Hello. Hi Catherine. >> Hi. >> Oh, God. >> Michael. Hello. >> Hello there. I got to change. I think I'm Hold on. I'm going to go away. I think I'm logged in as the town. See you in a minute.
>> Yeah. Okay. Hello Tom. >> Hi Nathan. Hi everybody. >> Hello Jim. I don't know if you're here as a member of the public or if you're in the board of health maybe or
>> uh just a member of the public. >> All right. Well, I'm glad you're here. >> Thanks. Let's see your shirt, Michael. >> I'm sorry. I didn't think of the flannel. >> I blew it. I But I But me and Nathan F
hats, so you know, >> I got to write myself a note, Keith. Sorry about that. All right, we've got a quorum with uh four members. So, I will call this meeting of the Shootsbury Planning Board
to order. I'll note that the meeting is being recorded. All members are attending virtually. So far in attendance we have Michael de Kierra,
Steve Brrestler, Keith Hasty, Ashley Pra welcome. I see Jeff Weston has just come on and myself, Nathan Murphy, of course.
And yeah, you know, I'll uh go ahead and designate Tom uh as a uh to act as a member tonight. And uh being that we only have six out
of seven members here. Okay. Now uh first item on the agenda after we open the meeting is, uh, public comment. Would anyone like to make public comment? Okay.
Hearing and seeing none, we'll proceed to the next item on our agenda, which is landowner education and guidance. Is anyone here for land owner education and guidance? No. Okay.
And that being the case, we'll move on to the next order of business, which is coordination with board of health on regulations. I see that we have uh Katherine Hilton and Arlene Reid on the call from the
board of health. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. I should tell you, if I may go ahead and speak, >> please do. Yes, >> that we're still finding our feet on
this. We uh are really just trying to figure things out. Um what we are are envisioning I think is not um we certainly don't want to ban these
things. Um we are looking at the possibility of imposing certain we think we hope that they will be reasonable restrictions in four aspects. the size of systems, the location of systems,
water usage, and quite possibly the type of battery. And so we need to get a little bit more educated on all of these. Um, but we would also like to be coordinated with the planning board and
we'd like to know what if there were a board of health regulation, what the planning board would like it to look like. if you have any kind of input for us on that. >> Well, thank you for that introduction,
Cat. I would uh do you prefer Katherine or Cat? >> Cat is fine. Katherine, I answer to everything. >> Okay. All right. Um, thank you. And in addition to you know the planning board
providing input for how the regulations look um is there anything else that you would uh use to categorize your you know initi initiation of
coordination for uh your purpose here I guess >> can can we clarify my um sort of the boundaries of who's dealing with what my I in a recent conversation with Cat
um she pointed out that we as the board of health might want to be more focused on battery energy storage systems where the board of uh excuse me the planning board is um focusing on data
centers um Because, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, um, because battery energy storage systems are considered part of a solar installation and the planning board can't has has
limited ability to um, pass any sort of a bylaw on that, whereas the board of health has more latitude. Am I wrong about that? Well um with energy storage systems,
the state attorney general has rejected zoning bylaws or zoning bylaw amendments that prohibit energy storage facilities. And in doing so, the attorney general has cited the zoning act which has a
provision that protects solar, >> right? >> And also, you know, the Tracer Lane case and essentially um has included, you know, energy storage uh systems as part of the protections that are
extended to solar um >> right >> facilities. Um >> I think >> so there is that I mean you know that can be reasonably regulated um for the purpose of protecting uh public health and welfare. Um right
>> um but it can't be prohib it can't be unreasonably regulated or prohibited by zoning. Um >> so that's uh that's the >> the deal with energy storage systems and zoning.
>> Okay. And I see Michael is uh >> yeah, I was gonna add some additional stuff just for context. So, I mean Nathan's correct that you can't prohibit or unreasonably regulate um battery storage systems because they're considered part of solar. Um there's the
gray on the one hand there's a gray area of what is reasonable. Um we know what's not reasonable, but it's not necessarily clear what is reasonable. Um that's gone to land court, etc., etc. Um, I think even though I've been following this a lot, the one thing that's unclear, you know, so the clean energy law passed
November last year and the clean energy regulations are getting promulgated now. Um, and so as of March 1st, 2026, the new regulations, whatever they end up being, are going to go into effect. Um, and
that'll cover solar and it'll cover battery systems as, you know, underneath solar. um and municipalities be asked to sort of have bylaws that are compliant with those. And so that's sort of like a moving target that I think the planning board is going to have to look at soon.
Um you talked about that a little bit last last meeting. Um but that's that's evolving. Um I think my understanding you know having you know listened to Mike Euggo um is that the port of health has a separate you
know channel in terms of you know you have more independent abilities than say a planning board because you don't operate under the zoning requirement. And so the the the big change the last thing I would say is the big change at the clean energy law
was that in my opinion the state felt that clean energy deployment was going too slowly because those pesky municipalities are like a you know a herd of cats you know so we have a planning board you might have a ZBA but we all had our own
processes going in parallel and so it was taking too long and so the requirement is now that for any solar under 25 megawatts, any battery storage under 100 megawatts, it has to be a consolidated municipal permit. And they're trying to figure out
what that looks like. But basically, the planning board, the Concom, whomever else needed to give a permit at the municipal level would have to come together and make one municipal opinion within a 12-month period. What is not clear to me because no one
at the state has articulated this is whether the board of health would fall under that or not. Um I sort of think not. I think you my gut based on listening to things is that you have a separate track that's not covered by this because it's not it's not about zoning and it's not about land use. It's
about public health. Um, but you know, we as the planning board and the concom starting with the the regs in March 1st, but for any project that starts July 1, we would have to have a 12-month period where we're collectively working together to
come up with a shoot decision. Um, the the boards can make come to different determinations, but it would be one consolidated decision as opposed to different processes. So, it's it's all moving, but I my my feeling is that you probably have a
separate independent, you know, you we could disagree as as boards. We could totally disagree on how we want to approach it. So, it'd be nice to coordinate, but I don't think we're we're beholden to each other. Um is my sense. Um Steve,
>> so keep in mind that the energy storage system, battery energy storage system is one for data centers is one way to back up a data center, but there you can also require instead we can require a
generator either diesel or propane. Propane being a much quieter uh uh way of doing backup than diesel. But, you know, we don't have, you know, as far as solar, that's one thing, but data centers, they can re have back other
types of backup power. >> Thank you. Um, Michael, >> I was just just to clarify like on the agenda, this is coordination with the board of health. So, we're sort of talking about like roles and responsibilities between the boards and then we'll do minutes and then we'll
jump into the details of data center, >> right? >> Is that okay? >> Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're not going to talk about our >> and and that's why I was questioning are we splitting this up like with the board of health focusing more on the battery
energy storage systems regulation whereas the data center bylaw is um your domain. And and yet we want to make sure we're communicating with one
another as those are developed. Yes. I think uh >> I'll say one thing, Nathan, if I can. I mean, just historically, so the planning board two years ago, three years ago, I can't remember now. You know, we put together a battery energy storage system bylaw um
that we thought was compliant with Trist Lane and the attorney general rejected it. And then the subsequent year, the planning board proposed a general bylaw for the town on energy storage
systems. Um, and so a general bylaw does not fall under the requirements of the zoning bylaw. That was also and Wendle did the same thing. Both of those were rejected as being zoning bylaws or yeah, they're basically they they said it's not really a general bylaw. It's a
zoning bylaw. It just looks like one. Um, so they rejected it as well. So for context, you know, the town has both twice approved a battery energy storage bylaw that's been rejected. So if the planning if the board of health felt like it was something that the town
should do, that would be a path that you could do and you don't have to have a approval as far as I could tell. So like that's in your that's your feet to decide if that would make sense. But just historically um we've taken two bites of the apple apple in terms of energy storage and we have yet to do
anything on data centers. >> Michael was the first one on energy storage um was that part of the amendment to the solar bylaw that got thrown out at the special town meeting? >> Uh
it was very extensive on energy storage. I have to look back and see if it was part of the solar or if it was a standalone zoning. >> I feel like the extensive one was the general bylaw. >> I could look while, >> you know, I guess it's a moot point here now, but you know, yeah, to Michael's
point, yeah, the the general bylaw, I mean, one, it was, you know, basically drafted at the planning board and then handed to the select board, right? So, the attorney general looked at it and said, "Well, you know, it's a you're saying it's a general bylaw, but it's it's it's a zoning bylaw." Um,
you know, I think, you know, the board of health has different uh enabling statutes at the state level, right? Um, and I mean, it's all it all goes back to public health and welfare um and safety.
So if uh even though you know basically all municipal law does go back to that uh the land use and zoning has specific uh provisions in the zoning act right that uh are not applicable to B of health regulations. I
think that's kind of where we are with that. Um in terms of uh I mean I think it's important to understand um both you know what what our you know expectations are in terms of you know coordination during the
formation of uh your regulations in in our bylaw for for that matter. Uh but also if you know if any part of it is also to be discussing how the coordination may take place you know in the future when in
theory these you know regulations are set and bylaws are set you know like what processes if any do we need to modify or or create um right so I don't know I guess just upfront uh trying to get up front more kind of a context for
us to operate in on this um effort. Um but before anyone wants to go after that, I'll just hear from Ashley real quick. >> Okay. So, I'm just looking at the notes from our last meeting that I took and as
far as the board of health involvement, you know, it from our conversation, it's mostly about water and we also I I mean, I can speak for myself. I feel in over my head, you know, we're doing something that people haven't done before as far
as creating this bylaw and um and it's a a very nent technology and and situation that's happening really fast. So I one thing um just looking at the minutes from our last meeting and looking at the
bylaw that we're working with um for example there's a concern about consumptive water use. Um like if we were to allow these centers to draw water at all because it's it's possible to say you
just simply can't use water. Um, but if we were to allow people to draw water, how could that be regulated? And how could there be some sort of guarantee, if possible, that it's not going to affect other people's wells or other people's systems? How can
we guarantee that when the water is used and when it comes out again, it's not going to be contaminated and then potentially cause a problem with the water tables. Um or sorry, just with people's groundwater.
Uh so that's where I think the overlap, at least from my viewpoint, could show up and where we could probably use some guidance from the board of health. What is consumptive groundwater use? And um
have there how do groundwater studies work? Is it possible that if someone were to apply to put one of these data centers in Shootsbury that we could say okay well if we're going to let you use water then you need to use you need to
do a groundwater study and does the board of health or the planning board or anybody have any experience with such a thing? So, these are questions that that are coming up. And then also just the the use of PAS um and other potentially toxic
components in cooling systems that don't use water is another concern as well that maybe the board of health could be involved in. That's all. Uh can I respond to that? uh name. >> Yeah, please do.
