It is seven o'clock and we are calling the January 6th planning board meeting to order. She plays a m me first on the agenda. It is public participation since we don't have anybody out here. Next is review and approval of previous minutes. Remember my password again? I'm with the motion to accept the minutes from November 17th, I believe. November 18th. November 18th. Thank you for correction. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Four seven. Okay. Um, missed this.
Next we have an A and R 3 75 Holyoke Road driver drove Sandy Hill Road. So this should look familiar. It follows the infill special permit. You grant it to create these, um, slightly undersized slots. Are there any changes to it at all? No, it Just follows the per special. Yeah. So this is the actual plan that will be signed and recorded to create the lots, the special permit's already been granted. Mm-hmm. Any questions? No. Do I hear motion? I'll make a Motion. We approve the, uh, a R for 3 75 Oil grow.
Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. A we're onto other business. Uh, we have zero cycle street warehouse site plan approval. 1118 request for plan revision. So, um, this request came in in December, uh, shortly after you approved the plan. Um, one of the things you, the decision is on there if you wanna look at it, but one of the, um, plan modifications you required was a sidewalk connecting the basically neighborhood to the front door
so people can, could walk. Um, it's consistent with one year side plan review findings. You have to find that sidewalks are being installed. Um, so that condition helped you make that finding. They have since requested that that little sidewalk piece be omitted. Um, you've got the letter in front of you. Um, So I mean, I think just the timing of it feels a little weird. Like you agree to something at, at a hearing and then two weeks later kind of
backdoor change it, I guess. But it's up to the board what you wanna do with this. Well, I, this Is just my personal opinion, but this is another example of people yessing us to death and Yeah. Whatever you want, we'll agree to and the, you know, special permit and then they turn around and at least they're asking to have it done instead of just not doing it. But in the letter it says, you know, there are no existing employees who reside within the immediate neighborhood now,
but that doesn't mean there may not be in the future. Right. And the abuse could change over time. Right. And um, I mean part of this is the fact that it's in a residential neighborhood and we kind of want to make it fit like it's Sure, you know, fits in a little and it's not its own fortress Right. Kind of thing. But I agree with Jane. 100%. What'd you say buddy? I, I agree with Ms. Jane over here 100%. I I mean I thought that that sidewalk was a nice touch when we talked about it and it helped kind
of conform to the neighborhood. Right. In my opinion. Anybody else? Do I hear a motion? So I guess, at least from what I've heard from two, um, that it's not a minor change. So if they wanted to pursue this, they could come in with a formal amendment and go through the hearing again and, and make the argument. If you, I don't, if You agree it's not a formal or not a minor change. I, I don't consider it a formal change. And, um, being a person who tries to walk around the city when I can, um, it's kind
of rough going from sidewalk to no sidewalk to sidewalk to no sidewalk. And I think that if the sidewalk's supposed to be there, it's a start and that way there are other sidewalks continue and it's just, you gotta start somewhere. So I think the sidewalk should be there. I think it's a, I don't think it's a minor change. Yeah. I, the, in every place, everything else, we, we always make sure there's sidewalks for people to walk. Uh, may they may not have people living in the area that would walk to work. Uh, they may not have customers coming in, but the people there at noontime, a lot
of people go for walks. They go, they walk out, they just walk around the neighborhood. It's a valid point. You, you know, you really should have a way for them to enter and exit. And it's consistent with everything else we've done in the past. You know, we put in bike racks even though people don't have bikes that drive to ride to work, you know, it's, you don't know that this company's in there. They may stay there for five years, they may stay there for 50 years, but somebody else may be in there in two years. They may need a bigger building, sell it off, put something else in there. They may need the walkway. I think it's consistent with what we're looking for in,
