December 17, 2025 – Conservation Commission – Video & Transcript

December 17, 2025 - Conservation Commission

Autoscroll:

All right, I think that's 6.82. We've got a quorum. I'll like to begin the Conservation Commission meeting for Wednesday, December 17th, 2025. Notices and agendas are to be posted at least 48 hours in advance of the meetings, excluding Saturday, Sundays, and legal holidays. One may watch or may participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at the following link. In pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote means in accordance with applicable law. This meeting may be recorded, which will be made available to the public on Wacom as soon as the meeting is practical. With that, I'd like to open up the public meetings. Before I do so, I'd like to take a quick roll call. We've got Linda at the town meeting there. We've got Lisa Aubin, Jenny Brown, Shannon Fischer, Cliff Lewis, Barbara Howell, Luke Legere, myself, all dialing in remotely. So with that, I'm going to open up the public meetings. And so officially we'll say the commission shall recess this meeting in order to participate in a joint public meeting hearing with the planning board regarding the item below. After the conclusion of the joint session, the commission will reconvene into this meeting. Votes may be taken. The public may participate remotely by using the planning board's meeting link that can be found at the following link or in person at the location specified on the planning board agenda. Okay. So with that, conservation, do we all know what we're doing here? On our agenda, there's that link that's live. So we're going to click out of here. We're going to go into join the planning board. I'll open up our meeting inside the planning board. We'll do our thing, pull that link, and then come back into here. Make sense? Clear as mud? Sean, we should use the link that's in the agenda as opposed to the email I got inviting me to be a panelist for the planning board? No, no, no, no. Use the one that you got. Yeah, use the one you got. Where is that that we got just a few minutes ago that we got? On Monday, you received two Zoom invites. One came for the planning board. That came in at, what time do I have? I don't have a time. And then there was a second one that came in that invited you to the conservation commission meeting. So if you just, if you close out on this one and then open the planning board invite, you'll get dumped right into it. Okay. Who sent the planning board invite? I'm sorry. It arrived at 1.16. Weyland Zoom meeting manager. Weyland Zoom meeting manager. Is that in my email or is that somewhere else? Email. It should be email. It should be on Monday at one. Barbara, do you know where it is, Barbara? You got it? You know what you're doing? What? Do you know what you're doing next? Last Monday at one, okay.
Do you know what you're doing next, Barbara? We're closing out of this meeting? I have to shut this off and then turn on the other station to get the planning board. Sounds good. Yep. Exactly. All right, everybody. We'll see you on the other side. Text me, call me, and I can help you if I can. Going back to the public meetings, sorry, public hearing, we're at 3A. So this is the public hearing to consider the adoption of the regulations in accordance with Section 5 of the Stormwater and Land Disturbance Bylaw, Chapter 193. Copies can be viewed on the Conservation Department webpage at the following link. Linda. So if you want to just open up that email that I sent you guys, I think we have some fairly basic questions to answer. And regarding the comments that were done by KP Law. So, you know, you guys, you can chime in on any of the comments that he gave you. But, again, I was just trying to focus on the ones that we really need to answer in order to adopt these regulations. Yeah, while we do that, can you go through that checklist, Linda? Let's back through that. So, number one is four. You said, what do we determine whether or not a project requires a minor or major? And I think that's a pretty wide open question. I don't know if anybody has any suggestions. I mean, do you have sort of a need, like, sometimes you do a basic administrative approval for some projects and then major. Is there, like, a general rule of thumb you have, like, when your instincts tell you they should go one way or another? Well, anytime it's over 2,000 square feet, I think it becomes a major project. But, again, it has a lot – every site is so different. You know, you have one with really bad soils and you're trying to – or just the topography is really – is difficult to deal with. Or there's a ledge or, you know, there's so many factors that you could probably pull into this to say why you would make one decision versus another. And, you know, especially the lawyer involved in this one and whether or not, you know, you have to have a list of things that says, you know, this is important. Or if it's just, you know, based on, you know, it's, you know, my lack of knowledge for, you know, stormwater is insufficient to be able to do this. I, for one, am very troubled with this idea. I mean, Linda is right. She's not a trained stormwater person. And, you know, we need somebody with some amount of technical background and expertise to look at these things and make a determination. And, you know, Linda does a great job, but she can't be relied on just to say, oh, yes and no, because you need more in-depth than that. I mean, we're just – we're missing the boat here somehow. Well, I think, I guess, you know, Cliff, part of what I – the reason for having minor is because our thresholds are so low for this. You know, we're – Yeah, no, I know. We're feet. I mean, I think that's semi-ridiculous. So we're trying to make it easier on people for smaller projects. And it's going to be an easy yes or no type thing, you know, like, okay, this