>> Um what this what Ashley's comments are are suggesting to me is that we might also need to have a regulation for data centers, which I was hoping
that your um your zoning bylaw amendments covering that would would let us off the hook for that. But if we also want to um to for example require closed
loop cooling so that there's not a big draw on the water which we are adamantly opposed to in in both these cases. Um I don't know if you can if the planning board can require that or if that's something that the board of health would
need to do as a public health measure. >> I can answer that. We ran into this in some bylaw in the last five years or so. And what Donna McNickl pointed out is that we the planning board can't tell another body
what to do. But if you look at the draft data center bylaw, the way it's written now, it's requiring a a water use report or I forget how I termed it, but we can ask for documentation that has to come from the the board of health, but we
can't tell an applicant to go to the board of health or the board of health to do anything, but we can require something. So I think there is a a tandem kind of relationship where if we're concerned about water usage, the planning board can say we want a report that talks about, you know, um water
usage and then and it could or it could just be that we want something signed off by the board of health that says it's okay, you know, so they have to go to you guys to get it and then come back to us. Um, so I think that's sort of how it's played out before and how I was
trying to approach it here in the data center one, >> right? But our our thought basically is that we don't want to see huge draws on the water supply and anywhere. We don't want to have to be signing off on things or saying yes or no. We want to have it
enshrined up up front. It's closed loop. You can't be drawing millions of gallons out of our water tape. So that's where why I wonder if we need a regulation for that or if there's some way of bringing both of these kinds of
installations into a single regulation. >> Hand up Tom and then >> thanks. Um yeah, if I understood I think it was Arlene's question at first and kind of jumping on just what Katherine said. Um there might be practicalities
and you know procedural ease of doing things in a certain way like first the planning board does this um by law while the BO does its regulation on one of the two separate topics bests andor data centers but for an end result there's
nothing preventing um the planning board having bylaws about bass and data centers while the BO also has regulations about bass and data centers. Um, so that could be an end result and it might be a robust or strong one. It
might be an unnecessary one. As Michael just pointed out, it's possible that the planning bylaw might include a BO approval of some sort, negating the need for a BO regulation, per se. Um, but I just wanted to put it out there that there's nothing preventing
um both bodies from having their own uh regulations or bylaws, per se. and working in Wendell where there's an active um application in front of both the planning board and the board of health at the moment regarding a best application. It's interesting to see how
much overlap there actually is. Um one example is just the fire department permit that is required by both the planning bylaw Arizoning bylaw for the planning board and by the regulation in
Wendle. Um, and so that permit will basically serve for both applications from the same applicant to the two different bodies. So I don't know if that leads to an answer per se, but it I think a lot can
be on the table if desired or useful. >> Thank you, Tom Keith. I think um when I was going through the zoning bylaw talking about the the language for water and the marijuana growing bylaw that was put in, I don't know, it was before I
got here. um had a pretty nice little section on on doing water studies and not impacting uh the water usage or quality of neighboring properties, blah blah blah, which um I thought covered
pretty well without u overprescribing anything. Um the other thing is that I hope I think it would be
helpful if we all um differentiated these two issues. We've got a data center issue and we've got battery energy storage and they keep getting conflated and con conversations
get confused and I think people are talking uh they are past each other, I guess, sometimes. And and and then specific to the batteries or battery energy storage is that it
would be nice if we could be precise in what we're talking about. Um because battery energy storage at this point could be a household system. Um,
I could envision our elementary school getting rid of that propane generator and that thousandgalon propane tank and putting in a battery energy storage backup for the elementary school or any of our town buildings. So, when we just do a broad brush,
battery energy storage is bad. I get really uncomfortable um because to demonize the technology. I don't I don't think that's too strong of a word or or
be so fearful of it that we basically stop in our tracks as far as decarbonizing and trying to address climate change, which is the whole point of these battery energy storage systems is to allow us to decarbonize our economy. Um, and somehow I think that
gets lost sometimes in the in the opposition to or or the fear of of how it's going to affect us. So, um if we could differentiate maybe purpose of the data center, if we're talking a big utility
scale data center, uh a 4 megawatt hour data center or not data center, battery energy storage like we have at the the existing solar facility, um or I don't know what's proposed at Wendell is I think that's a pretty big
one, isn't it, Tom? Actually, the current one is um I think it's 2.7 megawatts. The battery part of it, it's not it doesn't it wouldn't Yeah, there was one two years ago that was going to be 100 megawatts, but >> Yeah. Right. Right.
>> They pulled that application. Those people aren't. So I I guess I just want us to to to realize that bees best could could be a lot of different size systems that we may not want to um uh
ourselves before we know what we're doing, I guess. So that's it. >> Go ahead, Michael. >> Um just two things. One following up on Keith. Keith, I'm sorry I forgot to look
up the marijuana water usage, but I pulled it up now. So, I know you recommended that and we can talk about that later, but I found the spot. And then I think I was just going to add on to what I thought was Ashley's really good summary of issues and from what we talked about last last time. I think the
other place of overlap with the board of health is noise. You know, that um it's in their realm of regulatory ability. Um, you know, we talked about it in terms of the wind turbine on Baker Road. We discovered that there is a noise bylaw in town. Um,
and so we've built it in, you know, we built it into solar. I I've built into data centers, but I think that's another place of overlap where it's it's clearly a board of health um area as well. Um, and depending on how these things operate, they could be noisy or not
noisy. So, it's it's a it's something to consider. I'm going back to, you know, the initial email sent out that included a memo from uh
Mike Hugo. And so it sounds like basically after the special town meeting where the data center uh warrant article came up that prompted the you to reach out to them and then they provided this memo and uh impressed on the uh the
importance of uh board of health being involved with uh potentially hazardous industries. Um, I wonder you know, um, would it make sense rather than kind of thinking about this in
terms of what the use is, um, to think about it in terms of, you know, what the, uh, what the outcomes are. So instead of you saying this is a
regulation that's applicable to data centers or to energy storage systems and and maybe a a set of regulations that would address uh groundwater contamination or um
non-residential wells or water use, right? Um with with the water use, right? You know, the concern is obviously uh you know, competition with uh you know,
residential private wells, right? You know, if there's a drought, you know, making sure people's wells aren't uh going dry. And then obviously groundwater contamination, right? That's uh we don't want our our water to get contaminated, but there are more things that can contaminate water than data
centers and and uh energy storage systems, right? I mean, we have light industry is allowed by special permit. There's not one word about it whatsoever other than that it's allowed in the bylaw, right? We have nothing. It's just on the
use table. That's it. And then we have, you know, uh we do have um things on special permits where we have to go through and open it up. Yeah. Um but, you know, nothing specific to to that use. So I wonder if you know kind of
coming it make might make more sense to think about it like you know all right what would we do to just generally make these protections in town so you're not thinking about a specific industry you're thinking about how would we generally make these protections how would we do that in a way that makes
sense I don't know if that's makes sense or if it's I mean obviously things some some things are specific right like you know with battery uh you know energy storage systems that you're worried about a fire
>> and and you know all that going into the groundwater but I mean you know you I would imagine some of these old houses you'd worry about a fire right they're still coated in lead paint right you're talking about how many pounds of lead that are being uh volatileized during a
fire just put out into the environment right that's got to be a huge uh I don't know how much that of an issue that is for groundwater you don't really hear about it so maybe it's not Anyway, that's just, you know, kind of a food for thought to, you know, being that it's early in the process,
>> right? Well, it certainly it certainly would be a possibility. Um, on the other hand, um we could we don't need a regulation to to intervene in a case where um where an industry a light
industry is is doing or threatening to do harm to the environment. we can we can take action on that right because we can regulate nuisances and noisome trades they call it and uh so I don't
think that we would require a regulation to do that >> now when you talk about what is that u you just said the nu nuisance >> nuisances nuisances and noisome trades.
>> Noisome trades is that >> you know that language goes back to when boards of health were first started in the in the colonial period. And I think it had to do with mostly the things like tanneries, things that were dirty and smelly and possibly polluting and
possibly dangerous, you know, using, you know, mercury for hats and that kind of thing. Those things would be noise and trades. Now things that create um create pollution or create filth or runoff or something like that that would be under
the noise and trades I think >> and under the current you know legal uh environment uh you don't need a a local regulation on that but at what point do you
>> so at what point does the board of health intervene? Is it during the application process, you know, when uh something like that is uh you know, burgeoning or if uh something gets set up and then the board of health learns about it after the fact? Is does that
come into play? How does that work? >> Well, I think it would it could come into play in either way, but um we haven't had this experience yet, >> right? So So we don't really know. I think uh
that would be important to get a a better understanding of how for sure board of health uh comes into play with uh >> no noise. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. Okay. I think Tom had his hand up first and
then Keith. Go ahead, Tom. >> Um thanks. So just wrote down three things. So, I'm going to start with one, but the other two will be quick. Um, yeah, just for noisome, I think it, like Katherine said, it it tends to mean smelly
um originally, but it's more related to the word annoy than it is to the word noise. It's kind of it sounds like a word. doesn't necessarily mean. Um, and the another point I just wanted to make is that the town of Buckland has a
regula a board of health regulation of environmental impact that kind of makes sort of a home rule type of statement about the noise and trade and use aspect >> boards of health >> which might be helpful to look at. They haven't actually used it or enforced it
for any reason. I think it came into effect in 2016. Um but at least since 2021, their board of health um chair told me they haven't um had opportunity to use it for anything yet. It does in its um preamble
quote one of the articles of the Massachusetts Constitution. I forget if it's 94 or 97, which gives it a little different or more power than just invoking the mass general laws that apply to boards of health. So it it can
be a good model for um strong board of health regulation. Um and then to Nathan what you were just asking about in terms of what about a non-specific use oriented regulation. Um Wendell is in the process of submitting to the department of
environmental protection and I think the board of health and she already knows this an aquifer protection regulation um which is also a groundwater protection regulation and it has best or the battery energy storage facilities as
part of prohibited uses in the defined aquifer protection area as well as things like auto junkyards oil processing facility. Uh so it could be or that sort of
thinking could be a model for um taking it from the perspective or the framework of the water the groundwater um and not from the the actual use whether it be a data center or
so. So Wendell is kind of really covering a lot of bases. We're trying to and other towns are as well. I just have to in in like Buckland in terms of going at it from uh the water or from the the specific use that you're thinking.
>> Thank you, Tom. That's good scoop. Keith, go ahead. I'm going to bounce back to the and again not to get too into board of health's uh duties the uh this noisome regulating noisome uh businesses or
industries and I guess I think Nathan asked has it been this seems like such a powerful tool that you would think communities have used that a lot their boards of health have have used that a
Are there any indications in I know Mr. Hugo cited a 1931 instance of a hammer mill in a neighborhood, an industrial hammer mill and I just wondered if there was
anything more recent supporting this idea of regulating noisome businesses. >> I couldn't tell you. There was a case, I forget if it was Northfield or Bernard, of a pigory that um was determined to be a noisome
instance. um they were trying to I don't I think his name is Charlie Kaniki >> was talking about it at a recent um MAHHB conference >> and uh they were trying the the land owner the operator the pigory was trying
to get an agricultural exemption and um they were not allowed to in the end because the way it was being done was too noisome um and so the board of health was able to say No, this doesn't count as an agricultural use of the land. There were
they showed us photos during the demonstration and presentation, you know, trees growing out of jumped cars and uh pigs and big stuff getting too close to um the road and people and whatnot. So, there are more modern um
examples of it being >> Tom, thank you for giving me a new word to my vocabulary. I've never heard the word pigory before. >> Yeah, it's a good word. >> I got to use it since I learned it. >> Yeah, I've got no noiseome and pigory
now. So, >> sorry. How do you How do you spell noisy? >> N Oi for the noi part and then some. S O M E kind of like, you know, winsome or cheersome or others. Yeah. Having an extremely offensive
smell or disagreeable, unpleasant. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, how how we uh how do we feel right now at this point in our uh maybe it would be good for uh you I
understand the board of health met on the October 22nd, right? the same time we did uh and these uh regulations were on your agenda for that meeting. Is that true? >> That that is true. And uh we are we
haven't we haven't had a really substantive meeting meeting on it yet. I mean we're still we're still getting educated on this. That's part of the reason why we wanted to come tonight, sort of hear more from from you because you're much more savvy about these
things than we are. >> Yeah. But I would imagine that once we get some things in writing, which we intend to do possibly by our next meeting or at least by the first meeting in December, then we would like to meet with you
possibly the two whole boards together and just um look at what we've come up with and uh and get your impressions and suggestions. >> Okay. Um, yeah. Uh, Michael, >> can I suggest that we skip over minutes
and go straight to the data center discussions since we have everyone here? We're sort of focused on this and then we can come back to minutes since I'm sure anyone who's not part of the planning board doesn't care about >> Yeah. No, that's uh that's fair. Yeah.
Um, okay. So, are we kind of feeling uh like we're ready to wrap this up and move on to the uh data center uh bylaw discussion then or
so we've got um board of health is going to meet later in November, >> November 19th. >> Yeah. And at that, you know, you may have some written materials for that. And then if
you do, maybe your next meeting or sometime after your next meeting in November, we'll we'll be interested in setting up a joint session for the two boards. >> Once once we have something written, even if it's a fairly rough draft, we'll
circulate it to you so that you can you can see it in advance. and then uh then you and I can figure out um a meeting time that's convenient for everyone. >> Okay.
>> And if we go over the data center draft now, I mean, if you if you all are here and listening, I think both you can get a sense of what we're thinking about and probably contribute as well. >> Yes. I I mean to stay on and just listen to you talk about it.
