Good evening everybody. It is seven o'clock and we are calling the February 3rd, um, planning board meeting to order. First on the agenda is public participation on any matter, not subject to a public hearing. Is anybody here have anything you wanna talk about? As long as it's not subject to public hearing, uh, I dunno. Cut, cut me off if it's, I don't believe It's Okay. Uh, Ron Ru uh, do I have to get my address and everything or no? Yes. Okay. Ron Ru 79 Woodsong Road. Um, I'm here because we, um, I noticed on the agenda we're talking about the bylaws
for, uh, battery storage. So I'm coming, uh, because this is an opportunity for us to redirect our city as we develop a zoning petition. Uh, this Is, so I cannot talk about this. You have to wait until the, the public hearing. Oh, Okay. When would that be? Uh, after we get through some of the stuff on our agenda. Got it. Hey, thank you So much. So, but we'll give you an opportunity. Um, I would like to relinquish the chair right now because I do have something to talk about. Um, Cheryl, Can you mm-hmm. Bill Carles, uh, chair Westfield Planning Board 16 Wild Flower Circle.
Um, Thursday, January 13th was a momentous day for one of our very own planning board of members, and we would be remiss if we did not take this opportunity to recognize, congratulate, and thank Ray St. Jaire, who after 24 years of faithful duty, retired from the US Army joining us today. Joining us today is his beautiful wife, Nicole Ray served two tours in Iraq. He retired as a US Army Sergeant Ray specialized in US Army helicopters,
most notably Dev Vaunted Blackhawk. Um, in my letter, I, I mean, in my hand, I hold a proclamation from Mayor Mike McCabe, uh, congratulating Ray on his retirement and his accomplishments. Westfield has a longstanding tradition of supporting our military personnel. We're very proud of our air base, our a tens miss them dearly. Our F fifteens, the soon to be F 30 fives, and of course, rays Army helicopters. Mr. Chair, can we have, if it's all right, to have him stand next to you Yes.
And give him the Absolutely. Thank you. And Nicole, Come forward. Nicole. Well, here. This is what, thank you. Thank you. I've not done that. Okay. The planning board, mayor McCabe and I speak for the many residents of Westfield. In thanking Ray for his service to his country, we also express our gratitude to all those who currently serve, who are currently serving, those who have served, and especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country. Ray, thank you for your dedication to this country and our city
With some flowers service. Thank you also. Thank you all. Next on our agenda is review and approval of the previous minutes January 20th, um, 26 minute, um, 2026. I, I, I can't hear Ms here, but you're asking for a motion for The minutes. Yes. I'm asking for a motion on the minutes. Okay, sir. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes on, uh, January 20th. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye, Kim, Next on the agenda is, um, public hearings.
We have one. Okay. It is, uh, zoning petition of the city council to implement an interim restriction for battery energy storage systems, B-A-B-E-S-S act. Um, access to the full petition at the city clerk's office, or at, um, or on the website for this hearing, the chair recognizes Rich Sooy as the voting member for Bernie Za. Um, so before we start though, I just wanna make sure I read this off. Today we have zoning, special permits,
and other site plan approvals. After the applicants present, their proposal board members will begin asking their questions. We will invite the public to ask questions of fact. Then we will have a separate time for the public to speak in favor of or speak against emotions we recognize. Um, you, uh, when we recognize you, please come to the microphone, give your name and address, and direct all questions and comments to the board. The purpose of our public hearings to allow board members to collect evidence and testimony supporting or contradicting the published legal findings, we are required to make, to approve
or deny, we cannot act outside the balance of zoning, zoning, ordinance, stormwater ordinance were sought. Please understand, public hearings are not a community referendum nor a town meeting. We ask you to keep comments, civil and positive. Remember, we're all neighbors working to move Westfield forward. While you're free to express your opinions, ultimately, legally, the board can only deliberate on the findings of fact, not on yours or our personal opinions. Okay. Let's see. Um, it's the applicant here. Thank you. My name is Karen Fanon.
I'm city counselor for Ward One, and also the Chair of Zoning Planning and Development Committee. At your last meeting of the planning board, the planning board had sent a recommendation to the Zoning Planning and development committee, um, to put a moratorium on the, um, issuance of any battery storage facilities in the city. The zoning port zoning planning and development committee met on January 15th, and we gave a positive recommendation to the full city council to, um, support your recommendation for a moratorium.