uh, in the city as far as consistency throughout the whole platform. Not just to satisfy one, one customer who doesn't need it. Just like a lot of cus you know, wouldn't need a bike rack 'cause they don't have anybody on bikes, but we make 'em put 'em in anyway. Um, I just wanna make one other statement. I maybe I'm being naive, but I don't perceive this as a backend way of just getting the sidewalk eliminated. I, I, I think it's a legitimate request on their part. Um, so I just wanna make sure that, you know, I I I,
I don't quite view that portion of it the same way. Um, but I believe the sidewalk should be there. So yeah, we're all in agreement. Ben, Jay. Um, it's not a minor change, So consensus that in this would be a major change and would require an amendment. I don't think it's a minor change if it sits in one of the conditions that we've agreed upon. Well that's a valid point there too. So they would be welcome of course to apply and come formally and go through the formal process to get the approval changed, but mm-hmm. Not administratively. Uh, next on the agenda, mass, DOER,
clean energy, these are the batteries, uh, regulation updates, model ordinance. So we, we talked about this briefly I think in October. Um, and some updates, nothing I guess too major, but I sent out that draft model best ordinance, just if you wanted to look at it. I think we'll, we'll in short order have to be adopting something like that. Um, we could probably
look at our whole solar piece and windmills and Bess and kind of maybe do a clean energy regulation section or something like that. Um, so I don't know if you you had any thought Westfield specific thoughts on what might go into this? Um, the model they show shows these allowed in any, every zoning district. Maybe it's special permit, maybe it's not. Um, I don't know that that's necessarily appropriate for Westfield. It would probably be probably rural residential
where solar fields are allowed. And then the non-residential districts, um, the state has set up these tiers of how much energy they would store and if they're really big, they would bypass the local review and go right through the state. So we'd really just be looking at regulating the medium to smaller size facilities. Um, there could be a local, or there will be a local consolidated permit option, which I guess the state is imposing as an option
for an applicant to say, I want to, I wanna get my wetlands permit and my planning permit and any other permits I needed and one, one kind of local process. Um, so it looks like the state will enact something like that for the applicant's choice, but I don't know if people had thoughts before, kind of start drafting something. Oh, the other thought was, you know, some communities I guess are being, are having a lot of requests for these. I haven't heard anything recent for Westfield. Um, but the idea of establishing a a moratorium for an interim period of time while we finalize these regulations would might be another option.
How long could a moratorium be? Um, I think the, I think the state regs say October 1st of next year, we have to have Of this Yeah. This Year. Yeah. We have to have something. So probably less than a year. I mean, the idea is that we just to buy time to craft the ordinance. It's not, um, that's, that's the purpose of it. So I I wouldn't think it would be more than a year. Can I ask a question? Yeah. Because we're still a little bit in the infancy of this, correct? I mean,
Well we have, yeah. Precedent we haven't, but in theory someone could come in again and, and, Um, We don't have any, anything in place. My, my question I have in here is when I was reading this, I'm trying to figure out what is the footprint size of a small clean energy infrastructure because it's, it's written in here, small, small, small. The only thing that I caught with any, you know, um, acreage is on page 12 where they have facility or the exemptions, um, and they have a small clean energy infrastructure generation
facility with site footprint of one acre or less. So that's the only place where I could find that. I don't know what small means. Is it, does it mean anywhere? I can't find it anywhere in here. If we're talking one acres up to 30 acres, we talk it up to 10 acres. There's no specific Yeah, it's, it's, you know, it's more, And that's what bothers me for the fact that, um, you could end up in a town or a city where you could have lots of little small, are clean energy infrastructures set up. I'm just trying to understand what that means.
What what do they mean by that? There's nothing in here that I could find What small means? Yeah. I mean they divided into tier based on power kilowatts or mega megawatt whatever. Um, You know, so it's not geographic, it's uh, by watts I understand that. But like when, when, when I was trying to sit down and, and figure this out, I, I get that part, but it's also part of the connections of where they can connect. Am I understanding that based on where they're gonna place these things? So I, I don't know what that word small means.