>> Okay. Are we in >> um I need to leave for another commitment, but Cat um will represent us. So, thanks. >> Thank you, Arlene. >> All right. I think Yeah, that that's uh
good enough for me. We'll move on to uh we'll change the agenda around, do the uh data center bylaw next. Want me you want me to share what we all looked at? >> Yeah, sure. That'd be great. >> Okay. Oh, uh, Matteo, can you let me
share? >> Yep. I just turned it on. >> Great. Thanks. >> Okay, you guys see that? >> Yes. >> Cool. Okay. Um, so I sent it around last I think it was
last week. Um, and the board of health got copies as well like we discussed. So, um I think what I would suggest, not to make it that I'm driving the conversation, but there's definitely
points of discussion which are like big substantive kind of things we should work through that are in the are in the green or in some cases I just highlighted yellow and then if there's things in between that people want to talk about maybe we can address those. Is that does that work for folks?
So the first thing was the use table. Um you know and we told town meeting we were going to redo the the use table. Um there's the use table and the definitions are tied. Um and so the way I approached it this time based on the
last conversation um was looking at size and so you know there's so like you know Steve had pointed out that you know smaller under 5,000 square feet that was sort of um
where the definition 5,000 ft under with the exception of this localized which was a new one um and I was trying to capture you know what we talked about you that Gail Hunters pointed out about the MLP or we talked about as potentially the school, you know. So, I
think the definition if I scroll on here to localized, I put in 100 square feet or less um or within an existing structure of of the same size. So, it's either outside um I think we can discuss the 100 square
feet, but you know, I was imagining sort of the the hut behind town hall. I'm not sure what that is, but something that's sort of that size. And I'm assuming that any computers that are in the school are going to be about that size as well. So, the idea was to sort of have something
that if it was that small, it would just be uh site plan review by the planning board. Um, so that we were making sure that every, you know, all the eyes were dotted and tees are crossed. But the thing about site plan review, it's not discretionary. So, if you do all the things that we say it's supposed to do, then you get it. Um and so that was a
nod towards um those kind of very small ones that we know is there. And then the highlight the reason and again you know all all this is open for discussion but the reason I created a definition about public interest data centers is that in
the use table we have under community use and municipal use which is um by right. And so what I wanted to clarify was like just say the MLP decided that they were going to build a new data center next to the existing hut that it
wouldn't be by right because it's municipal use or the school would do it that they still had to sort of follow the rules. So the idea is to sort of create a category that is in effect a municipal or public benefit use but having to follow the data center rules. That was sort of the idea. Um and then
the next one is small which you know I just mentioned. Um, I think based on the last conversation was 5,000 5,000 square feet or less. And then, you know, medium large, it's sort of a weird title, but you know, there's medium ones
and there's large ones, but they're all bigger than 5,000 square feet. So, that was sort of the differentiator. Um, and what I took away from our conversation last time was we didn't want those, but with the small ones, you could do it by special permit. Um, and then just go through and figure out what their
parameters were. So, I guess do people have thoughts about any of that, Keith? I guess I'm writing this because I can't see. >> Yeah. Yeah. Hey, just >> there he is. There's Nathan. Okay. >> Oh, sorry. The 5,000 square feet. I know, you know,
we we kind of base that on, you know, I know we were talking about the library at the time, but then in the somewhere on our in the bylaw is a reference to buildings no bigger than 10,000 square feet. I I forget exactly what the
language was in the in the bylaw. Um, and I wondered if we needed to somehow square, so to speak, those the difference between >> is it our is it our zoning bylaw? >> Yeah, somewhere in there around the use
tables or somewhere um it talks about tables or buildings other than residential being less than 10,000 feet or something like that. >> Got it. Okay, thank you. I'll check that out. I want someone know. Steve, do you know where Nathan?
>> I don't. >> Well, I mean, he's right. It's in there. Um I think it's just under dimensional requirements. Um but um if if we're making this specific to data centers, I think we can make it
any size we want. We don't have to conform to the 10,000 square foot. >> Yeah. But I thought maybe we would want to articulate some reason for that. >> Y >> well I I guess you mentioned this in a
previous meeting Keith and it has to do with scale and Shootsbury for for me 5,000 square feet seems reasonable. Um but that's just to me. Well, then maybe we should revisit that other that
reference to 10,000 ft that's in there elsewhere. >> And Keith, to clarify, you're not saying one or the other. You're just saying there's two different data points. >> Exactly. Yeah. I'm just saying there's an inconsistency in in the bylaw. >> Okay.
I will pick that up and see if I can propose something for next discussion. If if people have ideas, just shoot it to me. Anything else in terms of like this the special permit versus the site plan review versus the not allowed? Is that feeling
>> right? Nathan, do you want to do picking people? >> Sure. >> I mean, yeah. Um well I was just going to say I think uh I would be I would hesitate to uh to change the you know municipal use
allowed by right over uh you know this I think uh I don't know um you know if the if the MLP wants to build another a bigger routing house or or hut behind
town hall, I don't know if I I want to make them come before the planning board to get a special permit for that or a to do a site plan review for that. >> Yeah. But if it's just say it's a big one or just say it's a really noisy one, it's municipal use. They could do
whatever they want. And that's not what we're asking. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about parameters by size. I mean, if if we're concerned about water and, you know, these other things, I don't
know why the town should be exempt. Well, I think generally the idea is that the town is uh doing things that are in the interest of uh is in the interest in town and uh they're not gonna the town's not going to say, "Oh, you know what? We
should do we should we should make a facility that's going to use half a million gallons of water a day. That's what we should do. Yeah. >> I don't know those MLP people. Hey, Tom's got his hand up. >> Yeah. So uh and I even but even the
broader localized thing is uh I mean if if it's accessory if it's within uh an existing building it's uh you know that requirement just seems overly broad you know um
depending on what the definition of a I mean the data the definition of the data center we have which is what just like server racks and computers that process data um I got I know I should see it but it's uh
you know if if it was a already l you know already permitted uh you know commercial building and they want to put in a server room I mean they got to come back and do a a site plan review to put in a server room in their Is that is that what that means?
>> Well, I think we're what I was trying to think of is we're working through things that we want and don't want and we think fit or don't fit in Shootsbury. And so the only way you can do it in a non-discretionary way aside from saying just do what you want and you and we
can't say no is to do a site plan review. So, you know, you could say it's by right if it's small, but small doesn't necessarily mean good. I mean, you could have some aspect that we decide is really not
okay. Um, a really, you know, you could have a a really noisy gas generator going 24/7 right up to the dimensional lines. And the way the building is constructed, maybe neighbors here, that's by right.
if you don't put anything in. So I think you know what you had you know what you had wanted was you know to not get in the way of some things and I think if we can come up with qualificate qualities that we want in data centers the message
is if you're small you just have to meet the needs and maybe we build in some other things that small ones don't have to do you know so like there's applicability so you can say you know just say the the water use the the sound report. I mean, I think you'd still want
to have a sound report, but hypothetically, one could say, you know, sound reports are not required for localized data centers, but they are required for small. Um, so we can different differentiate on some of the requirements if we think they're too burdensome. But, um, it seems like going
through the whole process of figuring out what works for town and what doesn't work for town and then doing by rate throws that conversation out the window if it's really small. But that's just my two cents. That's >> Yeah, I think you know generally speaking if it's really small it's not
really you know the things that the town is concern you know we're concerned about but obviously yeah there could be uh exceptions to that but um yeah. All right well let's uh let's move on. Tom you got a your hand up?
>> Thanks. Yeah, I was also confused about the um the defining of the public interest one and then saying that they're not a municipal use when actually municipal is contained in the definition as an example like the sheets municipal light
plant. So um or sheets municipal government um I just wondered if that would even like pass certain definition muster. Um it it did make me ask the question as well. Does this it wasn't clear to me.
So this is saying that essentially data centers that are in the municipal interest wouldn't be exempt as municipal use. Is that correct? >> That that was the idea that there be some parameters. Yeah. So, I I wondered
why it was even being defined if it was only going to be quashed as like it it brought up more questions and answers for me, especially because I don't see how they're not a municipal use. Um, when the definition includes that
they're municipal. Um, I just wanted to bring it up. I you know I'm not arguing for or against whether they should be exempt or not under municipal use but just the way it's presented here it's very confusing to me
to see um is it or isn't a municipal use um very briefly under the first data center definition could just make a note of it where it says a principal use um and the is either >> yeah yeah right >> the word principal just make sure there
>> um and then I think you get at or it's gotten at in the dimensional table part 4.2.1. But I just wanted to make sure we're talking about footprints, but are we talking about height restrictions as well? I mean, 100 square feet at one story is a lot different from two
stories or three stories. And um I didn't know if there might be other ways also to define the size beyond just the footprint um in terms of height or capacity or you know another data point or measuring
point I mean in terms of how big is it I don't know if that comes to play even with data centers that they can be very tall or not by nature. >> Keith Keith had mentioned capacity as an idea. Yeah, I I I mean I think height does I mean I've I've seen some of the
big ones that they are like four or five stories tall but no I think again back to the dimensional thing with the 10,000 foot I think somewhere in there is also a height just a general building height um limit in town. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, I think that brings up a good
point in maybe aligning it in the whole zoning bylaws instead of just having its own separateness because unless we do add some height restrictions here or something, if you did stick with the 5,000 and if that isn't in agreement with a 10,000 square foot mentioned
later in the bylaws. >> Yeah, the maximum height is in the dimension dimensional table and it's 35 feet for everything except like wool and that's 28. >> Okay. the things I noticed that maybe have
some questions. >> Um, should you want to move to the next green area? We should there's some more to talk about for this, right? I don't think it's >> Yeah, let's go. Let's move on to the next one now. >> Okay. Um, it's I think it segus. Oh, well, let me actually let's go to
dimensions, then I'll backtrack to that other one cuz uh so dimensional requirements, there was there's a couple of things. There's lot size. So, right now, every lot in town, well, rural residential town center and
lake have to be 90,000 square feet, so a little over two acres. Um FC is variable, um where there's no minimum. So that's something that I caught for myself after I sent it out to you. So that's sort of if it went into FC, we want to have a minimum in there. And
what would the minimum be? Um and then for the setbacks, um you know, we have different we had different setbacks for solar. Um there's ones in the dimensional table, but um the side setbacks
are at maximum 25 ft. Um, so it seems like we might want to rethink those. I just threw these in here is you know we had talked like you know people had talked about noise and so one way to deal with noise is not only to make sure that the noise doesn't go beyond the property line of the data center but
also that you would have the setback so that the actual physical entity was sort of set back within the parcel. Um, but you know, and we to Tom's point, we we could if we wanted to do something different from the normal height of 35
and 28, we could do something here as well. So, I don't know. Do people have thoughts about how this hits you? Um, Dave. >> So just thinking out loud here, keep in mind that in the forest district,
the challenge is the larger the piece of property, remember the forest district is is supposed to be set up to minimize fragmentation, right? That was the original intent of the planning board. And so I think our challenge is how do
we define a lot size if we're going to allow it in the forest um district that um allows for noise? I don't have the answer. I only have the question. Okay. Um that allows for noise but is
big enough but not too big. if you if you follow my question and if you don't please feel free to tell me you're completely puzzled. I'll try again. >> I'll put Goldilocks in the dimensional table. Is that it?
