I could probably tackle that here in the next like week or Yeah. So >> yeah, I feel like the action plan really is the biggest piece. I think I was
pleasantly surprised at the >> small amount of comments that MVPC had on our draft. I think that was >> nice to see a little reassuring that we were on the right track, you know what I mean? Like, >> you know, it wasn't like, oh my god, we have all this editing to do, you know, it was minor stuff like like John said,
a lot of little stuff, you know? Um, so I I think we're getting there. uh in terms of the uh so it seems like the biggest chunk is well what you're working there on there Mike is there
some way maybe we can uh split it up into chunks and work on it sort of in parallel and >> I don't want to be too pushy but I the borders to Boston >> trail committee got MVPC to submit a
grant request for a mass trails grant and one of the requirements is that we have a approved OSRP. So, it' be nice to kind of pull that all together. Although, I don't know. It's It'd be dicey to get
it done this year probably. But, I don't know. I'm always asking anyways. Hopefully. >> Yeah. I I mean by by all means if anybody wants to take a look at the 2010 action plan and there there might be some things that stand out that you will automatically know got accomplished
there might be questions. Uh it's going to be that way for me too where you know Martha and probably David had he been able to stay on the committee might have had more of a automatic like oh yeah we we got that done and here's the result you know or no that never came to
fruition you know. Um, so that I mean that's what I was going to do. I was going to go through it and everything that I was aware of that got completed, you know, kind of check and then have Martha kind of recheck um, you know, what I found there. So by by
all means, if anybody wants to take a pass through it and if see if anything jumps out to them, go for it. >> Okay. I Okay. I I I don't want to duplicate afterward either. So, um, >> yeah, I mean it's I can't remember what
Satie said the or somebody said it was a, you know, >> there's a hundred items in there, you know. I mean, >> yeah. >> Yes. Yes. So, I it seems like that would be step one is to knock that down to
>> big time. I think it's, you know, it's I I had it printed out and it's just in the other room, but uh, you know, it's subsets of each category, you know, like each each category has like 10 subsets to it, you know, and I I think, >> yeah, >> knowing what we know today, 16 years
later, I think a lot of that can get dwindled down kind of pretty quickly. Just need to I just need to go through it and look at it or we need to go through it and look at it. I think some stuff's either repetitive or maybe not relevant anymore. I relevant
might not be the right word, but um that just so many things have changed. >> Yeah. I mean, I guess I also just ask if it's worth if only like a couple people can make a time, but all like everybody can't make a time, is it worth just saying, "Okay, well, at least you two go
and, you know, spend an hour and see how far you get and then the next meeting like maybe everybody can make it." I guess I feel like we can't just wait for everybody if we're not able to align schedules. And so if at least two people can do it, I say we like that have history. I mean, I'm not a good person
cuz I don't know the town that well, like just getting involved in the last year or two, so I can't be helpful. But um I don't know. I >> Yeah, I think the plan was to have Mike and at at the very like the most the M
MVPs here are Mike and Martha cuz they were on the last >> Yeah. >> Uh they're part of the last plan. Um Okay. >> So, if we can get the two of them in a room, then >> Okay. Make some some changes. You can
>> Martha was away last week and this week and I think is back next week. So that was kind of the time frame her and I were were looking at. So >> yeah, and Bill's away next week, so don't worry. So yeah. >> Yep. Yep. That's all. >> All right. >> Good.
>> Yeah. Okay. I'll I'll I'll um what's the word I'm looking for? I will help make that happen. >> Facilitate. >> Facilitate. That is the word. Yes. Thank you. I will facilitate that as for as soon as possible. hopefully before the next uh
like meeting which I think we've scheduled for the 21st. Correct. >> Oh yeah. So that's a good target then also for everybody to like go through and and we can just type right in the MVPC version. You've saved like a a previous version of that, right? So now we can just go in and modify in the word
version >> anything any parts of our sections that need to be modified. >> Okay. >> Good. So, we'll do that by the following Tuesday or by their next meeting. >> Yeah. And I think we've thought that that will be in person
if people still want to do that. >> Yeah. >> At 7:00. Sorry to switch around the times, but I just thought if we're zooming, we can do earlier, but I think seven is still good for people for in person. >> Yeah. >> Okay. And I'll uh get back to you on
exactly which room we'll be in. Um um >> was it the 21st or the 28th for some reason? I don't have >> um I think according to Let me look at the minutes. I just had them up. >> I had the 21st written down. I think
>> we I think most felt the 28th was a viable backup if needed. >> And we had the room. Wasn't weren't we? Yeah, that's right. We were checking the room. Okay. >> Yes, I'll I'll check on that. >> Great. Thanks. >> Yeah. So, does that does everything make
sense um regarding what we're supposed to be doing in between? Sorry if it's if it's a little confusing. I'm still, you know, still learning on the job a little bit, but um >> doing great.
>> I think Thanks. I think Christina, you um what you're suggesting is is all good for for next steps here. Cool. >> Great. >> Anybody got anything else?
No, but um I can make a motion. Do we need someone to make a motion to close the meeting or can we just close it? >> I think uh we do need a motion to adjurnn. >> I'll make a motion to close the meeting tonight. >> Okay, I'll second it since
>> all in favor. >> I I >> being adjourned 7:35. >> Good. Thanks everybody.