I understand that you have to have some ability for connection. You gotta have, um, a a a place where you can actually do it. Where it can be connected in, in order for things to run. But I don't know what that word small means and, and that, that, that actually could be a problem if it's not specified. Do you see where I'm coming from, John? Yes. I, it's not in, there's, at least I didn't see anything like that. So I mean the, the tiers they established, I think that's kind of gonna be a statewide, I mean it's a model ordinance, so probably everyone's ordinance is gonna
look more or less like this. Um, where we would, you know, classify tier one, tier two, tier three, and then the big ones we would not be have any say over. I guess Also the, uh, the big ones are over tier three, Over a hundred, um, megawatt Over a hundred megawatts. Those are the ones we got no say about at all. Well, I mean it goes to the state, so I'm sure they will have their whatever community meetings and environmental justice outreach and all that stuff.
But it wouldn't go through the normal, normal process, this process. It wouldn't be a local decision. I don't think it's, do you think it's not, I think it's a good question to ask what that really means. I, I understand what they have in here. Like they're specifying different Watson, um, you know, explaining a little bit more in detail, but it still doesn't answer what we're really looking at. Yeah. How much property, how big a price of property do you need to put a 250 kilowatt unit on? Yeah, I mean I suspect those kind of things may change with technology. You know, they may become more efficient or whatever. Um,
so we could set some standards for certain areas, certain sizes. I mean maybe, I don't know what the concern is. Maybe there's a separation between every, I have more clarity. Any other Comments? Yeah, I, um, so I think it's page two, but it doesn't really matter. It looks like the state has granted itself the ability to say that these are all by rights. So we really have no choice. So the only thing that we can do is make very strict, um, requirements for them to be in Westfield. Um, I wonder how strict we can get Jay.
Um, in my opinion, the current technology is extremely dangerous no matter where it is in the city. I wonder if we can limit it to future technology that's currently being developed and say we can only have, I believe it's an oxygen based battery and no lithium based, uh, battery storage facilities or if we're allowed to tell the state they can't do that. So there is, I mean there is provision for special permit. Um, I think they've got it in their model here, like the bigger ones, tier three,
tier two in a residential area. Um, and I think, you know, we've got the aquifer zone, it could be possibly prohibited or, Um, So we basically can't limit, um, We can't stop it these To a particular zone, um, like industrial or anything. They have to be allowed in residential? No, I mean they would be like, we can, we allow solar in, in rural residential like a solar farm, right?
And a lot of times these go with hand in hand as an energy storage feature. Um, so I think it makes sense that where solar could go, they would go, um, you know, there's some talk in this ordinance about a, where it's accessory to something versus a standalone type of facility. Um, Yeah, my biggest problem with these is the, like Cheryl was saying, how, you know, how what, what the acreages for each one of these different size units. You know, can you put it on a, you know, can you put a tier one on a half acre lot
that's not very big and you know, controlling it again with the volatility of these things is gonna be very difficult. Uh, you know, can we restrict these things to tier one to a three acre plot, a tier two, a 10 acre plot and that kind of thing be just because, so we can keep 'em away from Tier one From structures and yeah, I mean It could have lot size requirements and also setbacks could maybe
that would be more effective than lot area sort setbacks. So Can I ask another question Here? Can any of these, um, be put on somebody else's property, like a portion of the property? The reason why I'm asking that is when you have satellites, um, they rent people's land to put poles up. Um, so I'm wondering, and the other part was I was wondering is, um, the top on page six where it has the butter. So when I was reading that, I was thinking, can you put any
of these on, you know, they either buy somebody's land a portion of the land to put something like that there, or they lease the land. That doesn't say anything about leasing in here, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen or it couldn't happen. Yeah, I think somewhere here it talks about showing ownership or control of the land. So just like any other project, you wouldn't necessarily have to own it. Um, okay. You just Have to control it and you know, the rules would apply, the zoning rules would apply regardless of the ownership. Okay. I was reading this right Jay. Um,
a question I have is page 16, excuse me, uh, 6.8 0.5 for PFAS. The statement there is the applicant shall certify that non PFAS fire suppression foam shall be employed to the extent they're commercially available. Uh, I don't know what that other word is in compliant with federal and state fire code. Can we, uh, limit that? Because it says if they're commercially available, can we just say there has to be? I think we could. Okay.