>> Yeah, basically. Yes. For the far specifically for the forest district. Yeah. You know. Yeah. That you got it, Michael. I mean we clear it just across the board if so the way the sort of getting to like what Tom and Keith were talking
about where we're referring to other parts of the zoning bylaw. You know what I was thinking here was that we would just refer to section 4.2-1 which is the dimensional table about the minimum and lot size. Um but we could then write in
something for FC in particular since there's no minimum. we could just say it's 90,000 square feet for, you know, for all four districts. Um, if that's what we wanted to do. Um, you know, and the lot Yeah, the lot size
separate from the the setbacks. I mean, my the minimum setback just because I'm staring at the minimum front yard setback for rural residential and and the FC is 75 and for town center and Lake Wol, it's 20. Um, so it seemed like
the bigger one, it's already a standard, but going for the bigger one made sense. Um, and then the side and rear, it's 25 for Royal Residential NFC, it's 20 for Town Center, it's 15 for Lake Biola. Um, and so, you know, based
on the previous conversations about, you know, trying to keep these back a little bit, um, it seemed like having it be bigger than what we currently have. Um, now I forget what we have in the solar. Um, but it's it's it's at least 50, if
not 75 for the solar minus 20,000 square foot is the maximum floor area for nonresidential structures. Say that again. >> Uh 20,000 square feet is the maximum floor area for non-residential
structures. >> Yeah, this is actually this is where Keith found it right there. >> Yeah. No, I know. I know. But I think I think we said 10,000 earlier, but it's 20,000. >> Well, that's only >> Yeah, in FC. >> That's 10,000 for the others,
>> right? [Music] But I think what's worth noting is like when this happened light industry was sort of a concept you know we didn't have wheel lock we didn't
have best on the horizon we didn't have solar we didn't have data centers so my sense is this is this was created with good intent but not any practical application um so I think we're at a different chapter in our history
>> that's Well, I mean, if people have major objections since we're going to review this like month after month, I could keep this and you guys sort of think it and then I can just sort of highlight the other stuff and if there's strong things I can capture it and if not, we can sort of
>> at least have mentioned it. So, the next one is citing requirements. um you know there's so there's two ways to go. One is to say, you know, that which is the first line, um, that you can't have data centers on contiguous lots, you know, so you just wouldn't have a whole bunch of
them in a row. Um, the other way to think about it is that you can have them on on a on a single lot. Um, but they just have to be compliant. Um, you know, and so like that second thing about the polygon was if you had three of them, you'd have to draw some shape around the
three and figure out is it a small one or is it a medium large one? it became a medium large one would it be prohibited um here's the way I was thinking about it so you can't just take lots of small ones and bump them together and you know fill up the lot so I think either way is worth discussing I don't know if people
have strong feelings about them and it's it's sort of like the same thing Steve was talking about like you know do you want to bunch them do you want to not bunch them like spread them across town you know like the solar thing even though we got sued for it the idea was
spread them across town. So, we didn't have a solar ghetto. You know, you don't want to have a data center ghetto in town either. Um, so it's it's another way to think about it. >> Well, well, with the solar, we we had no choice. It was it was as you said, it
was legal. Having one per dis per nine per district of the nine districts that we had identified didn't pass muster. But we're not faced with the same situation here with data centers, >> right? Yeah. We we're not creating any
any areas here. So, right now, it could be a developer who could say, you know, I want to, you know, I want to put them all, you know, on uh Town Farm Road, you know, and then Town Farm Road would become data center road
um if we so desired. Um, but other ways they can pick and choose wherever and how >> farm road. Huh. >> I just made up. I wanted something was short. Is there did we get
I'm trying to think back some sort of bind of like limiting limiting industry X to one per district or one
per unit that we couldn't do that because >> yes >> you're limiting other land owners use of their property potentially. or something like that. >> Yeah, I would say I'm confused by that, you know. So, what was conveyed to us
there's a term for it, but basically you have to treat all the town >> uniformity across districts. >> Yes. But what confuses me and maybe Nathan you can answer this is like if you have a an overlay district you know
like towns have an industrial overlay district and you know and sometimes even have a solar overlay district which is this what the state's proposing you're doing that you're treating it differently so I don't know how you like align those two concept they seem like
they're in contradiction to each other >> well I think an overlay district is another way of saying it's a separate district. So if you have say we have our we have our rural residential district which is along all the roadways and towns 200 ft
from the road and we could put an overlay district on one of those roads where you allow manufactured housing or you know trailers and then >> but then aren't but then aren't you
treating that district different than the rest of town, >> but it's not there's not an issue of uniformity among districts because you have an overlay district that uh delegates where that is allowed within the rural residential district or it
could you know I think I don't know a lot about overlay districts but I mean I think you know I think it solves the problem of uniformity across districts because it's defined within the construct of an overlaid district but if you don't have that uh kind of uh thing,
right? If you're saying, "Okay, you can only have one per district." It's like, "Okay, well, it's allowed on lot A but not allowed on lot B because it's already on lot A." And that uh creates, you know, non uniformity. It's just, you know, it's a
>> that made sense. You just stop there. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's it. You know, I don't know if uh there's anything more to it, but uh Jeff, >> part of my memory of um the issue with the seven districts was that we didn't
include the map when it was sent to the attorney general. So, because the map wasn't there, I think they rejected the whole thing. That's my memory, but that was a while ago. >> Yeah, that was definitely the case, but it's it's different from one of the things that Keith was said they were objecting to. Um they whacked us in
different ways. Mhm. >> So, you know, Jeff, to your point, uh the um yeah, they're not overlay districts. What what do we call them in our zoning bylaw? The >> um I don't know. Solar
I don't know what we call them. They don't exist, so it doesn't matter anymore. >> Well, I think I mean they do exist. Our bylaw is still in effect. So, our our solar bylaw passed in 2020. >> That's right. It's still there. You're right. Right. >> And that and that had the map with the different uh areas where you said you
can only make one per each of these areas. >> I think they were I think they were solar districts. What they were called >> solar districts. So that's uh >> um so yeah, you know there may be uh constitutional issues with that or at least zoning act issues with that um
based on the uniformity of districts clause right in the zoning act probably. But if uh we we had attempted to amend the solar bylaw to put a bunch of changes into it and the wording on the warrant or you know said we're going to
replace the solar bylaw with this and what we replaced it with mentioned the map but we did not include a the old map and the new amendment that replaced the uh bylaw. So they said it was
misleading. Um yeah. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Um, but uh that same those same provisions are already in our bylaw from 2020. >> Just to make sure that's crystal clear. >> Okay. Um, >> so with the sighting thing, I think the
idea is do we want to limit how many are close together, you know, on one lot or on on a budding lots? Does that matter to people? Michael, I think you can say you cannot do more than one uh facility on the same
lot. I don't think you can say that you can build one on one lot and not do another one uh on a contiguous lot because that would violate the uniformity clause. I think that's what we just figured out.
>> Okay. >> Only one per. But to give you comfort, I don't think we'll get a data center unless we go out and ask the world for one. So, you know, put out a request for proposal or something.
>> Might have to sweeten the pot more than that. >> Yeah. Something. >> Ashley, were you gonna say something? Well, I think Nathan pretty much just addressed what I was gonna say. Like, it
doesn't matter. I I guess I had a little concern. I can't really articulate why. Just an instinct that felt not great about saying you can't build two. But on the one hand, I like the
idea of saying you can't build 20. But two, maybe doesn't seem that bad. Maybe it makes it more financially feasible for whoever it is that wants to do this development, you know, so long as they can prove that they're not going to take
too much water and that they're not going to destroy Shootsbury um or any of the the people living here or whatever. Maybe two would be nice, but I don't think really five or certainly not 10 feel great. So, I don't
know if there's if there are if there's language we could put in there along those lines. And just that's just my thoughts. >> I mean, practically speaking, if you know, given this this polygon idea, you
know, that if you had two and they were going to be under 5,000 square feet, they'd be pretty keen. You know, they'd be like 2500 and 2500. So, I don't know commercially if someone would want to do that on a lot. But that would maybe what it would look like because anything over
5,000 then becomes prohibited. Um if if we kept the use table the way we designed it or discussed it before, you know, which is also open to change. But um so practically speaking, we probably if we kept this second point where each
one has to, you know, stay within the sum of the square footage, um it would probably preclude more than one is my hunch. Dustin, >> we we could always treat data centers
like liquor licenses. >> You know, there's a limited number of liquor licenses, limited number of data centers across the town. >> There are provisions of state law that provide for liquor licenses. >> It's okay though. But we can do we can we have the town has the power to do
that. I mean the analogy is maybe not perfect but the point is we could limit the total number if we if we so chose. I want to remind everybody we don't have to adhere to reasonably regulate here like the state statute for solar,
>> right? >> We can require these data centers on Shootsbury's terms, not the state's terms. >> Yeah, it's a different animal than the solar regulations, >> right? Um, I'm going to throw this out there, not to like throw a wrench in
things, but since we're talking about lot size, what if, um, let's say an edge data center, 5,000 square feet, meets all our regulations, etc., etc., comes in and says, "We'd actually like to power it with solar
because that's a thing. I imagine it would take some acreage for them to be able to do that. I know that some of I mean this is from like a 10-minute internet cast a net see what's out there like our data centers using
solar for power and sure enough they are um you know the big ones are are going off site and connecting to giant industrial solar fields that actually could provide enough but then it looks like a lot of them have solar panels on the roofs or
um the smaller scale ones you know It's it's not it's obviously the more local issue for us is is water, but looking at this from a standpoint of we're doing this,
perhaps we could encourage um greener data centers as far as their energy use. And anyways, it's it's something that I've been thinking about like what if one came in and it met all of our stipulations and they wanted to
power it with solar. >> It's it's a good point. I mean, just I think if if we did that, we would approach it as the data center is the primary use and solar is the accessory use. >> I think is so just how we would think
about it. >> Okay. Yeah. I I don't remember where it is in there like which there's several different uh shoots I don't know bylaw statutes what the right word is that we were
referencing or that you referenced in here and we can when we get to it we can talk about it but I wondered if our solar bylaw should be in there as well. Yeah. Yeah, I'll definitely and you know if you find examples, but I'll I'll I'll see about weaving that
in. I think it's a great point. Um I'll move us along just um going back up to here. Can >> I ask one thing about sliding? >> Oh yeah, go for it. >> Thanks. Um so the polygon encompassing all of the data centers on one site theoretically if there's more than one.
Um, why choose that measurement as opposed to just the sum of the square footage of the different data centers on the site? >> We could do that. >> And be any consideration about setbacks
between data centers on one site or not? Just again a question more than I have an answer to, but I thought other parts of the zoning bylaw maintained like a certain distance from or a maximum distance from or a minimum distance from different structures on
the same site. >> Yeah. >> I don't know if we need to address that. >> Well, in light of the fire in Amoris, it's a good thing since I heard concerns about just that. Um, >> what about the what's what's the um oh
the thing that Jeff put together about the rural sighting or the basically condensing residential use into >> what do they call >> design open space design? >> Is there any way to incorporate that to keep these things kind of from sprawling
out in a forest conservation area? I definitely I mean I think that sort of like was the idea. Do we want to clump them? Um >> and then you know and if we clump them what does that mean in terms of the sum of them like you know I just threw out they would have to fit into the small
versus medium large but maybe you get you know just like open space you get benefits for you know consolidating you get benefits for putting multiple ones on a parcel. it gets back to sort of what we want to see and what we're worried about, but you know, like that's
the it's interesting. >> So, um I think that uh as far as subdivisions go, there there are commercial subdivisions, right? I mean, so I think, you know, open space
design essentially is a um a process that allows subdivisions to circumvent some of the requirements in our bylaw pertaining to lot size for residential dwellings. And um
you know it you know with one notable exception it generally ties into subdivisions or shared driveways. >> Yeah I think it's more accurate Nathan to talk about shared driveway than
getting you know we're not that the uh open space development really isn't a workaround for a subdivision. That's a whole another set of requirements and needs, but it >> work. >> It just it just allows more flexible
lot size and grouping of them to preserve open space. >> Right. Right. No, it's it's allows you to circumvent requirements for lot size is what I said. Yeah. Um but it's uh >> was trying to
>> requirement that subdivisions in the forest conservation district must be done with open space design, right? >> Uh I I don't know. I think it >> not not necessarily. In other words, if if somebody was able to meet in the far
forest district all of our requirements for a true subdivision, which are not insignificant in our bylaws, they could they could do a subdivision, but it would be cost prohibitive. >> Okay? Or or let's just say persuasive,
cost persuasive. So this is sort of something that you know might peique cat's interest. So you know the other this is the how do we deal with storage and backup. Um, and you know, I
I ran the draft asked Keith because he was interested in, you know, so some of these ideas are things that Keith put out that I mentioned before, like, you know, limiting it to the capacity of, you know, battery capacity, for example.
