00:00:00,467 S1: Um, so it's 7:03 p.m. and I'm calling the February 3rd Hamilton Planning Board meeting to order because some of our members are appearing by zoom. Um, I'll take don't call. I'll also note that that meeting is being recorded by H.W. Kim. So when I call your name, would you please indicate that you're present? Pat Norton. Jonathan. 00:00:24,868 S2: Poor Jonathan, poor present. 00:00:26,767 S1: Emil Dahlquist. 00:00:27,667 S2: Samuel garlock, Mr.. 00:00:28,467 S1: Present, and Marty Crouch, present. Um. Oh, Matt Hamill present. Okay, so I know for the record that, uh, Bill Wheaton Becker and Darcy Dale are not present. I know that, um, Beth is, uh, in Florida. Uh, in sort brother's memorial service. And Darcy has a an important birthday that she's celebrating this evening. And, uh, I'm aware of what? And maybe some, like, Bill isn't here. Uh, but we did have minutes to review. But, um. Unfortunately. Well, I guess just oversight. Just one of those things. Um, they don't appear on the agenda, so we will have to consider the, uh, three sets of minutes at our next meeting. 00:01:17,667 S2: Weren't they on the, um, electronic agenda? 00:01:20,367 S1: They were on the electronic agenda. 00:01:22,267 S2: Does that count? 00:01:24,267 S3: Um, I would. 00:01:27,968 S2: It's safer to just go. Okay. Last question. 00:01:30,367 S1: I think so. We've never had public comment. 00:01:34,000 S2: Oh. That's fine. 00:01:36,868 S1: But there's always a first. Um, so we will just add them to our agenda for the next meeting, which is the 24th, and I quit. 00:01:47,667 S3: Yes. 00:01:49,267 S1: So we do have a site plan and a stormwater management permit application that was continued today and the peer review has completed his review. But the myopia has not that opportunity 00:02:09,567 S1: to review the Japanese comments. So we will continue to apply to our meeting on February 24th. So, um, I'll entertain a motion for a continuance. 00:02:26,567 S2: Yeah. Okay. I move that we continue the hearing the science site plan review and stormwater management. 00:02:38,100 S1: Uh, do I have a second? 00:02:39,567 S2: Second? 00:02:40,868 S1: Uh, so when I call your name, please indicate your assent. And I know for the record that bill is not now here. So Pat Norton. 00:02:50,167 S2: And. 00:02:51,467 S1: Jonathan. 00:02:52,000 S2: Poor Jonathan, poor I. 00:02:53,667 S1: Am. 00:02:54,667 S2: Emil Dahlquist. Die. 00:02:55,801 S1: Bill Wheaton. 00:02:56,801 S2: Bill Wheaton I am honored. 00:02:59,000 S1: So we will consider the site plan and stormwater management determined application on February 24th. And at that time, I'm sure that we will have a chance to respond to the peer reviewers comment. Do you know, Mark, whether those comments were extensive or whether they were you are just clarifications. 00:03:19,400 S3: Uh, they're actually in your packets, so they're not too bad. They're, uh. 00:03:27,167 S3: Five pages of comments. 00:03:42,000 S1: Okay. Not too bad. Okay. It I'm sure that can be addressed. 00:03:46,100 S3: So I know they're anxious to, you. 00:03:49,601 S2: Know, get going. So I told I hope if they can turn around the new plans by the 13th 15th, we could potentially have a decision on the 24 three support. 00:04:00,901 S1: The poor composer would have to issue a wedding that says yes. Okay, so then we can turn to other business. Um, the master plan implementation. Um. 00:04:15,501 S1: Do you know, Marc? I think you indicated to me that you were planning to attend the Select board meeting. Did they bring up the formation of an implementation committee? 00:04:24,501 S2: So it was on their agenda, but it was very deep on their agenda. And the meeting went very well. I think is there very, um, involved in the budget right now? And, uh, I have an override at reading. So between those two things. Uh, that took up a bunch of times they didn't get to the master plan. They continued it till the 16th. 00:04:46,601 S1: Right. Well, regardless of whether there's a master plan implementation committee, the Planning Board can certainly proceed with its efforts to implement those components of the master plan. Um. 00:05:02,868 S1: That are within its control. So, um, I can report that I have started, um, a draft, uh, bylaw that essentially looks at a number of bylaws. So I'm attempting to combine the open space and farmland preservation development by law because state overlay district by law, using a lot of the material that we developed with respect to the brownfield overlay district. Also looking at Ipswich's great estates overlay district and um, also, um, refreshing my recollection about the flexible development bylaw that the planning board worked on several years ago and also looking at some materials from the Commonwealth about conservation, subdivisions and open space. Um, um, I was so it's a work in progress. It's not ready to be presented to the board, but it is something that, um, I'm working on. And although it's by no means ready for the annual town meeting and, uh, it may, it may or may not be in a, in a format that we could put forward at a special town meeting in the fall that that's to be decided. So it does have, um, uh, a lot of work to be done on it, but we have a there's an outline and, uh, and I passed it by email and, uh, and so we may proceed from there, but I'll just say this, the kind of the thrust of it is the, the, the estates in Hamilton are by no means the kind of estates that are on the National Register of Historic Places and that type of thing. Nevertheless, they are worth preserving because they contribute to the historical and cultural, uh, uh, aspects of Hamilton's, uh, existence. It's part of our community. I mean, growing old town, we go back many, many years. So to preserve these houses, particularly the ones that are accessible from Bay road, are really a worthwhile endeavor. And so kind of thinking about what we've done with the Brownsville Elevate District. Uh, it it may be that the planning Board would consider, um, permitting some commercial uses in those buildings. Um, the rest of the bylaws is totally focused on residential development and not conservation oriented development, but, uh, permitting reuse of those historical buildings is one thing that that I think is important. And if they if they're too large really to be useful as residential dwellings, then maybe they have a life with multiple residential dwellings or maybe some commercial aspects to them. So any thoughts on that? Just that general comment, because I know in my own neighborhood there are two, um, properties that, uh, fall within the state overlay district. And both of those properties were put on the market for sale, and neither one sold. They were they were marketed for, for quite extensively for a significant amount of time. And there apparently was no interest in them at the price points that they were offered. So, uh, that's a that's a consideration. And so what happens to those buildings? I mean, if. 00:08:49,868 S2: I think that happens frequently with the larger estates, they get put on the market for a reasonable price. But it's such a rarefied market that they don't go for that price. Then what happens. 00:09:01,000 S1: Then? What happens, you know. 00:09:02,167 S2: So I had one in my own neighborhood that was going to be 40 be and that was a homestead property. 1306 so, um, and it was on the market for quite a while. At a, at a, I think a fair market rate, but no, no takers. Well. 00:09:18,267 S1: They're not that many people who need ten bedrooms. 00:09:20,667 S2: Exactly, exactly. Or, you know, dozens of acres. Right, right. So. 00:09:27,400 S1: So that's kind of the thinking and and, you know, when it's in a, in a, in a condition that, that it really can be critiqued adequately. But I like the tables that we did in the Brownsville Lake District, whether that would work well or not. But it is up in the air. Certainly there could be a table of uses, but since we don't have anything other than the estate as an existing building, it doesn't quite work the way it did. Right. So that's what I can report on that. And so, um, anyone else have any, um, comments about the master plan implementation other than what I just talked about? 