This moratorium will go in, will be in effect until September 30th. Um, the city council also approved to send this mo moratorium on to have public hearings. So this is the first of two public hearings. We'll, the city council will have their public hearing on, um, Thursday. So at this time, what this public, what this petition is about is just setting the pub, setting the moratorium. At this time, we are not looking to talk about regulations, what it's gonna look like or anything like that. It's just to set the moratorium so that we can have a chance
as a city to write the regulations for battery storage facilities, as well as accessory, um, um, developments with, uh, battery storage. So, at this time, like I said, it's just a moratorium, and we will then meet in our committees. You'll meet as a, the planning board and we'll develop the regulations. Um, and these regulations have to be in, have to be accepted by September 30th. We cannot put a permanent moratorium on this. We cannot prohibit any battery storage facilities in the
city of Westfield because it goes against the state regulations. So again, what I'm supporting and asking your support for is a positive recommendation to move this moratorium forward for the city, for the full city council to, um, vote on it at their next meeting. Thank you. Does anybody in the public have a question of fact that they would like to ask? Come forward, if you have a question come forward. So, just because this is, thank you for your patience, by the way, as I'm navigating. I appreciate you. Um, I'm, lemme ask this again. I'm not sure. One more time. Absolutely.
Ron Ru 79 Wood Song wrote, I'm not sure if I, if this is the appropriate time to ask this question, because I'm hearing that the mor this is really just for the moratorium, is that correct? Ask the question. Okay. Uh, my question is, uh, will you re, will you focus on the section 3.1 installation tiers as far as, uh, BuyRight, uh, BuyRight versus special permit Focus on you? Say, ask it again? Sure. Within the
draft bylaws mm-hmm. Section 3.1, With the best installation tiers mm-hmm. Will you consider revising, uh, tier two construction with special permit versus BuyRight? The reason for that question is my understanding of BuyRight means that there's, uh, less oversight. So my concern is given that, uh, a large proportion of our, uh, commercial industrial zones are within, uh, or on top of an aquifer.
So that is a concern of mine. And then I have two other questions. Is that okay to ask those now? Yep. Okay. So the second question is, uh, with regard to lighting in section 6.8 0.1, uh, there's a reference to dark Sky Massachusetts bylaws. My question is, will there be a, um, specification of language around shielding of exterior fixtures, uh, for, uh, 600 lumens and color temperature? Again, because there's a number of residents in that area. And then the last question was
around noise. Uh, section 4.1, uh, 6.2 required documents and 6.8 0.7 noise standards. Uh, there's a reference to three 10 CMR, seven point 10, uh, DEP noise control regulations. When reviewing those documents, the language, uh, seemed, um, overwhelming and, uh, things about pure tone and sound pressure levels. So I was wondering if there was going to be a specification of that language within the Westfield bylaws. And that is it, Correct me if I'm wrong, Jay. Um, we don't get the ability to set these,
ah, that's the issue. The state is set in these, um, and from what I've read, the state has come forward and said, here is how these will go in, depending on how they are, um, depending on the size. Thank You. Okay. And, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, if my interpretation of this is wrong, all of these, there's noise levels. Um, as for the dark sky that's already in our ordinance, as for the special lumens and the color temperature that I don't know, we could,
clearly that's not something they're going to quibble about. We could put that, we could make those requests. Okay. But the noise levels, um, are clearly laid out, um, in the current projected, um, guidelines, the noise levels are laid out, um, and they all vary. And then the state, um, has turned around and basically said, you know, you will, these will go in wherever we decide to put them in.
Okay. Which is why we're, um, proposing a moratorium until we can figure out how to best adopt them for Westfield. Very Good. Um, So not entirely, um, it's not that we don't entirely have any say. Um, there are the larger facilities that the state has oversight over that we specifically don't have any local, we wouldn't regulate locally. So the really big ones, like the one that had been proposed would still be permitted through the state.