Um, you know, the diesel and IAD batteries are not great either. Um, I'm just working up from the bottom. you know, the document that Keith sent out earlier about the different kinds of lithium batteries. Do we want to focus
on particular technologies? You know, that sort of it works for now. It might not work for later, but we can always figure out how to word that. Do we want to prohibit or allow, you know, lithium ion batteries
based on chemistry? um prop you know propane and lead you know Steve had mentioned this meeting and I think last um so like there's you know the only thing I'll say I reached out to Donna with a very short small
question about lithium ion batteries because you know if we do it however we end up she's going to have to look at it just to make sure that um since the SJC decided no since the appeals court
affirmed confirmed that energy storage systems are part of solar. How you describe energy storage systems is important. So I think I mean the way I'm approaching it is that we're we're looking at technologies and not calling them um you know so electrical storage
and backup systems, you know, with certain technologies is probably okay, but we're going to have to when we when we decide what we want to do, we just have to be careful um and run it by Donna how we describe it. But I think we probably have lots of different differing ideas about this particular
section. So um anyone want to jump in? >> Gee, um so I you know so I've I've been deep into NFPA 855 and NFPA
one for my own reasons and the mass fire code. Um and they seem to be pretty up to speed on um differentiating between the different B as more is learned on the different
battery chemistries that the that their uh their guidance or regs are are following along and and um specifying different spacings or containers or whatever depending on battery chemistry.
industry. So, I'm not sure that we and and I think from my reading, it seems like a lot of these that even the automobile industry is shifting towards the lithium iron phosphate batteries as opposed to the
ones that have the nickel and the cadmium, you know, the more exotic ones that that they're trying to squeeze every watt out of that tend to be a little bit less stable, I guess. Um but it did and and this goes to in in
general Bess in general and Michael back to your concerns about fire and um you know cooling capacity of our fire department and water availability and you know one of the things that they specify in there is distance between containers and
the fact that we are in a rural area with limited you know perhaps limited water that perhaps we could say instead of the standard recommended distance between containers one you can't have you can limit containers have to be limited to so many so such and such
capacity you know half a megawatt per container and the containers must be spaced twice the distance as required by NFPA 855 so that there's less water needed to keep them cool
to to you know to prevent runaway from from moving through a facility. Um, can I interject for a second? >> Yeah, just just so everyone's on the same page and not doesn't feel like they
should know this, the NFPA is the National Fire Prevention Association. So they're the the national association that sort of looks at fire risks and make recommends codes that then like if not all the states most states and
municipalities adopt as these are the best practices and 855 is particularly about energy storage systems. Um and it just got updated in the last couple months. So the idea that you know like
they they're revising them every few years. So, sorry to interrupt, Keith. >> No, no, that that's right. And and and Massachusetts adopts NFPA with some uh you know, they've tightened up on some stuff. Um but but in general, Mass has adopted
NFPA completely or NFPA1, which references NFPA 55. Anyway, so that dawned on me was, you know, something outside the box that being a rural community, we could say because we're concerned about fire, space the batteries farther apart. We can talk about that if we think that might be a
you know feasible ask. Um uh I'm really you know this whole idea of uh trying to get away from fossil fuels and even for a for a backup power supply
I think we should be discouraging the use of fossil fuel uh generators. Um they are not without their own costs. I I I think the challenge for me, Keith, is balancing
the all of the mining and minerals that goes into these lithium-ion batteries. There's a whole industry uh destructive industry and I can't weigh them. I can't weigh that against something like a propane tank, you know,
that's maybe is is still fossil fuels. There there's trade-offs, you know. I I don't know which is more harmful to the environment, but I wouldn't just assume that battery storage, lithium-ion battery storage is the answer. There's nothing wrong with
that. I'm just saying from a environmental impact, I'm not sure where the how you draw balance those two, how they how they compare against each other. >> Well, I was thinking more just locally and from a climate change perspective. And if yeah we yeah I don't think we
want to go down the rabbit hole of you know life cycle analysis for any any technology. Um >> yeah pros and cons to everything. >> Yeah Jeff you want to jump in? >> Um I do just for a minute. Um Keith I
appreciate you sending the articles. Um, so I was looking at the first one that was written by the Fire and Risk Alliance and I looked them up and they're a for-profit company and they wrote the um art for-profit company and
they wrote the article for the American Clean Power Association which represents energy storage. So I think it's important to look at where these articles are coming from and where the and where the money is coming from. Um
because if you look at the Autobon Society, they combined their research with the Thompson Lab of Harvard Forest and they came up with different results and the American Chemical Society um analyzed the water released from um you
know when water is used for uh putting out lithium batteries and they come up with you know the incredible um the toxicity of that water. So I think when we look at research and um I think we have to follow the money and see where
um who's writing the article and why are they writing it and are they making any money writing it. So I just want to throw that in. >> I acknowledge that where it came from. Um, and it'd be great if you could point
out where the flaws are or where you disagree with what their findings that they presented were. M um it's I I just want to think, you know, say that it's it's hard for me to trust industries
that are um that are for profit and um when they're presenting something where they have an incentive to present whatever information they want to present because they're making money, they're being paid by companies that want a particular thing. >> I think I I I have combed the
literature. I welcome you combing the literature too to find uh other scientific studies that that pass muster. >> Okay. I know I'm not I'm just saying that in general not um I think it's important to see where the sources are
um who's writing it and who are they who who are they getting paid for for writing this article. I I I I concur and I know in the the field of debate there's a term for is it ad homonym?
>> Yeah. We recognize, you know, maybe we don't like the source, but point out the flaws in the argument, not the source. >> Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate the honest conversation. I appreciate it. >> Yeah. >> Huh.
>> Thanks. Yeah. I'm definitely not for um ad hominemum attacks about sources of health information. Um I just wanted to mention that uh >> touche >> we
um we shouldn't forget uh sodium iron pyro phosphate uh batteries which are being researched. There's a pilot program in Denver for them and there's also a technology of concrete uh
batteries where the concrete is um immersed in an electrolyte uh mixture and becomes usable as a battery and um it's very environmentally friendly. So uh I just want to make sure we don't forget that it's easy to focus
on lithium just because of its prevalence and use right now. There are examples of other um energy storage systems that are much um less uh flammable.
Everything comes with pros and cons, but we might be able to work into the language that we end up with something acknowledging these other sources. >> Excellent, Ashley.
So, something that keeps coming up for me is how the technology, we can't anticipate everything that's going to come around. And it's really cool to hear those of you who have done research on batteries to hear what you
have to say. I have done none of that research um and know very little. And it's and then you know you've like Michael you've written bylaws before and this board has passed them. So I I'm
just wondering about is it possible to find a middle ground, you know, to keep it open and say as far as electrical storage and backup or however these things are going to be powered that we need to make sure that
they, you know, they don't violate the noise bylaw that they're not, what is that word? >> Noisome or whatever. Uh, is there do we need to be this specific and is it a pitfall for us to be this specific?
>> Is it possible that we're backing ourselves into a corner? Again, keeping in mind that it's not super likely that any of these are going to come to Shootsbury, though it's quite possible. Um, I don't know, just something to consider just as a person who really
doesn't know much about these different battery systems, but obviously I I want to protect our community from these terrible fires. And then, you know, I'm thinking about the Olympia Place fire over the weekend and all of the
exploding propane tanks and how that contributed to a bigger fire as well. But I understand that's a different animal than these batteries. But there it is. >> Yeah. So, I just want to follow up on that. The reason I scrolled up to the
cooling section was originally I wrote in the draft before I sent it out. I sort of did what you were talking about, Ashley, where I identified things that we were supporting. And then Keith wrote back and sort of turned it on its head and said, "Let's talk about things that
are not allowed." because you could sort of come at it from saying you know and someone said this earlier like what do we want to achieve out of this so what are the things we want to protect um you know so just you looking at that first bullet you shall not withdraw
groundwater or surface water for cooling purposes so that says you can't do this but if you do it any way that doesn't do that you're good you know so we don't have to be predictive about what the technology is and I thought that was sort of it sort of creates
this bar where we're we're very explicit about what we don't want. And so there might be a way of doing this in a similar way, you know. So like the issues say about lithium ion batteries, well we might disagree about the risk of
fire or we might say um you can't use a technology or a construction design that would um be prone to, you know, fires. how however everyone writes that because I think that's a little vague but you know we could do that depending on how we feel
about fossil fuels one could say you know I don't know one could say but like just flipping it around um you know and I mean I I do think when Keith recommended it to me what it sort of did is opened up the universe of possibility by saying what you can't do
but you can do everything else you can think of now and tomorrow. Um, so >> I think it's also safe to say when you're generating electricity there, it as much as we want to say it's possible, none of it's clean. You know, just like
what's in these batteries, the fossil fuels burning, you know, the the waste from the solar panels 25 years down the line, like it's ugly. Um, and so just thinking about the least evil method
is and keeping the possibilities open for technologies that we don't even know about that are going to come around too. Something to keep in mind. >> Small modular reactors. Is that what I
heard? >> People are working on it, right? I mean, my gosh. So >> you're talking to the nuclear proponent over here. It >> we might consider we can't consider this but keep in mind that the backup whatever the backup power source is only
kicks in right when the main source of energy fails from some power outage. And maybe we come up after some research with a a decibel level that the backup system can't exceed. We can't do that.
The board of health has to do that. But we could suggest the board of health do that >> just to push back. So like >> a I mean a lithium ion battery it whatever the technology won't make noise. So that goes >> well they they have to be they have to be cooled
you know these things generate heat and somehow even the battery energy storage systems have to maintain a certain temperature they can't get you know they can't just build up with heat in in in whatever their storage cap uh >> right >> I think what Michael's saying Steve is
that you're not going to have noise complaints from lithium ion batteries. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you might have fans, but I don't know that it's going to be anything that would >> I I mean, >> violate our current noise by >> the cooling system for the actual processing units is what's going to be
creating noise, I think. And also backup generation for uh diesel fuel. Another thing to keep in mind with some of this stuff, you know, I I think is that um you there may be some use cases in the
data center world where you may require both uh some batteries and also some generation. I I think I think that the batteries uh can be used for kind of uh ensuring seamless
power supply and then you know managing a train like if there's a blackout you know there's a latency from when that happens to when the generators can actually kick on and battery may be used to cover that
latency period. Just something to keep in mind that it may be both. >> Is it safe to say this is one of our tougher problems in terms of how we design this? >> So far, as as Ashley said, it's probably
all academic anyway. So, >> are we going through this whole thing tonight just out of curiosity or >> Hey, you know, it's Yeah, it's getting late. Um I just wanted to highlight the last there's only one more thing that I >> Michael before you move on um you know I
was just looking at that uh you know >> not use any water for uh for cooling um I was wondering if we might consider limiting uh water use to uh um you know something like what we might see is like the maximum size of a
residential uh building in town. I know we allow two family uh houses. It has to be it's a larger lot size requirement, right? 90,000 square feet instead of 45,000 square feet. And then uh yeah, I was looking at the board of
health regulations for wells and it talks about, you know, the recharge capability. Um, Nathan, I think if we go back to the marijuana facility again, the language I use there talked about. >> Okay. >> You know, whatever you do, it can't
impact the groundwater that your neighbors are affected or something like that. >> I can I can I found it. It was It's No, I will say having written it, it's and forgotten about it, it sounds pretty good. >> Yeah. Right.
Um yeah, it take me half a second to find it, but it was it was uh let's see. >> Well, you know, I I think you know, it is getting late, but uh >> Okay. >> You know, reminding me of that that satisfies me. You know, I think I think it's something we should consider is uh
you know, um you know, obviously we we're all in agreement about not wanting to screw up the aquifer, but if uh you know, if there's some water used for cooling that doesn't do that, then you know, that's fine. Um
if uh if we ever get an application for this, just, you know, I think that's a reasonable thing to do rather than just banning water outright. Um, >> well, I thought I thought Michael you put in closed systems for water only and
didn't you? >> I Well, that's that's why I said it. >> Yeah. I I didn't use the word closed loop, but it was basically that was the idea. And I think Cat had mentioned closed loop.