00:10:18,367 S4: We did. I don't know how well you guys could hear me there. Sorry for dialing it in, but I thought it was interesting where the conversation was going at the tail end of our last meeting in relooking at the purpose of these overlay districts to they were describing, whereas the Ipswich describes it as a great estate, a preservation district, right, focusing on the preservation of the greatest state, not just an overlay that allows development or encourages alternative use. But I think just in the crafting of or refining of the blog might be interesting to discuss. The. 00:10:58,400 S1: Essentially what I've done is, is really simplified both by laws. I mean really just cut out so much of the steps that had to be taken. And I think that because there were so many steps to be taken, nobody really used it, but I, I forgot. I also in talking with Amol about the groundwater protection overlay district, we were thinking we need to hire an expert to tell us all about engineered septic systems. And and it dawned on me, why should we do that? We could say that there could be an exception to the 80,000 square foot per dwelling unit. If an applicant came in and presented a system that would protect the groundwater, support all the purposes of the DPO, d be subject to peer review. And if the applicant's proposal on the peer reviewer agreed that this system was better than the traditional septic system, then we could have an exception to it. And I send some language to Mark, and he sent some language back, and we could maybe put that language on our agenda for our next meeting. But Mark's also talking to some other planners. 00:12:25,267 S2: Yeah, I would be more comfortable if it went to some kind of peer review process than it will go to peer review. 00:12:32,467 S1: Yeah, that's part of the. 00:12:34,300 S2: That's. 00:12:34,701 S4: Actually the performance a performance standard. 00:12:36,667 S2: Yeah, yeah. You could create a performance standard but then have a peer reviewer. I don't know if That was. 00:12:41,267 S1: That was part of the presumably had to be peer reviewed. 00:12:45,467 S5: Presumably we came up with the 80,000 square foot because we thought, perhaps naively, that 80,000ft² would meet. You know, any kind of performance review that we would, you know. 00:12:58,367 S2: For a conventional septic system that. 00:13:00,367 S5: Worked for a convention. 00:13:01,367 S2: That we're not talking about a conventional septic. 00:13:03,267 S5: I understand that. So the question we we could phrase this if somebody came in at a much higher density but had a much more sophisticated treatment system that would be equivalent to. 00:13:17,167 S1: Or better. 00:13:17,901 S5: Than or better than the 80,000 square foot. When do we let them do it? 00:13:22,567 S2: Just the wording just has to be peer reviewed. 00:13:24,167 S1: Yeah. Well, that was when I did it. You know, I had certain conditions and one of them was it had to be peer reviewed. So but in other words, instead of. 00:13:33,367 S2: Oh, I don't mean the application, I think the bylaw needs to be peer. 00:13:36,167 S4: Reviewed. 00:13:36,501 S5: Yes. Yes. 00:13:37,367 S2: Yeah. Not just the application. 00:13:38,801 S1: Yeah, but but the object was we weren't going to spend the town's money to, to to do a lot of digging into what is an engineered system. And it was like, oh my God. 00:13:50,267 S2: You can do a performance standard. 00:13:51,501 S1: Yeah. You know, so so let that let the applicant pay for the peer review peer reviewer to tell. 00:13:58,868 S2: Us we don't need to engineer their systems for them. We just need to set the standards. 00:14:03,200 S5: To set the standard. 00:14:04,167 S4: Yeah. 00:14:04,467 S2: Right. But they but they need to be to the right metrics. Yeah. Right. That's all. 00:14:08,868 S1: Well, I asked David Smith to look at it. And I don't know if we even want to set a metric because we don't know the number by metric. 00:14:16,100 S2: What I mean is the right state standards. 00:14:19,667 S1: Well, they would have to comply with title five and all that kind of stuff. That was another that conditions that they would have to comply. 00:14:26,100 S2: Because there's there's also various tiers. Um, you know, like when you do a repair, there's a certain performance standard versus when you do a new system that has a different performance. 00:14:37,100 S1: Is that under title five? 00:14:38,667 S2: I don't know exactly where it is, but it's a state law. 00:14:41,400 S1: Well, that would be. 00:14:42,167 S2: What. 00:14:42,567 S1: That would be. Did I put the CMR reference into that language I say? 00:14:47,167 S2: I don't want to get into the weeds over it. But the point is there, there are tripping points that you don't want to accidentally fall into. 00:14:54,167 S1: But I mean, if we had that period, that should be relatively minor because we are not engineering the system. Sure, they have to do it and they have to pay for an independent peer review it to correct. 00:15:06,567 S2: There would still, I would think you'd still need to pay somebody to look at it. Oh, yeah. And the town ante up on that is the question. The budget not drafted to draft the bylaw, but to review the bylaw. In other words, if we do, if we flesh it out and then have it peer reviewed. That shouldn't be tens of thousands of dollars, but it could be thousands of dollars. 00:15:26,100 S1: Well, I don't know, because we're not setting any standard in it. And you talked to your fellow planners, right? 00:15:33,000 S2: So I'm meeting with someone from the Watershed Association. 00:15:35,868 S6: On Thursdays, so I thought I would ask them to take a look and offer comments for us, because this is kind of their bailiwick. 00:15:44,467 S6: And the language itself is weekend forward and learning after the meeting, but it's fairly straightforward. It it kind of places the onus on the applicant to to prove that the sceptical. 00:15:54,601 S5: It's the beginning really. And but I like to hear Pat's comments. 00:15:58,767 S7: I know you wanted to say something. Uh, I think you ought to look at it, too. Certainly. And, uh. 00:16:06,167 S4: I thought you guys were on the right track to have the language that we set forth in your criteria as part of the bylaw review, because you want to make reference to the right elements, and you certainly don't want to craft the or guided technology one technology over another. But I would almost maybe even use more forceful language like the encouragement of alternative waste. Uh, I don't know if you call it wastewater treatment because that's commercial. But waste treatment technologies and, you know, the state has a pretty onerous, a very specific set of permitting guidelines and regulations around what a groundwater discharge permit requires. Um, and that's usually what gets applied to these alternative technologies. You know, it's stuck on a septic tank with an old Florida leaching field. It's it's it's a lot more sophisticated technologies, a lot more onerous sampling. And, and, you know, upstream and downstream wealth, quality, water sampling as well to protect the groundwater. But, um, the state has a very specific permit process for these types of systems. It's just making sure that we refer correctly to it in that process and also encourage applicants to seek out those different technologies, because, I mean, also in the on the upstream of things. Upstream side of things too. You know the water per that you do the math that was used to define this criteria previously too. It could be different now with different, you know, water saving techniques for both households and commercial use. So maybe, maybe if you look at it from an upstream perspective, like how much water are you wasting per bedroom? Or the square foot of per fixture of plumbing, you know, units of the commercial use or the downstream element and the treatment side of things. But it's a it's an interesting process to look at is probably the bylaw and understand better how to encourage the use of different technologies to both minimize waste and also reuse and recycle waste. 00:18:28,300 S2: By. 00:18:29,267 S1: Thousand square feet per dwelling in it and. And what? What? David Smith told me that just the rule of thumb is ten. Not in the jeopardy, but just generally for natural septic systems, it's 10,000ft². I guess that's the leaching film for for that per bedroom. 00:18:51,100 S1: Because I know when I bought my land, the septic system was already designed for five bedrooms. I don't have five bedrooms, but I have a really enormous leaching field. 00:19:04,000 S7: It depends on the quality of the ground, really. 00:19:06,567 S1: Good. 00:19:06,767 S7: Clay and the number of visitors. 00:19:08,267 S1: So when I moved in, all the furniture that I was going to buy went to sand for the leaching peat because it was all clay. It was the first of the nightmare scenarios when you built your own house. 00:19:26,267 S2: But I was about to say is, it may be that we even want to revisit the 80,000 square foot number. And that was something that Dave Thompson alluded to in my conversations with him and his. It was his company that was instrumental in setting up that study to begin with. 00:19:42,267 S1: So but these septic systems, they do, you know, if you recall, uh, David Smith was prepared to opine that that the about the school street. Well, I mean, he could not pinpoint the source of the contamination, but but he and his associates there at the Board of Health thought it was more likely that it was just the traditional septic systems closest to the well that were the source of the problem, as opposed to the wastewater treatment plant where the leaching field was actually outside the wellhead protection district. But he couldn't you couldn't prove. 