Um, it wouldn't have a local, I mean, I'm sure there'd be outreach and everything, but there wouldn't be a local approval or permit process. Um, so that's not changing. So the, the, uh, regulations he was referencing are from the draft, the model bylaw that the state put out, which is on your share, what you've seen before, which is on your share drive. I just added it. Um, but we would tailor those to Westfield. So we don't necessarily have to follow what the state states. Um, as you mentioned, our lighting ordinance is already fairly strict, although not color temperature.
Um, we do have a separate noise ordinance, so there's things that are already in place that would apply. So we wouldn't, you know, necessarily adopt these per, just as they're written. They'd be tailored to Westfield. Um, some things may not be appropriate. And again, aquifer concerns is something we would fold in. Um, so there's a lot of moving parts. Uh, there's still, um, the state regs are now finalized. They're not yet promulgated, but the point of the moratorium is just to digest all this and have time to actually craft these regulations.
We're not crafting them now, we're just saying we're putting a pause on for several months in order to write these over the course of coming months. Um, so there will be another hearing when what we propose is put out another public hearing like this with our, um, I assume the planning board or city council, whatever, but he's going to kind of finalize what we wanna propose. And, um, so that's maybe a more appropriate opportunity to weigh in on exactly what we're doing. 'cause I don't think we know yet. We're just saying,
put the brakes on and then let us think about it without the pressure of some looming proposal coming. Thank you. Uh, thank you for your information. It's very helpful and I appreciate all that you've been doing thus far in, uh, previous meetings. I, I would expect that at our next meeting when we do have these ordinances, you'll probably be in the, in the, in the gallery again, correct? I may, but I, I, um, I've been really pleased with what I've been seeing thus far with the questioning and, and, um, I feel like there's many that have the interest
of Westfield at heart and are doing their best. So I do appreciate that. Thank you. And I, I want to, I wanna also kind of be on your side here. I was also, I've also prepared nuances with this myself personally. So, um, we are gonna talk about the, um, the temporary, um, stall. But just, just to say that, you know, uh, a lot of us in Westfield have thought about this and want to get to the details. So I just want to just wanna let you know That. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Anybody else with a question of fact? Please come forward. Bill, can I say something? Yes. Um, I just wanna mention that this, this is,
we're not talking about any current proposed, uh, project. There's no projects right now for, uh, battery facility in Westfield. The previous one got, uh, taken back by the contractors. So this is just thinking forward. It's All, you're all set for thinking. Mariinski Westfield, Rogers Avenue. Rogers Avenue one 14 Rogers Avenue. I'm not gonna give you my phone number. Um, so just for clarification or because this conversation went on, I think
during the time that the best that left, I decided not to put in their facility here. Uh, some of the issues around the fact that we didn't have anything in our zoning ordinances about Bess referencing Bess or what they we could or couldn't do with them. That's correct. Right. So there's nothing still. No, there is nothing. We have nothing. We have nothing in our Ordinance yet. Right. So that, that's part of this. So the mor moratorium that you're talking about, we are allowed, even though the state is going forward, you, I think I
listened to the, uh, discussion you have on the state, right. Rules and regulations that are coming out and you are discussing all kinds of things about sizes and all that. You needed a, you are allowed to have time till October. Uh, we're proposing through September because as of October there's a state, separate state established this other local process that someone can choose to pursue. Right. Um, which we have to offer by October 1st. So if we don't have regs by October 1st, it's
could be somewhat of a free for all if someone chooses that Right. Alternative process. So that's our date, target date for that. So you are the state, the city is allowed to put in some rules and regulations into their own zoning, and you have a grace period here. Well, we're ask, I mean, this is kind of a, a pause to allow us to do that. So, um, this is a unique use in that the state's kind of categorizing it as something like a school or a church that can go anywhere and not be highly regulated. Um, but we can have a reasonable regulation
and I think it's reasonable to say we're taking a pause to digest all these regs and craft our local, That's what the moratorium is. Right. Right. So that was good because you making the statement that the, the state is gonna be able to put them in or require that we put them in. Well, I mean, they could do that now and they could come tomorrow with a 300 Mwa. There's the correction. That's the clarification. They can do them now, but that's why you're asking for a moratorium. So you could set up, so hopefully something in our zoning that would have you the city have, be able to have a little bit more control over where they go.