>> Yeah. Um, I think there was one other thing I just wanted to highlight and even if we don't discuss it, just to mention it. Um, and I I could be wrong. Sorry if I'm getting everybody nauseous. Um,
oh yeah, I was this is a small point just to I realize this after the fact, but you know, some of this stuff I was looking at the solar bylaw and figuring out, you know, what might be appropriate, might not be. And so there's the whole discontinued operations, which often is not thought
about. It's like the afterthought for the for the afterlife of these things. Um so I added in here if it's no longer functioning as intended it shall be removed or sold to another party you know but something for us to ponder is that unlike
a wind turbine or solar you know installation or something most likely this is going to be a building you know with stuff in it and so if they say oh we can't make a buck we're leaving sheet spray and they leave the building
maybe you know it's It's just like a house that's getting abandoned. It's not a good thing, but maybe they don't have to remove it. So, I think this is a thing that we could maybe reconsider as we're thinking about this. Um, you know, not great to have empty industrial buildings or what I'm assuming is sort
of like this concrete brick box. Um, but making them take it away, that's I don't know if that makes sense. So, >> liquor license and turn it into a club. >> AC the new AC. That's right. >> Actually, that's always aggravated me,
Michael, when a big box store closes or a mall and it just sits there abandoned and I'm like, why can't they make them like put money in escrow or something to, you know, if they disappear, there's money available to remove? >> Yeah.
>> So, you like the idea? >> Yeah. We had that for solar, you know, >> you know, somebody owns the building and they're renting it to a retailer and the retailer goes out of business and now, you know, build the building owner says, "Well, I don't want to tear my building down
and I'm hoping to get some new tenants, you know." >> Well, you're allowed to do that. We're see I mean, we put it in that they could sell it to a, you know, or as long as it's functioning. Um, I think it's You don't want to have, you know, zombie buildings. >> Oh, yeah. No, I mean abandoned uh
structures are definitely something to consider. I I agree with that. Hey, um are we ready to move on, Mike? Because it is getting late. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Is is that is that uh >> that was it? >> That was okay. Um
All right, we have a minutes. Um All right. I think uh you know do we want to maybe just do the 10 the 1022 minutes tonight or or are people prepared to do uh the other uh minutes? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's just rock the
minutes then. Uh we'll start with uh the more recent ones from October 22nd. Um I hear a motion. >> I'll move to approve the minutes of October 22nd, 2025.
I hear a second. >> Second. >> Okay. Now, I um I do have just a few um revisions that I was not did not do far
enough in advance. Um, I'll share my screen just to kind of make it easier. Okay. So in this paragraph I just uh you know amendments I changed to provisions and I
just included the word draft in front of minutes. This is in the uh review and improvement is from 98 section of the minutes there. Just thought amendments was a little bit uh not quite the term we wanted there.
[Music] and uh Murphy spoke as a voter and under the special town meeting recap section. Um and in a portion of the discussion about the uh the scent and town meet report to town meeting when Steve was
talking he referred to the writing of the warrant right but I think we were talking about the writing of the planning board report to town meeting but we did say warrant several times right and I just thought it would be good to kind of uh maybe put in brackets
planning board report here. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right, Nathan. I did use that word mistakenly. >> Yeah. Well, yeah. You know, but so this is just kind of giving uh you know, we all knew what we were talking about. >> Right. Right. Right. Right.
>> So, just add this in brackets. Does that seem reasonable? Or maybe you know or or or in brack you know, some kind of you know you know Breler used the word warrant here. Although we were talking about the planning board report to town meeting if that would be better to even
explain it more. I I'm fine with that. I think that makes it more accurate. >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We'll just say um Okay. All right. So, I'll be fine. Thank you. Um,
so the wrapping up this section is a sentence. Murphy wonders how other PL Oh, how other you know that's um well yeah um I actually misread it as I said Murphy wonders how the planning board will handle this or something like that
but uh >> that's actually fine. Um, so I'll say more he agrees that she should do some more research on this and con consider a bylaw instead of you know
a bylaw or perhaps regulations. I add that at the very least the next time we go to town meeting and have um decent descent descent we will be specific in our motion so that these questions are
clear. All right. So that's if we don't get a bylaw, you know, we'll just try and be clear in our motion so there's no confusion. Yeah. And that's it. Um, does anyone else have any other revisions?
>> Okay. So, what I'll do is uh I'll just send this draft or these revisions to uh Matteo so he can incorporate them in the approved minutes. Um, >> oh, forget it. I'm watching I'm watching Matto edit while we speak, but forget it.
>> Oh, okay. >> Confused. >> Oh, no, no, that was that was uh Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um All right. So, I'll call I'll call the role. Um uh Seaffort >> I >> Hasty.
>> I >> hi >> Weston. >> Hi. I'm an I. Very good. Okay. The board has uh approved the uh minutes from 10:22 2025. I will send those uh
revisions we reviewed to Mattail, our land use clerk. Uh all right. Do we have uh January 8th, 2024? Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes for January 8th, 2024? >> So moved.
>> Okay. Do I have a second? Hi. >> All right, Jeff and seconds. Any discussion? >> Just um this is the January 8th one. >> Yes. >> Um it says 2023 on the very top of the document. >> Yeah, I noticed that too. I got really
confused. >> Um >> okay. Well, that's a good uh catch. Um >> um in the names of people present, my name is just misspelled. It's uh spelled I E not E I
for others present. That's all I notice. >> Okay, Matteo, are you uh getting that? >> Somebody did because it just got changed while I spoke. >> Yeah, I'm correcting it.
>> Thank you. All right. Nice. Cool. Okay. Um, anything else? Okay, I'll uh call the role. Uh, seefort. >> Is it okay that I do this because I
wasn't yet even an associate member? >> You can abain. >> I'll I'll abstain. >> Yeah, there you go. Hasty. >> Uh, I got to confess I haven't read him, so I'm going to abstain also. >> Okay. Uh, pastor. >> Hi.
Hey Karen, >> hi >> hi >> Weston. >> Hi. >> And um yeah, I will uh
I'll say I very good. Um the minutes from January 8th, 2024. We just did this. Yeah. Okay. Um, next we'll do the minutes from
February 12th, 2024. Do I hear a motion? >> So moved. >> Okay. Uh, second. >> I'll second again. >> Thank you, Jeff. All right. Any discussion?
>> Just one tiny thing in the um role of others present. It says three names and then it says and all other unidentified individuals. I think the word all is not supposed to be there. Just other unidentified officials.
>> Sure. Yeah, that's all I that's anything else. All right, I'll call the roll. Seafford, >> I'll abstain again. I wasn't yet on the
>> pasty. >> Same. Abstain. >> Okay. Ber. >> Hi. >> Take care. >> Hi. >> Pra. >> Hi. >> Weston. >> Hi. >> And
minutes from February 12th, 2024 are approved. And now the minutes from March 4th, 2024. Do I hear a motion? >> So moved. >> I hear a second. >> Second.
>> Thank you. All right. So Michael Day moves. Jeff Wesson seconds. Any discussion? No. All right. I'll call the role. Seaffort. >> Hi. >> Hasty. >> Abstain. >> Brestler.
>> Hi. Hi >> Pipro. >> Hi >> Weston. >> Hi. >> All right. Uh the minutes from motion carries. The minutes from March 4th, 2024 been approved.
>> Beautiful. Now we'll uh just um >> Did you vote on that one, Nathan? >> I did. >> Pardon me. >> No, no, thanks. Um yeah. No, I I voted in the affirmative.
>> Mhm. >> Okay. So, executive session minutes. Um, you know, basically we're going to do it uh and then I realized basically last week that they had been shared with everyone.
Um, yeah, you may have seen uh an email from Matteo, right? So these uh these documents have now been shared. Uh the documents that are not an ex necessarily an exhaustive list of all the executive sessions we had. Some are
just the planning board and some are with the select board. Um we've got a list going off, you know, offline. I've been chatting with Michael and Matteo a little bit. Um, but what we're going to do is we're going to figure out which ones are the playing
board only ones. And for our next meeting, uh, there'll be an a executive session on the agenda and the board can enter into executive session and review and approve those minutes for the ones where it was just the planning
board. Um, possibly uh decide to release them, make them public, right? Um so that will be the goal for the next uh executive session. Um the ones where they're in joint session, you know, it's
kind of like this question of uh you know what what are the we've seen this before on kind of smaller matters, right? Like a associate member appointments or whatever where we might have like a few like a paragraph saying something about the discussion. You
might see the select board minutes like oh yeah you know associate member appointment motion second vote you know and like very spar you know but uh so not to say that you know that would be the case on these but we
wanted to before approving those minutes uh just kind of do a little bit of uh reconciliation or at least uh you know a little bit of review to see if there's uh any kind of weird discrep discrepancies um and then try and uh
figure that out uh and probably get together with the select board in another joint session to review all those. Um right, but uh I mean that's kind of tentative. I I've I've spoken with the you know the town administrator. Um, so
what I'm going to do is, you know, check in with the town administrator again and, you know, another few weeks maybe and see, uh, see where they're at with, uh, with this and then, uh, go from there. Right. And, uh, Michael, you got
anything you want to add? Yeah, please do. I just I just wanted to clarify and you and Matteo can correct me if I'm wrong, but since not everyone has been steeped in this for the executive session minutes, there's two steps in the process. So the first step while
we're in executive session is we approve the minutes. Basically saying these minutes are okay. Um and then they're approved. The next step is voting to release them. And the idea behind executive the reason you're going to executive session is that you're not
divulging information that you know would other be detrimental to the to the town. So the sec second step is to say okay for the minutes that we have approved are looking at the substance of these are these okay for the public to see now and is does not are you know is
the town not susceptible in any way for the information based on the six region I think it's six reasons you can go executive session so you can have that conversation where we think they're approved we're good with them but we're not ready to release them or we are and it's meeting by meeting so it could be
you know depending know what we said. Um, so like I there's two different conversations that we would have in two separate votes if that makes sense. And if you want you can look at the under the open meeting law guide. It has
the reasons you go at executive session like we always say it's reason number three. So if you look at number three, you could basically use that a filter to say this is okay for public versus not, you know, and it's all subjective, but that would be the guidelines. >> Yeah,
>> you're muted. >> Is it possible just to release part of um a particular meeting or do you have to release the whole thing? Matteo could correct me. I think you got to do the whole meeting. I don't think you can do part of it. Um, but
that's we could confirm that. >> Are we talking specifically about the executive meetings regarding solar? >> Yeah, I think those are the only ones we had. >> Okay. >> Were there any others? I just want to make sure there were because regarding
solar because the finding um uh that Kohl's pulled out without prejudice meaning they reserve the right to sue again. I would say that by releasing those executive minutes they read those minutes if they ever decide to litigate
again and now they have an advantage. >> Right? That's I think that's the discussion is to go through and basically it's you know it's for purposes of if the town would be at a disadvantage for litigation or something something something. So like that would be the filter. Um there might be some
meetings where they were just really boring and um we had to debate them but for the most part I think it is I mean it's all about the litigation. It's just what we discussed that we we have to decide. So to to be to be clear to be clear
>> okay um the uh the statute you know I think uh you know says that uh you know whether it's ongoing litigation you can enter into executive session if you think that uh discussing strategy may you know uh
disadvantage the you know your litigating position when that litigation is over uh therefore it's uh you know you lose that uh protection. Now, going into uh you know, Don has made it clear that uh even though the litigation is
over, we we are within our rights to go into executive session to review the minutes uh as to whether or not they can be released uh for anything that may uh you know, in addition to like the, you know, the reasons listed in open meeting law, there's other sort
of uh things that could come into play. um you know whether or not those would or not uh you know I'm not going to speculate on but um being that the you know the litigation is over we no longer have our uh our reason. Okay. It doesn't
it doesn't uh the statute doesn't have any regard for whether or not it was over uh you know with prejudice or without prejudice. And there's no such thing as attorney client privilege or litigation privilege or
>> well though so I mean um there's there's there's stuff about that in open meeting law and elsewhere referenced by open meeting law. Um so you know I think talking about those specifics might be
you we can probably cover that with our our review in executive session. Um, >> I I think I I think Keith's point is a good one and I would check with Donna because every executive meeting that she was at should fall under client, you
know, you know, the privacy ruling and I but I would I would I don't know that, but I would check with Donna at least >> before just saying we've conversations we've been in conversation with Donna. Yeah. >> Yeah. I think I think we can just do the
first pass because that's going to be easy just to approve them and then I think you know if we wanted to invite Donna to a conversation where we're sort of looking at parsing one versus the other that might be helpful but you know the first passes are they act you know we've got enough of them you know that'll take a little bit of time just
to sort of make sure we approve them. >> I think it'd be good to check to see if we could um basically um release part of it and not all of it too whether whether that is legal or not. Is there any ongoing litigation?