00:20:26,367 S4: Sure. Yeah, I was going to also add that Mark is 100% on point with communicating directly with the Ipswich River Water Sector Association. They have a lot of great resources and um, we engage very closely with that organization to have a lot of initiatives that align with what they're trying to do. Um, and they're also helping out the North Shore Water Resiliency Task Force. Bruce Starr and the rest of the folks, um, try to craft a regional, um, uh, bill for, you know, drought resilience and stuff like that. But, Marcus, you know, Mark, if you if you have any, uh, if you would like support talking to Irwell or that you're on the right track, talk to those folks, though. Thank you. 00:21:18,467 S1: Okay. Any progress on the Adu design guidelines? 00:21:24,000 S6: I'm going to keep this on the agenda just so it keeps us honest. but I don't have anything new to share. Just. We are working on it. Um, we get a fair amount of inquiries about ADUs, and. And I hate having to print out the parts of this zoning bylaw because it's not very user friendly. So just having all the requirements and kind of layman's terms, um, in a couple of sheets, combined with the design guidelines, you spoke about something that. 00:21:49,467 S2: Yeah. 00:21:50,167 S7: So you're you see more urgency for that Adu end of it because they would I mean, I really thought they would be sort of tucked into the same, uh, category, you know. 00:22:03,968 S6: Yeah, I would say combined. 00:22:05,167 S7: Then you can make a section that addresses ADUs, perhaps, but but you think you're in two packages because of the urgency there. 00:22:14,200 S6: Ideally one. So it would be kind of the requirements. And then. 00:22:17,801 S2: You know, here's. 00:22:18,467 S6: Some design. 00:22:20,267 S2: Kind of ideas. You know, how you could do this sort of in a way that is, you know, meets the requirements and you know, it's not going to make a difference to make it. 00:22:34,367 S7: Yeah, I've got the work I've done on design guidelines, you know, looking at two things. Town wide standards which would apply to all nonresidential building, non single family housing buildings in town, which wouldn't be that many. Uh and then the downtown guidelines, I think those are the two distinctly different ones. And then uh, the town wide would be much simpler guidelines and then the downtown would because it's a form based code. We already have a leg up, you know, in terms of, of form, how that's laid out sort of in the downtown. But what was missing was a lot of the, uh, public realm material, uh, you see, like the outset made a distinction. We are going to deal with only private development, not public development. So you said everything on the street is town owned. Town paid for. So we're not going to deal with that. That needs to be covered because, you know, whenever Tim Olsen wants to redo a road or something. It'd be nice for him to have a guide to if he's going to reconstruct it, you know, as to what direction to go on that. That's why one of the important reasons for that is. 00:23:43,167 S2: One thing not to get too far in the weeds on, but, um, what they do is it tends to create greater density, especially in backyards, especially with, um, sort of neighborhood privacy. And often houses have like a public side which is less open, less glass, and then a more private side which is aimed at the backyard, usually backyard. Let's open, um, more glass. And as you start to fill in backyards with ADUs, you start to get more of these sort of privacy conflicts. And in the UK, they're very conscious of that. And a lot of that thinking is incorporated into their bylaws so that, um, there's a little bit of a review about what your windows overlook and what it has to do with privacy. And I haven't seen that in any guidelines in the US. And that could be I know I'm in a little bit in the weeds here, but it's something that I haven't seen in this country, I have seen in the UK and I think is worth thinking about. 00:24:40,801 S1: To your point. 00:24:42,367 S2: Did that make sense? What I yeah, yeah. 00:24:44,200 S1: But there's a to your point. You know, I was approached by some folks who are interested in a dark sky by law would be a general by law, not necessarily a zoning by law, but that's that's exactly pertinent to what you just said, because it's the light that the light can be such a nuisance. 00:25:04,100 S2: It's both light and privacy. Right, is what they're focused on in the UK. 00:25:08,267 S1: So but the light in particular, uh, unless it's, it's dark sky compliant can be really annoying because you basically lit the for an idea. You could lose your privacy because you have essentially a spotlight on what you're doing in your in the back of your house. And you know, what you expected is no longer applicable. 00:25:32,701 S2: So that's I haven't seen that in any of the US guidelines that that subject covered. 00:25:37,467 S5: Yeah. 00:25:37,968 S1: So so that would. 00:25:39,968 S5: Put American American standards. 00:25:42,067 S1: And whatnot. 00:25:42,968 S5: Are so much different than the UK. 00:25:44,667 S2: Of course I'm not I'm. 00:25:45,467 S5: Not trying to equate UK houses have street frontage right on the right on the street and there's no setback right there and everything is behind. Yes. Whereas America has always plopped in the middle. 00:25:56,467 S2: Right. But the what I was saying before is usually the the and again, I don't want to get lost in the weeds, but the front side of the street side of a house usually has little punched windows. The back side of most American houses has more. They have sliding glass doors, they have picture windows, they have conservatories, things like that, swimming pools. So they tend to open to the backyard and then you start putting, say, an Adu on the neighbor's property, really close to a lot line, really close to that space, and you start to get conflicts, that's all. So and I haven't seen that thought about in this country because we're not used to that density. We're used to floating buildings in the middle of a lot. And, you know, people are far away. Um, so it's it's more akin to what they deal with in the UK where things are denser and they're there. 00:26:42,667 S5: So maybe we shouldn't allow the buildings to. The Adu used to float. Maybe we should make them appear to be part of the original structure, even if there's no connectivity between the two. 00:26:58,767 S2: Well, they have they have to be able to be attached to detached. I think the state requires that. Yeah. And it's really just it's window position. That's what it boils down to is guidelines on window position in the in the UK they're rules but you could make guidelines. 00:27:12,467 S1: Right. So but but just again as an aside would the planning board be supportive of a dark sky bylaw? We wouldn't be the proponents of it, because it's better if it's a general bylaw, that zoning bylaw. But it would seem that we would be supportive of it because we have put dark sky compliance in the Browns Hill overlay district, and we added at least some components of that when we issued the site plan decision. With respect to the athletic fields. 00:27:48,667 S2: Other towns have worked at controlling the lighting, but it's harder to control light bleeding through windows. 00:27:55,667 S1: Yeah, well, the whole thing with the residential is really squirrelly, but the Commonwealth has a model dark sky bylaw that it's my understanding they're in the process of revising. Um, so it is the, the, the problematic part of such a bylaw is not the going forward, it's what's grandfathered. And how much regulation do you want imposed on residential property owners. And um, you say on Nantucket, uh, residential property owners, uh, they're they're only grandfathered in for a period of time. And then they then the property owners have to come into compliance, ergo, they have to spend money. And I think that for a town like Hamilton, to have that kind of rigorous requirement might be a step too far and might cause the bylaw to fail. 00:28:55,567 S2: That's why. 00:28:56,467 S5: We're looking. 00:28:56,968 S2: At the first step is guidelines. Get the guidelines solid and then see if there's anything that can roll. 00:29:03,200 S1: Well this would be a bylaw for the town. I understand it would be guidelines for the ADUs. But I mean you certainly like in the town center if we had a dark sky of Cut by law than any commercial development could be required to comply with that. 00:29:21,167 S2: And it wouldn't be retroactive, right? 