Yes. No, maybe Not on a, not on the big ones. So the state still controls that. And we wouldn't, our local zoning wouldn't and can't Apply. Right. But the but public, even when the state takes over them at the state level, if they decide for the larger facilities, the public can still participate in their hearings that they hold. Just that they you Won't be, yeah. So it's no different, no different than we did over at Westfield River School that one night. Right. So We all participated down there. Okay. All right. So the next step after this from the moratorium, which
I believe is a good idea since we need to get all our ducks in a row here, that, uh, will be opportunities for residents or anyone in the city, officials in the city to also give some input comments about, uh, the direction we should take or are allowed to take with that zoning ordinance. Yes. We have to have a public hearing on our ordinance. Right. Well, and this, this is this particular ordinance or amendments or whatever that you want to add that will cover best operations
or facilities in the city of Westfield. What zoning would it fall under the water resource protection? Or does it go into more than one? Well, there are several districts, um, like solar for example, can already go in rural residential. Um, court case law kind of says some of these battery systems that go with solar are allowed or you can't prohibit them if they're co-located. So there's a lot of things to digest. And I don't want to get ahead of what might be proposed. 'cause I haven't, I mean, we don't know sit down
or several meetings and, and craft something with lots of eyes on it, I'm sure. And, uh, again, once, once the product is ready, we'll be back at this, uh, hearing to present it. Right. And, and so I'm just gonna make a suggestion anyway beforehand, is that we do take a look at the zoning ordinance for water resource protection, because I think controlling, as we saw the issue that we came, came up with the last one, the Jupiter Power that was gonna put that one on, um, on Service Star Road,
because it did impact the aquifer that we have to do some strengthening of our water resource protection zoning. This body oftentimes wanted to, or wish that Bay Pack would get, I know it's not have anything to do with it now, but I'm just planting a seed. We're we're moving into discussion as opposed to Question. Yeah. So the discussion is that, and I'm supporting this mor moratorium, This is the question time. Um, I asked the, asked the question. I'll come back and give you my opinion later. Thank you. Anybody else with a question?
Please come forward. Um, Mike Javier 13 State Street. Um, I was wondering if you, anybody in the council has, um, brought up the point of with, uh, Moss Landing in California, that fire that's there, and that hasn't been put out, took I don't know how many days, five days that you guys had put any bylaws in for, uh, who's going to provide protection just in case that happens. Uh, because I know for a fact that, uh, um, when there's a battery fire, they can't put it out.
There's, uh, certain precautions they have to take and, or certain chemical chemicals they have to use in order for them to put the fire out. And the proposed site, you know, kind of endangers that, you know, we're already having problems with our water here in the city, but, uh, uh, with those precautions that should be written into there, like who's going to provide that? Is, is it gonna be the city or is it gonna be the state that's allowing that battery factory to be put in its place? Y you, the answer to your question is, is we are all very well aware of moss landings
and the environmental impact of that fire. Yes. Yeah. This fire with these, um, battery storage systems is, um, a known issue. Okay. So, you know, we will take that into consideration when we're writing our bylaws. Okay. And the plan is, I believe that's a very important, the plan is to try to prevent that. Yeah. But I, I'm a retired commercial carpenter. I've ran, uh, whole projects with osha, so I know the, you know, the precautions you have to take to protect the workers. Mm-hmm. Now we're talking about the people
and the area that this battery thing is going to be in, especially, God forbid if there's a fire there and they can't put it out, the toxic fumes, you have to evacuate. Right. So I'm wonder, you know, just make sure that, you know, that's brought up in, In like, like Maryanne, we're moving into out of the question area. Okay. Thank you. I was just wondering. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else have a question of fact? Please come forward discussion out of the board. It's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, uh, I think we, I think we gotta get into the technical, um, the,
the technicality of this, which was what we need time for. So, um, I do think it's a good idea to put a pause on. Um, a lot of people are just talking about lithium ion specifically, so I, I, you know, I'd wanna see details with that when it comes to regulations. So Comment from anybody else. I, I think the moratoriums a no brainer. I think we have to wait Still in its infancy. I'm sorry, what was that, Cheryl? It's all still in its infancy. It's just better to do that. Yep. I was hoping for a longer than until September moratorium, but I'll, I'll take, I I agree
that I think moratoriums a no brainer. So anybody in the public want to speak in favor of speak against please come forward. Just, just to justify that October date. Again, here is the state regulation, Um, That says we have to have a adopt their local process by, by October 1st. So, Um, Whether or not we have anything, it seems like we have to be able to have that permitting path. So Jay, when you say that you're, you mean we have to adopt their, if we don't come up with our own,
uh, ordinances, we have to abide by theirs? Well, it isn't theirs. It's, they, they say someone can pursue the normal thing of the planning board, get whatever permits, or they set up this local consolidated process, um, that they described. They're still working on the guidelines for it, but the state set this up as an alternative path. If someone doesn't want to, you know, go through the traditional zoning process, they can pursue this state process they've established.