>> Well, it's not black and white because they No, it's true because they can come back. I mean, >> that's pretty that's pretty black and white that the litigation is over. But I mean it's uh Matteo, >> I I just want to suggest that this
conversation is the kind of thing that perhaps should be an executive session. The reason you're supposed to go into executive session to discuss this question of releasing the minutes. >> Yeah. But this is also a conversation that is about open meeting law and how it >> No, no. I I understand that. I'm just I
just want to I just want to be cognizant of that discussion strategy. Yeah, I mean it's uh >> Yeah, >> page 20 is a UML guide just as a tip.
>> What What does it say, Tom? >> Oh, I mean I I don't know if I want to read the paragraph, but um >> please do. >> Uh the open meeting law requires public bodies to create and maintain minutes of executive sessions. um if the disclosure of these records or
um maintainance of executive sessions and to review executive session minutes at reasonable intervals to determine whether continued non-disclosure of the executive session minutes is warranted. Public bodies are not required to disclose the minutes, notes, or other materials used in an executive session if the disclosure of these records may defeat the lawful purposes of the
executive session. Once disclosure would no longer defeat the purposes of the executive session. However, minutes and other records from that executive session must be disclosed unless they fall within an exemption to the public records law. General law chapter 4 section 7 clause 26 or the attorney
client privilege applies. Although the open meeting law does not define the reasonable interval at which executive minutes must be reviewed, the attorney general's office has found a review every 3 to six months to be appropriate. I'll stop there, but there's more after that, but just to let you know, it's on
page 20 of the guide. >> Yeah, that's the stuff we're talking about right there. >> Yeah. >> All right. Um, so we'll uh we'll have more on that for the next meeting. Um, all right. Planning board annual report.
If uh if anyone has any uh revisions to it, just uh send them to me. Uh if anyone has read it and has anything they want to talk about right now. Uh no. Okay. >> Due on the 20th,
>> right? >> Yeah. So uh yeah, if you want to look at it and do a revision, do it in the next uh several days. All right. So we have uh now member updates. Okay. Um, Michael, did you have any uh Furcog
stuff that you wanted to talk about? There was a little bit of chatter there. I don't know if it warrants much discussion at this point, but >> I I haven't heard I haven't. So, we all tal we all voted for me to be the Furkhog representative and Nathan to be the the al alternate.
So they reached out to us to confirm that and we said yes but that's as far I have there's no meeting or appoint it has to get we have to get appointed by one of their their bodies I forget the name of it so nothing's happened. >> Yeah I have but I have the same question
as last month any word on deacon. Yeah. But uh Yeah. Yeah. So I I I spoke with Deacon. Um you know, long story short, I think he uh I I'll if we're um in desperate need of
attendance, I'll uh you know, kind of uh pull his chain a little bit. But other than that, we'll uh we'll not expect him to uh pull papers and we'll expect a open spot for the coming election. So, um, he's, uh, yeah, he's not going
to be back to serve another term. >> Keith, >> can we back up to the fur tug representation? And can I put my name on the weight list? um
>> to be uh alternate or super numerary. What do we do? you get one rep and then one alternate is that >> um you know I don't know if there's specific furcog provisions for that but uh
>> well an inhouse in-house I >> yeah no from an in-house perspective uh you know I I would vote on it right now but it wasn't explicitly on the agenda so we'll I'll put it on there for next month though Keith and >> again I don't know again if if the slots are all full but If Yeah. If need
arises, I'm willing to get involved. >> All right. Good. >> Yeah. Um, >> yeah. So, I had just a couple other things. You know, you may have noticed that the uh there was never like a a real PB communication, only an
announcement for the uh our public hearing. and uh you know so as as it happens right the policy doesn't really say you can use it for like a newsletter it says you can
announce a public hearing um or an event or do a public health announcement um and there may be one other one but uh newsletter is not in there right so uh the first one we did one once and you
know one of the members just kind of they sent it out and then another one of the members said, "You can't, you know, this is uh way too much uh information for, you know, announcing a public hearing." And uh I was trying to explain what we were doing. And and then I realized that
kind of halfway through that uh conversation that the policy doesn't actually say you can just uh use it as a newsletter. Um and then as far as, you know, we have this associate member uh vacancy and I had uh intention, you talked about a
town meeting and everything. Um, I think uh I don't know if at this point we should, you know, I can uh get something out there and you know, we talked about having a deadline. I'll just say, you know, before uh
was it fiscal year on uh associate members, right? So, I'll kind of time it I'll time the deadline with that. Um, and uh, you if we get someone next month or whatever or whenever, we can just kind of sit on the uh, nomination until
uh, I mean, we can put someone in, I guess, if we get someone, but um, they're already halfway through the year, you know what I mean? >> I would if we get someone on and active who's, you know, like I both Keith and Tom have coming, they came to meetings and sort of got a sense of what the
issues were and how we worked. you know, if it's working out, we're just going to re-recommend them. So, I don't think we should keep people someone in limbo if if we think they're good and they're involved. You know what I mean? >> Yeah, that's fair. All right, I'll um
I'll put it on to uh Yeah. Uh maybe January or something. Okay. Uh and then I had the uh personnel board. I kind of missed a little uh they were talking about their November meeting which was last week. Um you know
they April had reached out but I was not uh didn't get back in touch. That one slipped through the cracks for me but I reached out to her today and uh I don't really know exactly you know as you recall we were just looking to you know get reference to some of the responsibilities that are in the the
binder we have. Um so uh more to come on that. Just a quick little nod that the personnel board does have a uh job description for the land use clerk on on the radar and uh you know we'll uh see what we can do for
uh given the opportunity for feedback on that. All right. Um anyone else have any updates to share? Oh. Um, Matteo, >> uh, so the
paperwork for the attorney general's office for the bylaws that were, uh, voted on at special at annual town meeting in the spring has finally been correctly sent to the AG's AG's office. And so the clock on that has started now, which means we're going to hear in
January um about those, which I assume is when we're also going to be hearing about the special town meeting uh bylaw votes. But uh that's where it is. Lisa and I got all the stuff together and sent it in. >> Thank you. >> That's great. Um yeah, I also wanted to
just make a note as far as the the minute revisions go. Uh I asked Matteo to start making any changes uh in in Word with track changes and then to upload that word document again um to
update the the existing document there and uh adopting this practice will show the red lines um like you see in word you'll be able to see it um on the Google document right Um, so that's
>> But we would all see that because that doesn't seem kosher. >> No, I mean we all see it anyway except it just you just don't see what changed. >> No, no, no. I mean be before the meeting.
Like if if I sent him edits and he made the edits in the Google doc and then you sent him edits and he put your edits in and then Keith did the same thing. We'd all be seeing the edits. We'd basically having online deliberation.
>> No, but it's not. It'll say his name. >> It doesn't matter. We We'd see what everyone thinks, which is deliberation. But that's what we've been doing the whole time. If if you if you uh sent uh any revisions ahead of the meeting, right, it would uh go in.
>> But but we don't see other people's suggestions. we just send it to Matteo and then he makes the the corrections or the changes and then the I mean that I think the point that Matteo had made was the place where it's problematic is if
one or two or several of us are commenting on the same thing. He doesn't he's not the decider, you know, in terms of what comes out the other end. So in the in the rare instance where we're actually talking about the same stuff, we would bring that to an open meeting and saying he said this, you said this,
I said this. What do we as a committee want to say? But if you say, you know, change this word to something else, he can do it because no one he he's doing track changes and we're not seeing it. And if no one rebutts what your changes, then he can do it. But if we're seeing
it live on a Google doc, that that doesn't comply with >> we're saying we're seeing it live now. Right. If he he puts the changes, you we like you just said, we put we email him the changes and he he puts them in. >> But we but we don't see them. >> We're in session. We're in session
though. >> Well, if you if you if you say the changes while you're in session, but if you send to them ahead of the meeting, they just get put in. But you don't see that it's a change >> if we send them individually to Matteo.
If we open up the word doc and it's already and Michael's already been there >> and put changes in. >> But no, no, it's not Michael putting the changes in. It's Matteo putting the changes in. It's just a way to make it so that okay, it the only difference between what we do now and what we're going to do is
that you're actually going to just be able to see what it changes instead of, you know, if you had looked at the Word document when it first comes out and looked at it again and manually gone through and seen where any of the changes were, which is what we have now. because as as viewers of the document,
you cannot see the uh the revision history, >> right? >> Can we see who suggested the change? Like can I see, oh, Nathan suggested that this change happen here?
>> But if we see a change, doesn't that mean that somebody changed it? Maybe it was just, you know, I mean, you don't know who did it. >> Well, we know it's one of the borders. We can narrow it down.
>> I mean, it could it could be the land use clerk uh just uh having uh you know, you know, looked looked at the minutes and said, uh, you know, I don't like the way that sounds and gone back and make it make made a change. >> But what if the clerk did it because a
board member asked them to? >> Well, I mean, you know, that's what we've been doing. Yeah, but it it might have been a mistake is what I think we're learning. >> I don't know. I I don't I don't think it is. I >> mean, reading Matteo's email, it sounded
like nothing was I'm sorry, Matteo, if I'm getting this wrong, but that it wasn't really okay what we were doing and it didn't seem like there was necessarily a clear solution. >> The issue with Am I getting that wrong?
The issue with what we were doing uh was that if uh if somebody suggests a change, Matteo adds it and then you know the board might vote on that and then they don't see that there was uh any change right so maybe you know Michael
reads the minutes you know right after they come out and then you know a few weeks later someone else goes in puts a change in and we don't really see that there's a change you know when we just bring up the doc you know we bring up the document Um,
>> so maybe just having a deadline that we get our comments in or anything to Matteo before we meet and say no more, you know, if you miss the deadline of putting any changes in, then it is what it is.
>> Well, then you just bring it to open meeting. I mean, I think, you know, like the reality is doing editing of minutes in an open meeting, which would be ideal and what the bureaucrats would want you to do is impractical. So, you know, the idea is to sort of get some of those little things in there. Um, but if we
had if we had a conflict and you said and I said blue, like the whole idea is we'd have to discuss that in open meeting and say, "Hey, like that people would want to know that that was something we were disagreeing upon." >> So, so, so that's the thing is is, you know, when we get to open meeting and we
go to approve the minutes, we can bring them up and we can review what the changes are. >> Yeah. I Well, I think that part's okay. I mean, I just like I've never looked at the Google doc when I do the edits. I sort of get, you know, just speaking for myself, like I get the doc the word
document and I download it and then I edit it and then I send a thing that's MD edits to Matteo. So, I'm just looking at my little universe and I send it to him >> and then >> I think we're I'm counting on him to sort of, you know, it gets to Keith's
point. You know, there's a sequence. So if I'm in first and then Keith comes in and you know says my red is really blue then it's for Matteo to sort of capture that. But if I change something in the first paragraph and Keith changes something in the second paragraph
you know we can we should note that it got changed but there's no conflict there because we're not disagreeing. Um and so if we accept them as a whole I mean it's >> Michael can I just interrupt there? The the problem the problem of priority though is that you might object to what
the change that Sorry to pick on you Keith, but you might object to the change that Keith had made to that paragraph had you known that that change was going to be made. >> Yes. >> Um and I mean so this kind of gets back to the to what Nathan was just talking about in terms of if you if you read the
revised document later than somebody else, you're getting a different version of it. Um and I think the best system would be for everybody to be reading the same version, sending you know continue with the practice of sending in the revisions but then in the open meeting
um you know either Nathan or me sharing what all those revisions are so that you guys can see them and approve them. in the rare instance which you know in the one year I've been doing this it hasn't really come up that you do have conflicting revisions in certain section that you're describing Michael then you could have that discussion but I
wouldn't want to I guess what I'm concerned about is me or any person in the land use clerk position being in the position of having to sort of unilaterally decide what a particular board member meant or u decide if there's a conflict between two revisions. I don't think that's
something the clerk should be able to do. No, the way you described it I agree with like we would see in the open meeting what all the changes were small or not. So we would see the track history but that sounds
>> that's all it is. >> Okay. I I misunderstood. I thought you you were saying we were doing the edits and seeing everybody's changes as opposed to we send in our edits separately and then in open meeting we see the whole kitten kaboodleoodle. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's just still send us our our edits in separately. But the only
difference is instead of editing them in Google Docs, they're going to be edited in in Word with track changes. And I would say I I would say to you know, Matteo, when you do this, if it's, you know, a grammatical correction, you don't have to track the change, you know, you know, only if it's something
that, you know, is uh more substantive. >> Excuse me. This is uh this is Mike Schaefer from Huntley. Um, I don't I don't mean to be rude or anything like that, but we've got a you've got a resident here who's been waiting since 7:00 to present something to, and I was
wondering if we're going to get a chance to do that tonight. >> Um, >> Mike Schaefer. >> Yeah. From Huntley Associates. We're engineering consultants. Uh, that your residents been the plaza has been on since 7. uh in hopes of just presenting
something to you tonight, what they would like to do with their property so that we can do the proper preparations for an ANR plan. Uh we had talked with Matteo about uh that we wanted to discuss with the board tonight and we were wondering if we could have just a few moments to present something to you.