00:29:23,367 S1: It's really not so much about seeing the stars in the Milky Way anymore, because I think that ship sailed. I mean, I when was the last time you looked up and saw stars, let alone the Milky Way? 00:29:34,067 S2: It's more nuisance light to neighbors. 00:29:35,667 S1: Exactly. 00:29:36,467 S2: Which is back loops around back to my original theme, which is it's. I haven't seen that discussed anywhere. 00:29:42,367 S1: But interestingly enough, Raleigh in Georgetown have some. 00:29:49,067 S1: Dark sky Bibles. I mean, they're not really sophisticated, but the communities have them already. Pepperell has one. 00:29:58,667 S7: I think. 00:29:59,000 S1: Had been at Lincoln, has one. 00:30:01,567 S7: They've been around a long time, for 20 years at least not 25. And the Dark skies provisions. So I think people and certainly builders developers are used to them. Yeah. And they have now become so available. It's not like a rare thing you're looking for. Cut off light, you know. I mean, they're really. 00:30:19,367 S1: Yeah. They're out there. So going forward, I don't think. 00:30:22,868 S4: I. 00:30:23,000 S7: Don't think there's going to be that much resistance because I think that something people will understand the nations aspect. So I don't think that'll be too much of a problem. 00:30:29,267 S1: I think it's the grandfathered provisions that that have to be. 00:30:32,868 S7: But that could be along the lines of the building code. You know, when you need to upgrade everything to. Yeah. 00:30:37,601 S1: Like if you if. 00:30:38,567 S5: You. 00:30:39,200 S1: Change 50% of your building or something like that, then you have to comply. That's, that's the only part that I think yeah, would be controversial. But the rest of it I don't see any. We'll push back on something like that. 00:30:54,167 S7: I would think that'd be an easy vote. Uh, but maybe not. 00:30:58,167 S1: Well, yeah, I actually think so, too. 00:31:01,000 S7: Yeah. 00:31:02,501 S1: So that's a work in progress. 00:31:05,601 S7: Yes. Just, just the last thing on garden was I'm saying about the Adu and the news Issues. The guidelines would be just that that right. They're advisory. They're not regulatory. Right. So it'd be part of a discussion you have with a developer on doing a property. They could say, well, thanks to your thoughts, we're going to do it differently. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah that. So that'll be the because the difficulty we would have because the state is mandated you can't make it more difficult to build an 80. 00:31:31,367 S2: You I'm I'm I'm dealing with a client right now who's doing an Adu. 00:31:35,467 S7: I wonder if that should apply to every house then, you know, in other words. Absolutely. Yes. 00:31:39,501 S2: So it should be a general design guideline. 00:31:41,567 S7: I'm thinking of, you know, just west of Wall Street. Um, yeah. Those those lots are like 10,000, 6000ft². And, and, uh, I mean, you're in your neighbors. Yes. So sightlines. 00:31:55,467 S2: You know, and not everybody just sort of, um, blows that off. I'm dealing with with a client right now who's doing an Adu in a very, very tight site. And I gave them two options. One, you know, had more usable space, and the other one was like under 400ft². You know, it's like smaller than two car garage. And they opted for the smaller one to be more neighborly. Um, when I showed them what the, the, the implications were to the neighbor, they said, oh, we don't want to do that to the neighbor. But they wouldn't have known that if if somebody didn't point it out. And that's where the guidelines. 00:32:29,667 S7: That's the benefit. 00:32:30,467 S2: That's the benefit of. 00:32:31,267 S7: You can use persuasion to do the right thing. 00:32:33,267 S2: Right. Yes. And I didn't even have to persuade them. I just pointed it out. You could do this or you could do this. This is more neighborly. This is less neighborly. Which would you like to do? We'd like to be more neighborly. 00:32:42,100 S5: What would we consider doing this as part of the site plan review? Uh, bylaw. Rather that part of the zoning being a site plan review as opposed to a separate Adu because it is advisory. 00:32:59,000 S7: That's a that's a good. 00:33:00,501 S5: Yeah. 00:33:01,100 S2: It could be a bylaw. 00:33:03,067 S5: Yeah. We have a section within site plan review dealing with um, 80 years. 00:33:10,701 S1: I don't think 80 years are subject to site plan. We do. 00:33:14,167 S2: I think you'd have to do it for new residents as well. Yeah. You can't have that. Yeah. Stricter standards. Yes. You know, which is to your point, you know, it makes sense for everybody. 00:33:25,467 S7: There is a site plan review though isn't there for 80 years. 00:33:27,868 S1: No, it's the building inspector. The 80 years are special. 00:33:33,100 S2: Yeah. So but again, I think the thing is, if you if you have really strong guidelines that are that feel constructive and not constructive, um, people will look at them. 00:33:42,167 S7: Yeah. They want to see what the options are and then make their own decision. 00:33:44,968 S1: Well, for site plan review you put a dark sky component. Yeah. That's what I think Raleigh did. 00:33:50,467 S7: That's a good pretty good idea. Do it. 00:33:52,667 S1: But but but but what what the people I'm talking to, they're thinking about the general bike. Like just like the stormwater management bylaw or. 00:34:01,367 S7: Like, like an ordinance maybe. 00:34:02,868 S1: Yeah. 00:34:03,367 S7: Yeah. Noise ordinance. 00:34:04,767 S1: Yeah. Part of the town's general bylaws, just like the conservation bylaw. The stormwater management bylaw. It would be a dark sky bylaw applicable to the entire town. 00:34:18,868 S2: We did when we were writing the bylaw, we. I've seen a lot of bad ad use. I tried not having bad ideas. So like in the front yard or with a separate driveway or with a garage. If you already have a garage, it's a little bit overkill in my opinion. It looks like a separate house, not like an Adu. 00:34:37,367 S1: I think roof pitch is really important. 00:34:40,167 S2: Yeah, so a lot. Some of that we we got into the bylaw itself, and I remember Cape Law told us you're not going to get that through the state. And most of it got through the state. There was one thing about we couldn't, um, have like a we couldn't prohibit a, um, like a, uh, not a trailer, but like a pre constructed. There's something. Right, as long as it's Affixed to the ground. I think it's a building. It's not a trailer. That was the one area they struck. But they they let us keep the front yard prohibition, the driveway prohibition. So. So that is in by law, at least, at least kind of, uh, protecting ourselves from bad ideas. 00:35:29,267 S7: Also, just throwing us in, we probably going to move on. But the the prevalence now these these kits or these packages that package they use that you can purchase now as a really as a unit and truck it in and set it uh, that really don't pretend to have any particular aesthetic to them except, you know, probably clean and simple. Not to offend anybody is sort of the approach to design I think they use. But I mean, some are neat, but, um, that really complicates things too. Yeah. So it's not it's not as if you have control of the contract for building what you want. No. 00:36:05,200 S2: No, but but a. 00:36:06,167 S7: Series. 00:36:06,567 S2: Of of questions for folks to answer. I think we'll get them on the right track. Um, I think we talked about this before. You start with, you know, like where South. Where do you enter this from? Um, what's its relationship to your open space? You know, you answer a series of questions, and, and then there can be some simple outcomes of that, um, the, you know, really basic starting points so that the things facing in the right direction. Yeah. Um, that could. 00:36:36,067 S1: Well, Mark, you, you raised the issue of Airbnb in town. And I know with respect to the ADUs, we prohibited short term rentals. 00:36:45,567 S5: Yes. 00:36:46,868 S1: So we have no prohibition against Airbnbs in Hamilton. But by the same token, we don't permit them. So if it's not specifically permitted, the rule of thumb is that you will it's prohibited. But we don't specifically prohibit helping athletes. And I don't know what your thinking is on that. 00:37:11,167 S2: So we do for it to use the inside of another building. Inspector has taken the position. It's not in the bylaws, so it's by default it's prohibited. Those 610 of the towns. 00:37:25,767 S7: But if an objection comes from a neighbor. 00:37:30,467 S7: Then it has to be dealt with or. 00:37:34,801 S5: I mean, I think the more realistic application of Airbnb in this town with somebody who has a nice house, perhaps several nice houses, decides to keep them, and one convert one into an Airbnb because it's actually a nice house and, you know, a more expansive house. 