And we have to allow that as of October 1st. So if we don't have any regulations by then, um, it would, I think it put us in an awkward position. If we have to permit something and we've got no regulations to apply to it, We'll get that one By default fault. Um, yeah, I mean, we would have to appears by default. We would have to issue a permit within I think 12 months. And, um, again, if we don't have any regulations to point to it, it's hard to, You know, Jay, if we don't have it done by October 1st and we don't have anything come
before us, can we implement them after October 1st? Um, for future projects that might come before us? Yeah. I mean, technically we would only have to have given notice to what we're proposing. So if we craft something and put a notice in, in the paper and everything announcing a public hearing, um, that would apply kind of retroactively as we're working on it. So once, um, so we don't necessarily have to have it adopted by then, but should have it finalized and, uh, noticed.
But in the future, if we look at it and in practice it's not really working, we can amend that. Yeah. I mean, we can always amend it's zoning process, I'm Sure. So if, if we come up with our own regulations and city council approves it, the regs are done and we did our part. Right. You don't have to wait for the state to approve it, is what I'm getting at. No, the state wouldn't approve our local. Okay. So, But we, we have to go by their guideline though. There's certain things, Well, we can't be inconsistent with their regulations. Right. Which are fairly permissive.
Um, the, the, the goal is to facilitate these things. That's the state's goal. Um, If I understand what John just said though, we promulgate our guidelines and our ordinance, right? Does the applicant on November 1st have two avenues to pursue? They can pursue it through our ordinances or through the state's ordinance? Not, again, we're talking, it's, we're talking small and medium sized, not large ones. Large ones. The states can tell us where to put It. It's not the
state's ordinance, it's the traditional process, which if we say you need a site plan approval or a special permit, you come here, the normal stuff, if you also go need a, a wetlands permit, you go get that. And what else? And the state kind of said, we're just gonna create this one consolidated local permitting process. It's like a one stop application and it collects all your local permits and you have to have it within 12 months. Um, we don't usually take that long locally, but that's the applicant's option as of October 1st. So they'd still go through,
they still get a local zoning approval, but it's a process that the state set up rather than what we locally do. It's kind of, you Know, I I could see like some communities where they, um, maybe rural communities where things move slower and they have volunteer boards that meet once a month that maybe someone's gonna choose the state setup process because it's more expedited in theory. Um, It may not make much difference for Westfield, but our our local regs, whatever we craft will apply.