I, so there's a few things that I want to do. I want minimal go for the moratorium two set come kind of standard around the aquifer and three, uh, clean that line up a little bit or 6, 8, 5. What page is that, John? 16. Yeah. And which one? Page 16 number 6, 8 5 for PFAS Right in the middle. Yep. That's good. So what we craft it won't look, I mean it won't be in this format, but I think we'll have to cover more
or less all the things the, uh, state wants to see. Um, So if, if we make our own standards, do those have to be approved by the state? No. Okay. I mean, uh, ideally we'd have a law department review. Um, my sense is someone would say, well you've gotta model ordinance. You should model it pretty much. Exactly. But, um, I think there's room to fine tune it more to Westfield without straying beyond the, the purpose of it,
which is to, to facilitate these, um, Facilitate them in another city. Well ensure they're, uh, cited right now. I think from what I've been hearing as, as these have evolved, a lot of the issues of old are less of a concern. Um, but yeah, I think there's a lot to learn here. I got two, two more things if you want to do 'em. Go ahead. Um, page 26 point,
11.3 decommissioning fund this, this states, uh, prior to construction, the owner has to come up with a bond to cover the, uh, decommissioning of the facility, which requires somebody to make an estimate of the decommissioning cost before the construction starts at. I'm not quite sure how that's even gonna work. This is similar to our, um, our cell tower ordinance has, has similar type of language.
I'm sure there's somebody that knows how to estimate this, but I'm just wondering where the steps are in the road if that bond happens as we're approving it or when they're getting a building permit. I, I think like it's been done with, with solar. I think we've done it with solar too. Um, usually during the hearing they present the estimate for the bond and then there's a, usually a cost increase over time as it's renewed or updated Is, um, unless I missed this but I didn't see this, also, would a lot
of these have shelf life, just like solar farms have shelf life. Is there, um, anywhere in here that who's responsible for once they hit their shelf life? They are, excuse me, they are, uh, number six, 11. Yeah, 0.1. What Page was that? Oh, I dunno, I can't read the page. Nine's a lot of sixes, But just tell, uh, 19. Yeah, Thank You. Removal requirements, I mean that's all fine and good have in the ordinance, but when some entity whatever vanishes or belly up, it's, you know, that's, thank you.
That's the point of the bond. So John mentioned the, uh, moratorium. Um, as I recall, this item is already in committee city council. Um, If the board would want, wanna send a communication to ZPD committee, um, suggesting a whatever moratorium until October next year that something maybe they could bring out. If, if my memory is correct, it seemed like to me like they were getting, trying to get a, a longer term than what we were just talking about. I, I think we need some kind of, you know, tap the brakes
until we're comfortable with what we want to propose. I think they want to have a moratorium across the board, which I'm not sure is gonna be successful. I want to make sure we at least get the minimum one. I'm not sure what you mean. I think city council is trying to get a moratorium to not allow them, and I don't think that's gonna be, Well, I mean that's a prohibition. Okay, So moratoriums kind of like a Cease expire. Yeah, take a break. Let's organize our regulations, let's get in place, um, give us time to work on that.