00:37:55,801 S7: I yeah. 00:37:58,767 S5: Cannot see for some reason regulating that. 00:38:01,767 S7: Yeah, I agree that it's a problematic thing for me to. 00:38:10,767 S7: To approve them, although there is a need for them. But but this town is so unique in a lot of ways. I think the aspects and character of it, as you were saying, just sort of a you can anticipate pretty much how it's going to happen if it were to happen, you know, up here. Um, but um. 00:38:28,367 S2: It's more of a problem in sort of, um, destination towns. Yeah. You know, like seaside towns, things like that. And it's a problem where outside developers who have nothing to do with the town start buying up properties. 00:38:40,868 S1: Yeah, even it's a problem on Nantucket. 00:38:42,968 S2: Yeah. Even even, you know, private equities buying up property. 00:38:46,667 S7: Absentee owners on properties. 00:38:48,367 S2: That's the problem. 00:38:49,400 S7: That's the. 00:38:49,767 S2: Problem. 00:38:50,267 S7: Um, it also lowers the or it takes a huge part of the housing stock. 00:38:55,367 S2: Out of out of out of circulation. Absolutely. Yeah. 00:38:57,601 S7: And for the most part, probably they stay empty. Yes. 00:39:00,767 S2: But Hamilton isn't really a destination to me. It's a bedroom community. What? I mean, if so. So it's might not be a problem that we need to solve. 00:39:09,567 S1: It might. You know, we might have, like what, two Airbnbs and and they fly under the radar. 00:39:15,901 S4: Mhm. 00:39:17,000 S2: And we don't you know we don't go looking for them. So we don't scour Airbnb for, you know, short term rentals. If someone makes a complaint. Yeah. 00:39:27,901 S7: So if you go searching for the Airbnb we have some relative visiting. We're interested in getting one here in town and. 00:39:36,167 S1: Whether. 00:39:36,567 S7: They there are available again, but a half dozen or so. 00:39:39,367 S2: In town. 00:39:41,167 S5: This really is you got on the web. You can find them. 00:39:43,767 S7: Yeah. Through Airbnb or or Vrbo. 00:39:48,367 S4: Yeah. 00:39:48,767 S5: Yeah. Vrbo. 00:39:52,968 S1: You know, the real the only real trouble with Airbnbs is, is when kids rent them and have parties. That's when they become. 00:40:01,100 S2: And that is a real problem again in the destination towns. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I lived in Guam for 20 years and, um, some of the biggest, beautiful, most beautiful estate homes were bought up by out of town folks and turned into Airbnbs. And, and there'd be these weeklong parties and, and then or then it would be empty and there'd be squatters coming in. But one across the street where squatters were there for a month before anybody realized they had to come and bring the police to get them out. So all sorts of crazy things can happen. But again, that's a destination town. That's not Hamilton. 00:40:34,467 S1: Well, and the other thing too, it's essentially a commercial use that's not getting taxed. 00:40:39,467 S2: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. 00:40:42,167 S1: So you. 00:40:42,868 S2: Know, but I'm not sure Hamilton, like I say, has that. 00:40:45,868 S1: I don't know that we need to go looking for non problems that have to be. 00:40:49,367 S2: Solved. Right. Exactly. That's my point. 00:40:55,200 S1: That we want to talk about the town center and you tell it all or just start that. Save that for next, uh, next meeting. 00:41:03,367 S2: Uh, briefly, if you don't mind, I can just, um, give you an update. So, uh, I've talked to Joe about it, and he's he's given us the okay for funding. Um, we're limited to $10,000, because if we go above 10,000, we have to go out to bid, and we obviously don't want to do that. Um, and we have to spend the money before the fiscal year ends, which is June 30th. So, um, again, I don't think that's an issue because I think the board is looking to do this pretty quickly. Um, so I'm meeting with, uh, UTL tomorrow morning to hopefully get a scope and a budget from them that I'll have for the next meeting. Okay. I mean, like, sent you the invite? 00:41:48,667 S7: Yeah. I'll join you. Yeah. This is great that you put this together, right? Yeah, I just saw it tonight. 00:41:55,267 S1: Right? I mean, I saw it and I called, um, I called al, and I said, you're not going to believe what Mark put together. And I was so impressed. 00:42:07,567 S5: So I really. 00:42:09,000 S1: I haven't read it yet, but I was still impressed because, uh, let's just say that took a lot of initiative to do that. 00:42:16,467 S2: Um, so that's a question. Give you a brief synopsis. So this is just comes out of a lot of state parks back in 2024, and the idea is to have a sort of consolidated tournament for solar applications, any sort of clean energy. Um, so when I say consolidated, it's a, it's a state application, kind of like for wetlands, um, permit. Most towns use the state form. So this is something where the town would have to use the state form. The it's pretty thorough in terms of the, the issues that covers, but I think that the state wants to have consistent sort of measures of mitigation and the standards that the town reviews applications by. Instead of having 351 different ways of looking at these types of applications. So it's a standardized process there. It can go to different boards for review. So if there's a wetland impact it will still get a ton come. But at the end of the process there's only one permit. It's so if there's an appeal of that permit, you know, they're not appealing the decision or the debate decision on the planning board system. They there can only be a one decision. 00:43:26,667 S1: The town's decision. 00:43:27,767 S2: It's the town's decision. Yeah. 00:43:29,467 S1: So he said as of right. And he's subject to site plan review is that. 00:43:33,868 S5: It. 00:43:34,000 S2: Doesn't have to be. It can be. 00:43:35,767 S1: Special. 00:43:36,167 S2: Permit. It could be special permit. So a puzzle with something like this is that there could be a complex project. There could potentially be many, many stakeholders looking at it. And the question always is do you do it sequentially or simultaneously? Concurrently. And, um, that's. 00:43:52,701 S5: Always. 00:43:53,567 S2: Kind of thorny because if somebody, one stakeholder modifies something and it affects another stakeholders interests, if you do it concurrently, it's a free for all. But if you do it sequentially, it could take forever. If it's a complex project and has to go through multiple stakeholders. Um, so that's why my question is how what does this mean to us? What does it you know, who would how would we orchestrate this so that it is neither a free for all where it's conflicting stakeholder information, nor does it drag out? 00:44:28,567 S1: Yeah. And also because this is really new to me, what I'm talking about here, how big can these facilities be and can they be in residential areas? I mean, I get solar panels on buildings, but windmills and some of the other things. So I guess for me, I have to start with really at the most elemental level. How big are we talking about? These are denominated small. How small is small? And I assume it's not optional for a town to have this bylaw to collect. I assume that to comply with the law, you have to adopt the bylaw. So so because it's something that could impact neighborhoods. Or is this something that'll be out on Tobacco Road in that area that is really suitable for something? 00:45:26,167 S5: It looks like it goes down to neighborhoods all the way. I mean. 00:45:29,467 S1: Yeah. 00:45:30,801 S5: If you look at like, uh, section 3.1 snow less than 25kW. 00:45:40,667 S5: What is it? Residential. I mean, it's it's it looks it looks like it's meant to cover the entire spectrum. 00:45:47,200 S4: Yeah. 00:45:48,167 S2: Which again, to my point, there could be really simple applications, but there could be really complex applications. And if if the stakeholders go through it sequentially, it takes effort. And there's a 12 month limit on this. 00:46:00,367 S1: Yeah. You know, it would have to happen concurrently. 00:46:03,501 S4: Yeah. 00:46:04,501 S2: So anyway, it's it's a puzzle to me how this gets how the. 00:46:09,267 S5: Title no control is now. It's not an ancillary. I mean, if you put it on your roof, 00:46:17,868 S5: uh. 00:46:19,667 S7: With no control. 00:46:21,167 S5: If you build a separate field of solar reflectors or a backyard of solar collectors. 00:46:29,567 S2: I think that's a zone. 00:46:30,467 S5: That can have quite a big impact on your neighbor. 00:46:32,167 S2: Yeah. And I think that you have to get zoning relief for if you do a solar field. 