In either case, it's just the, okay, That's the answer Process someone follows. That would differ. Okay. Uh, Dan Alley 38 Union Street. I would like to speak in favor of the moratorium, um, um, as well as the work that we need to do to, you know, decide what can be, uh, allowed, you know, whether it's, you know, small businesses, you know, vehicles, uh, excuse how badly that sort of thing Saying, excuse me, Dan, are you speaking as a resident or are you speaking as I'm speaking as a resident. Okay, thank You. Um, first of all, um,
this new citing board was supposed to have its, um, regulations promulgated by March of 2026. So when we went through everything, we went through a lot of good that was gonna do us, you know, you'd think that they would, you know, create a new board, create the regulations, and then implement it. You know, that's not how they do things. Um, now they're talking, it might not be till July or possibly later. Um, so it's better to have something done Sooner rather than later. Um, I was also in Agawam a couple of weeks ago, and while the, um, energy facility siting board is dithering
and dragging out how long it's gonna take to create these regulations, um, a company called, uh, long Mower Energy proposed another 200 megawatt facility, um, that you think, you know, anything over a hundred megawatts was supposed to be, you know, through the energy facility siting board, they applied directly to Agawam and went through the permitting process. And if, if they are permitted and cited before these regulations take place, other than for like the certification of that, they didn't even have to go through the EFSB, no intervener groups, no period
for public comment, no, uh, public hearing in that regard. All that, you know, which was some of the safeguards we were preparing for. Thank God we didn't have to go that route, but we were prepared to do whatever it took to fight that. Um, you know, so it's a crazy way of doing things. You'd think you'd something of this magnitude, you'd implement your regulations, look at all your information, and then, you know, um, and the other thing that we're seeing is that it's a, it's a overall part of a system. That's one of the reasons that's such a push on these, um, battery energy facilities, is that by their own admission,
um, solar and, um, wind will only provide 3% of the energy in the Northeast. That's peak efficiency. That doesn't talk about, like last year, um, I know with farming, we had, I think we had five days of the sun between, you know, like, and the growing period up to June. Um, it did rain a lot, but it was also, we had very little sun. So these, um, you know, solar panels can't, you know, save energy, you know, when the sun's not shining. So if you get in situation, so they have to over build that system to be able to store, okay.
And that's one of the big pushes for it. It's a very inefficient system. We should be focusing on things like nuclear or gas powered, things like that. It's a very inefficient thing at the most of it, efficiency. So because it's so inefficient, they have to overbuild. And in Massachusetts, we're looking at another additional $400 billion in spending to build this system out because they just have to have so much battery storage. Um, and so it's very, very expensive. And like I said, you gonna have walls in the winter when you would have no, um, uh, sun winds not blowing.
Uh, you're not, you're not saving in electricity. And if you look at that, a lot of the applications for these things in their application, their business model would be, well, we're gonna buy, uh, excess electricity, which in the northeast is at night when we're all sleeping and the sun's not shining. And then discharge it during peak demand, which would be the next day for up to four hours before having to recharge. This has nothing to do with solar power. So it's a very inefficient system to begin with demanding that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build these facilities to store energy. Okay? Um, this is not well thought out at all.
It's, it's not very environmentally friendly. Um, and it, you know, usurps local authority and we used to hold these truths to be self-evident that we're endowed by our creator with certain unal rights. We loaned our power. It was the consent of the governed. This flies in the face of all of that. So I, whatever we can do, um, you know, smartly to, you know, to allow, you know, businesses in Westfield, you know, that have, you know, vehicles that, electric vehicles that need to charge or whatever, um, you know, that's not, you know, that we need to provide for, you know, we can't be arbitrary
and capricious in what we do. Um, but um, we have to do everything we can to protect this city and the Pioneer Valley, which we've all explained as well. So I commend you in your work and that sort of thing. And, uh, but keep working at It. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Anybody else wanna speak in favor of speak Against, please come forward. Maryanne Babinski, still one 14 Rogers Avenue, Westfield. I deserve that. Okay. Um, yes, I would be in favor of this moratorium, I think going forward since there seems to be some questions or concerns or, uh, information that
probably the city needs and the planning board and the city council to clarify what exactly you need to do based on what's gonna be happening at the state level. The state legislation passed a law. All the state agencies now are working to try to comply with the law that has been passed. Make sure that whatever they're doing follows along with what the law is dictating to the state of Massachusetts. Those are your state representatives and your senators that did this. So I think that it,
it would be a good idea for people in the city council and the planning board who have to make this decision is to also figure out what's going on. The state is now working on rules and regulations. In fact, yesterday they had two public hearings, hybrid meetings. You could be in Boston or you could do by Zoom on the cumulative impact assessment. So there are going to be things that local communities can get involved in when any facility that is considered clean energy or not clean energy tries to be, be cited in your community.
So there were members from other board of Selectmen, other cities and towns in west in Massachusetts and planning boards that participated in some of those hearings. They get to stand up like last night and ask questions or explain to the, the board, the EFSB siding board that they, whether what they like about their new rules and regulations. 'cause they're just working on draft and what they don't, that's the place where you can get answers to your questions. Uh, if they have more of those, that those are gonna be happening soon.