And then when those are in place, the moratorium would, you know, not be relevant or would expire or whatever. So if, if you're comfortable with city council's handling that, then, Well, I know they have it in committee this, this matter. So do you know what committee Legal zoning planning and development? It doesn't matter the committee to me, my answer is yes, if we can get a moratorium for as long as possible, that would be great. So that'd probably be the most efficient approach just to reach out to, I don't know if it'll become Ian again or whoever. Um, maybe with some suggested simple language for moratorium
until I think October 1st was the date we had to have allow the, uh, other permitting option. And that should be plenty of time or enough time to give it some deeper thought. So my, my last item if I may is, is reading the, uh, fire department requirements. It seems like the fire department is agreeing to a whole bunch of stuff that I'm not sure they're fully understanding what they're agreeing to. That they're gonna be prepared to handle all this and there's a tremendous amount of equipment
and training necessary to handle one of these kind of fires. I was tempted to reach out to the fire department, but I don't want to, uh, overstep my bounds and I want to stay within the chain of command if that's the proper way to do it. But if everyone's okay with it, I'll call the fire chief and see where we're at. Yeah, I mean there is a lot of reference here to, you know, fire protection standards, um, state fire code, whatever, you know, they'd have to comply with anyway. I don't know that it
Necessarily Right. But I think there's some very specific, uh, battery storage training that has to take Place. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure there is. Um, and I think, you know, every, every community will need to be up to, up to speed on that as this rolls out. I'm curious how that would, what they would do for training. They can't even put out a Tesla, A big Tesla. Yeah. They They don't even put out small ones. Right. Just let 'em burn. That's what it is. But there's also big black billowing smoke in Westfield if that happens. Agreed. Uh, I think at, at a minimum we sh if there's moratorium available to us,
we should jump on that. Let us at, at a, the other part is at a minimum, it gives us another year's worth of technology to increase and improve. I agree. I think we should have as long as we can. I I was just doing some research here while listening. They were talking about, you know, batteries, uh, military establishments, um, what's the rate of fire? Fire, okay. And they all tout the, the, the pros to it, but they all say the same thing when the fire does occur,
it just runs and they 24, 48 hours a week. Okay. A week is rare, but they do occur and they occur because of life use. Poor construction, you know, bad cells, things beyond our control. Is there any statistics on the percentage of these that do have problems with fire? Yeah, it varies depending on what site you read or what site you believe. I mean, again, it is the internet, so Right. You, You can find anything you want,
what you can find, anything you want, you can, You just have to figure out what you want, the data you want And you want What you Wanna say. Um, That's my opinion on the moratorium. I agree. So is there a consensus on that? I agree. I agree. Alright, so I'll, I'll reach out to the ZPD and, and, uh, Is that Karen fan in the chair of that? It was. I don't know if they're changing anything for this. Good point. New term. And then, uh, you know, again, we'll start looking at this, um, kind of crafting something that fits into our zoning language.
Didn't the state just put one up in, I think it was Lowell, you just walked in and said we're put one right here. Yeah, I'm not sure. Be Lawrence. No one would care. It was one of the elves up there. I think it was Lawrence. Yeah. Maybe the people that they would care. Yeah. They're all east of 4 95. Again. I'm confused. Right. Really? Anything else on this? Mm-hmm. No. Anybody Good questions though. Any, anything new we need to talk about? Anything we want on the next agenda? I would like to put on the next agenda, the, um, onsite,
uh, consumption for marijuana that the state is, Uh, pushing. Good point. That's a fair. We should need to tackle that. Yeah. Okay. Agreed. Yes. Yes. Alright. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? Well, no, I have one more. Oh, did we get an update from the engraver on our new, uh, name plates yet? I Thought about that as I was pulling these out. See what happens. Who told me they were working on? I was told I was told that, that we're ready, Bernie. You should just make some No, No, no.
Let me, let me check. I got one check all Nice with oak Match the, Oh yeah. I got a nice one. And then we could always take it when we leave as a little momentum of our fun times and five bucks. Mm-hmm. Okay. Now it looks Like they got one of those in with the, the batteries. They went to put one in Agawam and then they, they backed it out. Did they back It out? They squished it. My understanding it, my understanding is city council approved it and then the public had a big uproar and it was a small one. 500? Yeah, it was a
Small one. 500 megawatts. That's that tier one. But it says that in there that it needs 600 to a thousand square feet for each megawatts. That's a lot. My understanding. It was a really small one with five megawatts or 10 mega and it was in a residential neighborhood. It's in the back end of a residential neighborhood. It's what they're not telling us. That scares me. And then what, what he showed me on here, I'm just, look, I'm just looking up stuff like you mm-hmm. Just doing research and it says that CME energy had put one in in Agawam on Silver Street.
On Silver Street. What? It says 500 megawatts. Is there an acreage on it? Multiply down Acre. Oh, okay. All right. I'm done. I'll drop by tomorrow. Yeah. All right. Anything, anything else going on in the agenda? Motion to adjourn With. Motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All.