They've been, like I said, they've been on this call for the last two and a half hours patiently waiting. >> You know, I I I apologize. That was landowner and uh landowner education and guidance at 7:05. You know, we we were there and no one said anything. Um >> well, we thought we were under the last part of the business.
>> Yeah, >> but we were waiting for unfinished business, >> right? >> I thought it came in. So, >> we didn't know that. >> We didn't know that that that was under land use uh landowner education. Now, I do. >> So, I thought it was coming at the tail
end and >> Wow. Okay. So, uh >> quick learning curve here. >> Okay. thought you were really interested in planning and wanted to entertain for a couple hours. >> Say I I commend you for your patience.
>> What do you got there? >> Yep. >> All right. So, let me let me uh present my screen then real quick. >> Yep. >> Uh let me just make sure I still have it up. I do. >> So, the Plazas would like to uh they have a plan. And let me close some of these windows here.
So the plazas own a parcel of land uh this large parcel here and uh they currently live in this in this is in this building right here. So all this van all this land that you see here is is vacant. Uh and they would like to
pursue an ANR to um divide this property into three lots. Um, I think uh, and Jim, you can certainly add to this, but I think their plan is they would like to move off of Plaza Road eventually. Is that correct, Jim? Can can you elaborate on that a
little bit for me? >> Right. That that's what we were thinking actually um, building on Plaza Road, but that may be in the very distant future. We're currently on 314 Wendell Road. So, what they would like to be able to
do is access with a driveway off a plaza road to a new home in the back. Um, and the issue that we have is uh we can get two lots out of this and three lots out of this. There's plenty of land here to do that. Uh, but the problem that we have is if I zoom in here, you'll see
what the problem is right away is that we are short 10 ft uh to the standard 250 foot road frontage. And uh what we we are in the process of doing right now is going out and surveying the property
uh in hopes of being able to uh put together an ANR plan. We did talk a little bit with Matteo about some options and and what we'd like to do. And one of the reasons we wanted to just present this to the board tonight is to see if they would consider uh granting a
variance waiver to the plazas to allow for this shortage in frontage and thought we might just present it tonight for some any kind of comments that you might have and uh to give us and the plaza some kind of direction as to what the inclinations of the board would be
in a situation like this. I've got uh two things for you on that. One is that uh a variance would be uh you request that from the zoning board of appeals. Uh two, the zoning act stipulates
very specific reasons for which a variance may be granted. I don't know it off the sides of my head, but it has to do with, you know, uh, you know, features of the lot or the uh maybe the shape of the lot. Um, you
know, so there are, uh, some uh, cons, you know, there's specific things, um, for which a variance can be, uh, granted. It's it's not just like uh you know this is uh
you know we've got you know so many uh square feet and we're hoping we can squeeze two in here. Will you you know it's uh it's only one foot short. Um it's not that kind of a uh question per se. U whether or not any of those
could be applicable to this lot. Um I don't know. But that's uh that's the the review that uh would be conducted by the zoning board of appeals. Um and whether or not you go to them with that request would be depending on your own due diligence as to whether or not any of
the uh reasons in the uh zoning act apply. Um >> off the the planning boards uh without looking at the planning board regulations in particular is does the planning board are the planning board or the variance applications
do they provide any provisions of lot depth or are they only worried about frontage? The reason I'm bring the reason the question I'm bringing up is uh would they be looking for the plazas to have a 250 foot direct line all the way back or
could they come in as long as they have 250 ft up front? I'll give you an example. >> I mean 250 ft is for frontage on on a on a way. >> Correct. You're >> what I'm asking is that if this is 250
ft right here, let's say if I could get the darn thing to work. Hold on a minute. What's going on? Hold on. Says a little bit slow sometimes when you're on a on a call. If I were to get an extra 10 feet from
like the neighbor or something like that, is this something that the planning board would accept or are they looking for 250 ft rectangle all the way back? >> If there's 250 ft on the road,
then that's that's frontage. So if Yeah. I mean, if you get 10 ft from the neighbor, then that's uh that would give it to >> that would give us 250 foot here, but it would not necessarily give us 250 foot there. So, what my question is,
>> but that's not that's not on the road. >> So, how far back does it have to go? >> It it doesn't have to be parallel to 250. >> Yeah. No, it's it's it's you know, it's 250 ft on the road is what frontage is. That's that's it. It doesn't have
anything. you know, the there's requirements for the area of the lot, >> right? >> Correct. >> Okay. And there's also the requirements for setback, >> things like that. >> I didn't see any anything in the regulations that would say otherwise, but I just figured I would ask the question. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. No, no, that's that's that's fine. Um, as long as you're okay with, you know, if you have 250 frontage and two acres, you're okay. >> Okay. Yeah, we have plenty of acorage. That's that's not not an issue. Um, Jim and Jan, do you have anything else that
you wanted to ask? >> No, I I think that u I mean that was our essentially our our major question about this. I mean, we we looked at other possibilities of what will happen with the additional land. Um,
right now we've been in chapter 61. Obviously, that changes. Have you looked at any uh flexible frontage, you know, development which would could possibly uh free you up from the 250 frontage?
>> Mean like open design. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That that that is an option as well. Um it doesn't uh it it reduces their buildable lot size dramatically. Um we kind of did a scenario in that and
we did talk to Matteo a little bit about that. There was some there were some questions that we had relative to open space design. Uh the taxable benefits of it if they were going to dedicate some of this land to the town. Uh and it just
it became honestly it became quite cumbersome >> uh in the sense that uh the amount of buildable area got much much smaller with that was available to them due to the fact that such a large portion of their property would be dedicated to open design. But it was something that
we entertained and we took a look at. Um, and it's not totally off the table. But right now, we were just trying to explore other options. I think uh, you know, there was some discussion about giving some of this land, uh, to to conservation, you know, that kind of
thing. So, we're just kind of looking at different things to see what our various options are. And I think one of the options that we had right now was really specifically talking about what we needed to do here. We we understood that we probably would need to go to the ZVA. That's typically many times the normal
process. Uh but in our dealings with in talking with Matteo, you know, some of the questions that we had for him at that time was also just about open space design, which we think we've resolved at this point. Um so yeah, so I think I think it pretty much answered the questions that we were
kind of looking for um in the sense of what you know what we were looking what kind of answers we were seeking. And I guess we'll just go back now and figure out what the next best course of action would be uh to be able to present a viable uh project uh to the planning
board. Do you have planning board? Do you have any questions of of the plazas relative to what they would like to do and what their op educate them what some of their options might be? >> Iating land and what kind of tax benefits there might be for that if they
decide land. >> Nothing like that. uh just you know um in terms of uh approval not required. I mean that's uh you know if if the plan is not a subdivision
um and there's you know access to the lot. So I you know I know there's uh is that plaza road on there? >> Yep. >> That's a that's that's a private road. >> Um so >> a town road. >> No that's the town the town maintains. I
mean they plow it up to the >> Okay. Yeah. So then >> the determination where the hay um >> farm is >> farm is. >> Okay. Yeah. Then then you're good there, right? So it's uh as long as uh every lot or buildable lot uh would show you
know the required frontage on the uh on on a road then uh you're good to go. And if it's, you know, if it's not a public road, it just needs, you know, it needs to be verified that it's uh, you know, meets the requirements for e emergency vehicles and things like that. But >> so if it's a if it's already maintained
by the town and um, looks good. Um and you know just to note the zoning act it's uh you know chapter 48 section 10 on variances and it says uh owing to circumstances related to the soil conditions shape or topography of such
land or structures and especially affecting such land or structures but not affecting generally the zoning district in which it is located. Um, you know, there's more to it than that, but that's kind of, you know, what I was referring to,
>> right? >> It's okay. >> Based on what we heard, it sounds like an ANR path is an easier way, more steps, but easier than the variance, but depends on who you want to come to. >> Yeah. Yeah, I was wondering if you could maybe uh so one of the questions that we
had asked Matteo just to get an understanding of it is in the or in the zoning or sorry in the uh open space design ordinance there was some talk about um so obviously there's a certain percentage of the land that can't be built on and there was something in
there about tax benefits. Is is there anything that you can elaborate on that because Matteo didn't know too much about it? I'm sorry I don't have the clause right in front of me. I came from one meeting and I came right home to do this at home and I don't have everything in my office
but uh in the regulations uh specifically relative to the open space design they were talking about possible tax benefits um and I just wondered if if you could elaborate on that at all and if if they decided to open space design and
dedicate uh you know all the unused property to conservation uh is that something that would be available to them and if so what does something like that look like? >> We don't mean to stump you at the end of
the the evening here. >> I'm going to give you an oversimplified answer. The tax benefit would come primarily from the acreage that's put in in a conservation easement that would not be taxed at the same rate nearly the same rate as the private dwellings, you
know, as the as the 2502 acre lots would be taxed. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> So there there's a tax break on that part that would be in conservation versus that part that would be actually the buildable area. >> That's right. It's a fairly significant one under when you do put property under
a conservation easement. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Talking about a tax tax deductible conservation easement. >> The tax that that property is no longer taxed at a typical lot rate, you know,
250 2acre um lot rate. It it's greatly reduced. And I actually think the uh whoever holds the conservation restrictions I don't even think there's any t I'm not sure there's any taxes on it quite
frankly. >> I think the more challenging part that we've run into and Steve has been around long enough on this but someone has to hold the conservation restriction >> right >> and and for small projects it's hard to get you know a land trust or someone interested in doing that you know or the
con. So like that usually is the stumbling block of like we got a small small piece of land. Who will take it? >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Getting away from your more interesting
conversation to just to hear us what we had to do. We look forward to uh presenting something to you hopefully in the December or January meeting. >> Yeah. Sorry about the mixup. >> Nope. >> No, that's fine. It was very interesting conversation, believe me. But I'll let you get back to that.
>> We use we use all those edit formats ourselves. So >> tech technically you did get a huge learn you you get a lot of learning as a land owner right? >> Yes. >> Very much so. >> All right. Have a wonder. I was
wondering you guys here. You must be interested in this. Uh >> be back here. All right. Michael, thank you. >> Thanks so much. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Bye. >> Bye. >> Bye. >> Bye. Nathan, you want me to move to adjourn? >> Yeah, I I would like that. Yeah. >> So moved.
>> Hang on. So I know Nathan, you're a veteran right? >> It's true. >> You are. Are there other veterans on the board? Keith, you are. All right. Well, happy Veterans Day. Thank you for your service. >> Oh, that's tomorrow. >> That's right.
>> Tomorrow. Yeah, I'm I have school off. That's, you know, >> I was actually hoping we could just hang in there for another two hours and 20 minutes and just >> just bring it in with >> Rocket Veteran.
>> Thank Thank you, Ashley. >> Thank you, Ashley. Did we have a second on the motion? >> We have a second again. >> Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure. Um, don't want to Okay. So we have a a a motion and a second to adjourn and uh
some lively discussion about Veterans Day. And now I will call the role. Uh Seafford >> I >> Hasty. >> Hi. >> Brassler. >> Hi. >> Hi. And thank you to Nathan and Keith. >> Hi. >> Hi.
>> Right back right back at you. >> Weston. >> I All right. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good night everyone and happy Veterans Day. >> Yep. Good night. >> Take care.