There's a common period right now that you have to submit some comments by the 13th of February. Uh, if you read over some, all of that information is available at the state website. But it's a good idea to have this moratorium because what, whether you're late to the game or not, uh, you'll have some time to figure out with the help of your planning director over here, what is exactly that you can include in some of these zoning ordinances that you wanna put in.
Make sure that you are protecting the resources in westville that and still comply with what the state is coming up with. 'cause they're gonna give you that leverage. You, you can there that cumulative impact assessment. There's, I'm not gonna get into it now because you don't have a couple of hours, which the meeting took last night. Um, but IE urge you to find out as much information as you can because you will be able to build something here that will be more protective of, uh, our city resources are. And that's why I started to mention the zoning ordinance
for water protection. Because there are things in there that you know, that you've asked or wish that PEC was still around. We've got some things in that ordinance that make it harder to protect our water resources. And we don't have to get into it now, but I hope those kinds of discussions take place. If we had the opportunity from now to October even to fix that, then maybe we should take it. Thank you very much and go for it. Thank you Mariam. Anybody else wanna speak in favor of speak Against Please come forward on our share drive. We have the, um,
the Moratorium language Section 5 31 interim restriction for battery energy storage systems. While the city recognizes an act promoting a clean energy grid, advancing equity and protecting rate payers, the 2 0 2 4 Climate Act, the Mass Department of Energy Resources has yet to promulgate final regulations governing battery energy storage systems, a land use not presently addressed by this ordinance. Since such regulations must be known and duly considered in order to effectively evaluate
and establish local zoning regulations for such a novel and invol and evolving use in regard to public health, safety and welfare. This interim restriction is hereby established for purposes of this section. A battery energy storage system is one or more devices assembled together capable of storing energy in order to supply and distribute electrical energy at a future time, including any standalone slash principle. Such use of land in any accessory system supporting a non
bests principle use. Having an aggregate energy capacity of 250 kilowatts or more excluded from this definition is any large 100 megawatt capacity or more best solely under the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth Energy Facility siting board as specified by the ACT and its regulations in any zoning district. A battery energy storage system is prohibited. Use the moratorium shall remain effective until and through September 30th, 2026.
At such time prior when zoning regulations superseding any provision of this section are duly adopted. Jay, last line or such time prior zoning regulations, superseding any provision of this section. So if the, if the state Works Faster than they normally do and come back August 1st, we're gonna lose our moratorium ends August 1st. Well, it's not what the state does. Uh, it's what we do. So I would expect state to have everything kind of finalized this spring. Um, and if we were to
fast track our regulations and get them all drafted and finished by say, July and get them adopted, then that would supersede this. Okay. What if we don't get them adopted and finalized and the state takes their sweet little time and goes through to December. Are we ending on July of September 30th As it's drafted now? And again, the state regs, which are the regs are final. They're not yet promulgated. I think it's more of a formality. Um, but as I pointed out, it says we have to offer their permitting process as of October.
So that's, that's why that target, I suppose if something gets upended and it's, you know, August or September we could look at another extension or you Could hold the public And get another extension and go through. Yeah, I wouldn't expect that would be the case. I mean, I think we want to get regulations in place as, As Soon as, uh, reasonable. Anybody else have questions? I'd like to make a motion to close the public hearing. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Do I hear a motion on the, um, moratorium
through September 30 as read through September 30th, 2026? I make a motion that we, uh, forward to the city council our approval and our strong recommendation that we impose the moratorium up until September 30th. And in the meantime, write regulations that will give us better control over these projects that are probably gonna end up coming into our city. I would say that second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you. Thank you everybody for coming.
Okay. We have a positive recommendation to city council. I suggest you show up Thursday night City council meeting. Next on the agenda is, I think that's it. We have no other business. Um, Okay. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Um, Jay, we are looking to switch out our, what is it? Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. Pioneer Valley Planning Commission from Rich to John. Yeah. Do can we do that by motion now or do we have to put it on our agenda?
We should probably be on the agenda. Okay. Put it on the next agenda, please. What Are we talking about? Change. John's gonna go right here. A motion to adjourn. Anybody? A motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. See you all the 17th. Except for Phil.