00:46:35,667 S5: But there's no we don't that's not. 00:46:37,167 S2: But if you attach it to a building I think it's isn't it exempt. Well, so the reason that done some research on this the high school once they've talked about doing in their parking lot, these solar panels. So they're there in the parking lot. The cars park under them and there's solar above the cars. Yep. So I talked to Rich about it and, um, the bylaws silent on solar panels. So our thinking was I'd have to go through site plan review, but we couldn't prohibit it. Yeah. And so something like that. Usually there's a definition of what's a structure, you know. So in some municipalities it's a it's a permanent item that's affixed to the ground greater than a certain height. You have to go pick a number six feet or something like that. So that definition. Right. So so it gets complicated when it rolls into these different stakeholders interests. Um, and uh, this is quite a, I think, a complex analysis to look at this and figure out what does it mean to us. 00:47:38,901 S1: Right. 00:47:39,300 S2: And what. 00:47:39,801 S1: What would it mean if you saw. 00:47:41,868 S7: A. 00:47:42,200 S1: Big solar raiser with a parking lot on the high school. That would certainly not. 00:47:47,767 S2: You know, that's just one. That's just one. That's just one example. 00:47:51,300 S1: Well, I know, but. 00:47:52,601 S2: That's a very real example. 00:47:54,000 S1: Aesthetically appealing. It would be quite unsightly. It would obscure the building, which is not an architectural masterpiece to begin with. 00:48:02,100 S2: But there's there are plenty of precedents for that in Europe. Um, done well in parking facilities. So that's not a new idea. 00:48:10,167 S1: But in the front, at the back of the building. 00:48:12,701 S2: In, in, in made parking lots, there's quite a precedent for that in Europe, but not in this country. 00:48:17,267 S5: Does the high school have flat roofs on all of surfaces? Yeah. 00:48:21,767 S2: So you can also do it on the. 00:48:22,868 S5: Rooftop. 00:48:23,501 S2: There. But but that's not the point of this. The point of this is don't don't get in the way but but still do your work you know. So it's very the state's regs are very clear that it still has to comply with all your bylaws and all your regulations, but you can't get in the way of it. Can't stop it. Um, just because you don't like it. Um. And it needs to. And it needs to go through quickly. It's a 12 month, 12 month. Yeah, 12 month time. Views on it. Yeah. And I forget what the implications are if you exceed that. Cuz I think it can be a piece. 00:49:00,100 S1: You know. 00:49:00,667 S5: So just so when you say stop, when they say stop it. Okay. Let's take the high school things there. Uh, they have plenty of roof space. We review it. We think this is really terrible. It's going to obscure a nice 1960s, you know, vision of a high school when if they put it over the gym or did a bunch of other things, you know, so we don't want to stop the installation of a solar facility, but we do not want it. 00:49:31,868 S2: The red state. The regs say you have to base it on already existing regulations or bylaws that prevent something you can't. I think you can't just prevent it because you don't like it. Everything's still in force. It's sort of like the Adu by law, you know? 00:49:49,267 S5: It has to be tested. Plan review can be advisory. That's what it feels like. 00:49:54,868 S2: It feels like this is advisory. Unless it violates a law. Another law? Right. That's what it feels like. But I haven't, you know, spent hours analyzing this. I mean, do you have any mark? Do you have any opinions about that? 00:50:07,868 S5: Could we come at it from the point of view? It's not an accessory dwelling in it. It's an accessory structure of some kind. 00:50:19,167 S2: So have you have you sort of analyzed this globally to see somewhat. But it's what or whatever other town's doing about, you know, responding to this. So not much because the regulations aren't finalized. Right. They have until March to do that. And then we have until December to make big changes that we want to make. So, so we obviously and the state set both the trainings in the spring. So they haven't besides sending us the regulations haven't done much in terms of explaining how this all works in the local context, but it seems like the state would do well to have some guidelines for communities to respond to this, because this is it's a it's a big lump of regulations to digest. 00:51:07,501 S7: Yeah. 00:51:08,367 S1: Well and it covers multiple things. 00:51:10,167 S8: Oh yes. Yes, it's multiple things and so many stakeholders. 00:51:15,667 S2: It affects. 00:51:16,767 S8: So. 00:51:16,901 S2: Many stakeholders in the process. 00:51:18,868 S5: It's setbacks have an impact. So if I want to put one of these things with, you know, five feet from my neighbor's lawn. So the setbacks are ten setbacks apply to just housings or do they apply to sheds and other kinds of, you know, ancillary structures and thereby also encompass banks of solar collectors. 00:51:46,267 S2: It depends how we define structure. I don't know my head, but I believe in most communities are considered structures that meet the setbacks. And then you can have a lot sometimes have a separate solar bylaw where they talk about what the setbacks are for solar. 00:52:00,367 S4: Okay. 00:52:00,901 S7: Well it's out. If you have an accessory building like a tool shed or a storage shed. 00:52:05,901 S5: Doesn't. 00:52:06,267 S7: Count in the R1. A zone to setback, side yard, rear yard, 15ft. But with the accessory you need 20ft, so you need more distance often. 00:52:16,167 S1: Well, it looks like you could have a wind turbine on your property. It's a small wind. Residentially scaled wind energy conversion facilities with tower heights often limited to 80ft. 00:52:31,567 S8: Oh. 00:52:33,968 S8: It's a. This is a big deal. This whole thing is a big deal. 00:52:37,467 S1: Like. 00:52:37,767 S8: Move and. 00:52:39,067 S1: If the blades ever. 00:52:40,100 S8: Came. So I think the state really needs, you know. This this to me. 00:52:44,067 S2: Is actually far more impactful than, um. 00:52:46,667 S1: Who he. 00:52:46,868 S8: Is. 00:52:47,367 S2: Than a two or 3 or 4 MBTA. 00:52:50,300 S1: Oh, absolutely. Um, although I don't think that I think it's appropriate here. 00:52:55,300 S2: Not here necessarily, but. 00:52:56,767 S8: This is statewide. 00:52:58,567 S2: Statewide. 00:53:00,467 S5: So the public, I mean, some of this could be under the control of the public utilities. Yeah. Just because you build it doesn't mean they have to connect it. 00:53:08,267 S2: Right. 00:53:09,100 S5: And that puts you in a thing of going off the grid, which is much less. 00:53:12,467 S4: Attractive. 00:53:13,567 S5: Than running the meter backwards to the utility. So I mean, they have a different set of objectives. I have a friend who lives in Essex who has a under 80 foot wind, uh, generator. And uh, they eventually turned and turned it off because he was he was never drawing anything from the utility. Utility. It was really very effective. It's way up on the hill. It was just spinning continuously. And they eventually said, you know, we don't want to do do this anymore. It just turned them off. And he didn't have interest in building a huge battery system that would, you know, carry him completely. 00:53:54,267 S7: Off the grid. 00:53:56,567 S2: So has anybody written any sort of commentary or opinion on this that you've seen? The municipal association has some. They haven't really taken a position on, but a whole lot of materials and explaining how it works. Yeah. I mean, I'm not panicking about it, but it's complicated. It's complicated. It's really complicated. It's interesting because like, some of the things are more strict than what? Like there's this whole section on pre filing. You have to go through this pre filing process where you the applicant is required to hold the public hearings, notify the firefighters before they even submit the application to the town which is interesting. I know we don't require that for other applications, and I'm not sure how that would work, because we would have a public hearing for the special permit. If we for site plan. So do we have two public hearings? I'm not sure how this works with the local. So there's a lot to sort of unpack. But and to to Bill's question, what's what are the thresholds here? You know, that's not super clear what the thresholds are of applicability. 00:54:59,167 S7: So for example, if does the owner of the property have to own the facility or if not, can they sort of lease out a part of their site to a utility company, like a windsurfing in your backyard? Um. 00:55:16,667 S2: Or I think you could if you are the owner of that. 00:55:20,100 S7: So when they say facility doesn't mean owned by that particular property owner. 00:55:26,100 S2: It's like a device. 00:55:27,267 S7: It's a device, it's. 00:55:28,067 S5: A device. 00:55:29,467 S2: Or a or a process. It's a process or a device, and it doesn't. It's silent on who controls it. 00:55:37,000 S5: We do nothing. I make sure there's a house next to the soccer field on. 00:55:44,367 S5: Sagamore Street. One day at two. Very noticeable 20 foot high, 45 degree angle banks of solar collectors. 00:55:59,000 S5: Changed that part of the neighborhood. There's a very low density area, so nobody really is objecting. But, you know, driving along the street, you go, whoa, what's that? 00:56:07,567 S2: You know? And then back to sort of what we're talking about with ADUs or more Airbnbs, rather, um, is what happens if it becomes opportunistic where, you know, it's it's not an owner, it's not even anybody from the area. It's just somebody buying some property and installing a system that's easily formidable because the state says it needs to be political. But you know, what does that mean? Um, so there's to me, there's there's layers and layers and layers of questions that are not addressed here. 00:56:40,868 S1: I, I'm just looking at this. Applicants shall utilize the site suitability mapping tool and you get a suitability score, but they don't tell you what the cutoff is, right. I mean, yeah. 00:56:56,167 S9: This is this is this is weight. 00:56:58,400 S1: Score to let you go forward versus. 00:57:00,801 S9: This one. It's way more. 00:57:02,567 S2: Complicated and and has bigger potential long term implications than anything we've dealt with yet. 00:57:09,267 S9: It is confusing. 00:57:10,167 S2: Because like that score comes from the state. 00:57:12,400 S1: Right. 00:57:12,968 S9: Right. 00:57:13,567 S1: Right. But they also talk about you don't want to impact wildlife or this or that or the other. And they're very sensitive to, uh, wetlands at that type of thing. 00:57:24,567 S2: So to my point earlier is there's there's so many possible stakeholders involved that also many of them could be in opposition to one another. The stakeholders in opposition to one another? Yeah. Um, it's sort of like a crazy example of one was, um, that I dealt with was under coastal zone management, which is, you know, one arm of the government of the government, there's something called designated port, um, uh, sort of division, which is water dependent use, you know, like a commercial seaport. And then there's a there's a colonial era law, chapter 91, which is public access for fishing, fowling and recreation. Those are both monitored by coastal zone management. And when you look at both those laws, which could apply to the same property, they're absolutely in opposition to each other. So and you can literally tie a regulatory process into a permanent knot where nothing can happen because of these opposing bylaws And nobody still nobody has resolved it. Um, you know, and they're and they're in the same department. Coastal zone management. So I see this as potentially tying such situations, getting tied into a knot that are unresolvable. Um, it's interesting, but it's complicated. This my point? 00:58:46,601 S1: Yeah, am I right? And I and I and I read this quickly. I, I confess I got a little bogged down here, but if the if a decision isn't reached in 12 months, is it a constructive approval the way we have in some of our. 00:59:01,868 S9: That's my understanding. Although 40 be the affordable housing. It's supposed to be six months and that never happens. Usually the applicant grants, right? Uh, so I'm not sure how this would work in practice. Right. The applicant could agree to waive that. 00:59:17,801 S1: Well, you know, you wonder, Bill, if the if you were talking about those solar arrays, whether they would be subject to this type of regulation, and that the people who put them up were kind of out on a limb. 00:59:33,767 S2: Well, you'd have the town would have to get more specific about, for example, to finding a structure. 00:59:39,100 S9: Right. 00:59:39,667 S2: You know. 00:59:39,968 S1: And what. 00:59:40,868 S9: What. 00:59:41,267 S2: What defines a structure. Yeah. Um, you know, it's not just a building. And then because again, the the state is leaning on the fact that it has to comply with existing bylaws. You you can't make special exceptions or special restrictions for it. It has to follow all the bylaws. Um, but what it means to me is you almost have to go through every one of your general regulations, your town bylaws, and your zoning bylaws and put it through this lens of best case, worst case scenario and figure out what does this mean, which to me is a colossal task. Well, and maybe I'm overreacting, but that's that's that's my initial read of this. 01:00:23,968 S1: And you're right. But before I even get to where you are, I really don't understand the actual size and scale. 01:00:33,501 S2: That's what I'm saying is. 01:00:34,467 S1: True. 01:00:35,100 S2: To Bill's point. What's the what's the trigger? What's the trigger threshold? It's not clear if the trigger threshold is unclear. 01:00:41,868 S1: What's small and I mean tying it to megawatts produced. Does it really give you a picture of how big it is? Yeah. 01:00:50,067 S2: So. And there's not a good threshold, you know. Um. Uh, yeah. Metric. So anyway, I, I don't mean to be alarmist here, but I'm not. I'm, I am rather confused and overwhelmed. So, Jonathan, I don't think you're the only one. I was just poking around. The, uh, mass Municipal Association submitted some comments on this during the. During the comment period. Um, I haven't read the full regulation, but I guess one of them, one section 29.02, designates the town clerk as the default person to receive these decisions. The mayor is recommending, and I think this goes directly to your point of like, who are the stakeholders? How do you figure that out? And sorry to say this, Mark, but the planning director or the building. There you go. Should be there should be the person to, I guess, be the quarterback for this. But that is a huge task to take. Literally, the question is, is concurrent or sequential? And if it's sequential, what sequence and what has to hold up? What to get to what? Right. Um, you know, there are towns now that, that have more complicated permitting processes. And sometimes, like right now, I'm dealing with in Gloucester, an average building permit can take six months, six months to get a simple building permit because it's sequential, you know, it goes through all of the town departments one by one, and it isn't even coordinated. You know, like engineering is separate from DPW. You know so stormwater is in two pieces. So it's looked at under two purview and things like that. So um, and that's just ordinary, you know, building permit. This is far more complicated. Yeah. Far more complicated. Yeah. And 12 months is, is like a, a blip in time for what they're talking about here. Um, if, if somebody actually comes and buys one of these great estates and says, let's do a wind farm and a solar farm, you know, it's nothing. But, you. 01:02:52,868 S5: Know. 01:02:53,400 S2: If it's a private equity who finds that? It's it's it's beneficial. 01:02:59,000 S7: Right. 01:02:59,400 S2: Why not? 01:02:59,801 S1: Well, you know, I would think that the, the wind would create, you know, the, the, the wind turbines were put in arrays. 01:03:07,968 S2: Oh, yeah. They do. 01:03:08,801 S5: Yeah. 01:03:09,400 S2: And and they sometimes fall apart. Well yeah that, that one did in Gloucester and they haven't fixed it. I think it's tied up in a lawsuit in Nantucket. 01:03:19,467 S1: Just flew off. 01:03:20,567 S4: Yeah. 01:03:21,167 S2: Nobody was hurt. 01:03:22,000 S1: But, yeah, they could have been. 01:03:23,601 S2: Yep. So, anyway, um, I reiterate that I'm just I'm. I'm confused and overwhelmed. 01:03:30,767 S1: So that's saying something. 01:03:35,667 S7: Is there. Is there another border commission in in the town, uh, list that would be interested in this? 01:03:42,000 S1: So that. 01:03:43,968 S7: Would be and then. 01:03:44,801 S1: The Environmental Impact. 01:03:46,167 S7: Environmental impact Committee. I wonder. 01:03:48,467 S2: Ceiba. 01:03:49,767 S5: DEA. 01:03:50,367 S1: Yeah. 01:03:51,067 S5: Yeah. 01:03:51,767 S7: I wonder if there should be kind of a joint thinking at some. 01:03:54,667 S2: Select. 01:03:55,000 S7: Board. 01:03:55,667 S5: Yeah. 01:03:56,167 S7: Select board. 01:03:57,100 S1: Well, if you said the the Commonwealth is going to provide someone to educate the public, I think that's a first step. 01:04:06,000 S5: There was a. 01:04:07,667 S2: Claim they're going to give training. 01:04:09,367 S1: Yeah I mean I just I can't imagine some of these small facilities. I mean it's in downtown Hamilton. 01:04:18,667 S2: I support the impulse. It's just the execution is like my head is spinning. Yeah. 01:04:25,167 S1: So yeah. 01:04:27,167 S2: Yeah. The match comment the first draft had. You have to have like a local government representative and the, the requirements had the town clerk be the de facto. And it's a really important job. We have to like, respond within 30 days that the application is complete. And it's like if you if you had if you had two of these applications, it'd be a full time job for the town clerk. 01:04:48,901 S1: Well, we'd have to hire and she'd have to hire an assistant. Yes. And we don't have that in our budget. 01:04:53,968 S5: Yes. 01:04:54,868 S2: So anyway. 01:04:55,701 S1: I think I unsafe on that. You know, since we're cutting things and going to an over. 01:05:01,267 S2: So we'd be very curious as this unfolds, if you share more information on as far as comments, execution, guidance. 01:05:09,968 S1: Um, and what other. 01:05:11,267 S2: Templates, implication or implementations. 01:05:14,167 S1: What other towns are doing? Yes, there I got a. 01:05:19,367 S1: Little package. Oh. 01:05:21,767 S2: So I didn't mean to alarm folks, but I did. I did look at this and think about it a little bit. 01:05:29,367 S1: Right. So, um, I think, uh, am I safe in saying we have nothing for the, um, April town meeting? What I speak. 01:05:42,200 S5: For? 01:05:42,801 S2: Yeah. The switchboards looking to close that warrant at the next meeting on the 17th. So they just let me know if there was any. We obviously have had a lot of zoning changes in the last year, so I wasn't expecting I think, you know. 01:05:59,767 S1: From December 9th to today. Um, we're just getting organized to tackle some of our, uh, projects. So. No, it's just, uh, everything we're starting is kind of new out of the box. So there's the thing. So with that said. 01:06:23,767 S7: I wonder, is there any is how's the town budget? Um, is there anything allocated for the Planning Board budget wise for the coming year? In other words, where you have to identify particular projects or. 01:06:38,067 S2: Well, like so Joe was we were talking a little bit about the master plan and Joe said, um, the legislative committee to put someone from the budget committee out there from capital planning, because any kind of major funding request would go on the capital budget. So, um, there's nothing for matching the inflation next year's budget, but there's just the thing where it always has a small amount of funds set aside. 01:07:06,167 S7: Yeah. I was just thinking for is something like design guidelines, you know, for. 01:07:12,367 S7: Um. 01:07:13,367 S1: Actually producing them is expected. 01:07:16,601 S2: To affect the graphics. 01:07:17,501 S7: Of the time consuming graphics that concern me a lot. 01:07:20,868 S2: Yeah, I agree. 01:07:23,000 S7: Um. 01:07:26,501 S7: Well, I just directly is stealing them from the sources. Oh, yeah. As long as you get. 01:07:30,801 S2: You get permission. You get permission. 01:07:32,601 S7: Attribution. They'll generally. 01:07:34,167 S2: But the problem with doing that is often you get something that is sort of a collage of styles, because if you're borrowing from three different towns, you've got, you know, three different styles and it might even be different, you know, documents in different towns. So it's not a very consistent way to do it, but it's a low budget. It's a bootstrap way to do it. 01:07:56,267 S7: Yeah. I mean it's not. 01:07:57,100 S2: Really the right way. 01:07:58,501 S7: It's the preparation of it and not so much because we can we can put together the text pretty well, I think, on that. But um, but it's still all the other stuff, uh, formatting of it, but it's, um, you know, if we do anything special, then and then finally just publishing some, some copies. 01:08:19,267 S1: That's not expensive. And therefore up to me, I would say that that at minimum, I'm just guessing $15,000. 01:08:28,400 S2: You're talking about for the graphics support or the publication. I mean, the public could be it'd be a product saying, well, but the the graphic support is time consuming. 01:08:37,300 S5: Yeah. 01:08:38,167 S1: Am I, am I way too high? 01:08:40,501 S2: It depends upon how ambitious you are. I mean, you could do a ten page design guideline. You could do a 50 page design guideline. Depends on how ambitious it is. Yeah. There's no there's no exact number of. 01:08:50,501 S7: Pages one 8004. 01:08:54,000 S4: That's the. 01:08:56,467 S5: Thing that's. 01:08:58,200 S2: Always been pretty flexible and kind of delivering money around for us. And, um, as it has been for Kim, center, and I mentioned that we're not one of those that Marblehead and Middleton are being sued by the state right now because they don't believe the MBTA requirements. So we were able to get that through and the state is not chasing us. So, um, I think to the extent that we can have some additional support from retail to make sure that we're really confident in administering it, that. 01:09:31,801 S7: Is is HTC still pursuing sidewalk? I'm just curious. Repairs or rebuilding or something? 01:09:40,000 S2: I don't know, I haven't heard anything. 01:09:41,601 S7: Okay. 01:09:42,667 S2: That would be an interesting question because yeah, really should. 01:09:46,100 S7: That should they should put a halt on that. 01:09:47,868 S2: Yes. Agree. 01:09:49,968 S1: They have noticed that. 01:09:51,567 S5: They've broken ground on 40. Be on the patent property. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And the is that when does that start to count. 01:10:00,467 S2: Uh it can count now. It can count because the building permits for the ship. Okay. Yeah. 01:10:06,968 S1: And we haven't heard anything from the attorney general on the Brownsville of the Lake District. 01:10:11,601 S5: On the. 01:10:11,868 S1: Way. On Brownsville. 01:10:13,267 S2: Know they have until. 01:10:15,567 S1: They have three months. 01:10:16,367 S2: Three months. And there were submitted at the end of December. So it was late March. 01:10:21,167 S5: But we don't have to worry about Meadowbrook. 01:10:27,868 S5: Ones 133 S6. Right. That sale is when it goes. 01:10:32,067 S1: It went. 01:10:32,467 S5: Through it went. 01:10:33,200 S1: Through it closed. 01:10:34,067 S5: It closed. 01:10:35,067 S2: And they submitted it. Zoning board meets tomorrow and they've submitted a request to withdraw the applications. 01:10:49,667 S5: So I drove the other day through some street called Margaret Street, which is this little street that back settlement to the miles. 01:10:58,567 S2: Where. 01:10:59,467 S5: It looks right over at the myopia building. And they do have a view of the building. Quite a, quite a view And I think the woman who came to the meeting who requested that they not take down military material. You know, all the mature trees. I think we should support that in in site plan. Yeah. 01:11:22,868 S2: I mean, you talked about lighting too. Did she talk about lighting? They. 01:11:26,200 S5: Yeah, she mentioned lighting. They said the lighting was not going to be a problem. It was all going to be straight down. Yeah. 01:11:32,367 S1: But she I think that that the fella from Ikea did confirm that they don't intend to take down any trees. 01:11:39,167 S5: Yeah. We should go down that street just to see how how visible it was across the marsh. And in the wintertime it was a bit. 01:11:48,167 S2: But to Bill's point, maybe we just emphasized that in. 01:11:51,400 S5: Just this space. 01:11:52,167 S2: Right. Yeah. Just. 01:11:53,567 S1: Absolutely. 01:11:54,167 S2: Yeah. I like the. 01:11:57,300 S7: Cuts on the lighting fixtures that they're proposing. They're saying that they're they're still cut off, but I actually would like to see the manufacturer's literature on it. just to check it out. 01:12:07,100 S5: So you couldn't ask them for. 01:12:08,601 S7: Put it in our file. Just so that we have that, maybe we can. 01:12:12,501 S2: Put the light. 01:12:13,367 S7: Yeah, we can stick it in file with it. That so it gives us satisfaction that. Yes. 01:12:17,968 S5: Because if it's one person. But it also might be good just to have on files. It turns out to be a real good light. You know, it's recommended to other people. 01:12:29,300 S7: Because they were putting it on the face of the building, the lighting. Right. And so I'm curious how that's going to play. 01:12:34,601 S2: Well, that stuff tends to change almost yearly when you find something you like and then it's gone. Yes. 01:12:47,000 S5: All right. 01:12:47,667 S7: You need a motion. 01:12:48,968 S5: Motion to adjourn. 01:12:50,400 S1: Do I have a second? 01:12:51,567 S5: Second? 01:12:53,000 S1: Uh, I don't know if you're still here. 01:12:56,200 S2: Just to get a log out. 01:12:57,501 S1: Uh, Jonathan, for. 01:12:59,567 S5: I. 01:13:00,167 S1: Am Bill Wheaton. I am Marty Croce.