looks fine. Let's go with it sort of thing. But at what point do I say, wow, I'm just way too confused to come up with an appropriate answer for this or appropriate approval for this? And I'm not sure what that is, you know. So – So let me say this. We're not going to appease everybody, right? So let's just stop that noise right now, right, in terms of you're always going to have, like, this ambiguity – You know the majority – you see all the cases right now. The intent is to make this really streamlined and easy for the majority of applicants and our neighbors to come through, get a quick, easy with you, go. You don't need to be coming before us, right? So, yes, you're going to maybe miss people on either side of this. But is there a number that you know, hey, usually when it's this, I could permit this, this is no big deal versus to kind of Cliff's point, yeah, you know, now we're getting into 193 territory. Where we're going to have to have a third party. I mean, so we have to draw the line somewhere. And I'd rather – and again, no offense to the lawyers on the line – not over-legalize this where we have to, you know, an appendix with 1,500, you know, exceptions with the go-through. We want to make it easy for an applicant and for you to like, yep, thumbs up, thumbs down. So that's my lead-in to how I think we should be thinking about this is making it easy, streamlined for Linda or whomever that what should come for us that we should actually have a vote on versus pass. Linda can do this herself. Is it possible if we do come – if we do have like a ballpark number for that, could it be caveated with the notion that, you know, subject to, you know, discretion based on, you know, the hyper-local variation? Something that allows, you know, the discretion if somebody's doing something that seems small but it's all on, you know, some kind of rock ledge with clay or something, right? Like, that gives us just a bit of flexibility. And, I don't know, Luke, do you know, are we legally required to spell out like – I guess, yeah, I guess, you know, I mean, to be totally blunt, I'm not sure I'm totally following the conversation here because I don't, you know, as I'm looking at the sort of the question posed in the email, I think this – I mean, the draft I'm looking at, I think, does that. It seems like we're maybe overthinking this, or maybe I'm totally missing something. But I guess as I read these regulations, it seems, you know, to be blunt, like crystal clear. Like, we have really sort of objective criteria. If you don't hit these thresholds, you qualify as minor. Like, I guess I'm just – so again, I'm not trying to be sort of flippant or, you know, dismissive. I just – I'm not – I guess I'm just not understanding what we're talking about. Well, I guess it's just based on Alex's, you know, where it says the conservation commission may determine that administrative approval is not sufficient, in which case, you know, a permit will be required, just a regular permit, not an administrative permit. And his comment is based on what? And I guess the simple answer would be based on the, you know, site conditions and, you know, and the complexity of the system, you know, proposed or something. I don't know. I mean – Can we just say that? That actually seems really good. If we've got all of these things that make even Luke happy, and then we say, but, you know, based on our discretion, you know, based on like, you know. Yeah, and by the way, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, folks, and I don't mean to bring Luke in, but with a lawyer saying we're good, we can move on, we shouldn't be debating, right? If Luke says, hey, this is kind of what we designed it for, what we want it for, the answer could be, yep, no, we hear you. We got it, and we acknowledge what you're saying. We think we spelled it out, right? So in other words, just because the attorney's saying you want to look here, our answer could be yeah, and we're okay. But I don't think it's a bad idea if we wanted to add a clause. If he's saying based on what, we say based on local site conditions. I guess my concern there, Shannon, is that now you are venturing into a pretty subjective and ambiguous realm. And I think that's what I like about the way these are drafted is it's really not subjective. It's objective. It is – we have, you know, basically if you don't exceed X square feet, you're minor. And if you do, you're not. I don't know. I mean, you know, that's just my two senses. I think sort of maybe less is more in this instance. And, like, let's just keep it relatively simple. And let's not put Linda in a position where she needs to be making judgment calls on these things. And I would just add that if, in practice, a year down the line, we realize, oh, boy, there was a big pitfall here, a big loophole, whatever. We totally missed that one, which, you know, frankly, it's probably going to happen, right? I mean, there's going to be some aspects of this when the rubber meets the road that we're going to realize over time need to be fine-tuned a little bit. So, you know, again, I'm not trying to be dismissive. I'm not trying to, like, short-circuit the conversation. But it just seems to me like these are drafted in a way that's really clear, that's really not going to put Linda or anybody in a position of needing to make a hard judgment call. It's just pretty black and white. And I think for this type of a provision where we're basically saying you qualify for minor if and you don't if, then let's just, I think, keeping it straightforward like that, to my mind, is the better way to go. So should we just delete that sentence altogether, then? Which sentence? The one at the top of page four where it says the Conservation Commission Administrator may determine that administrative approval is not sufficient.
I mean, or you could say, I mean, I guess you could say shallow. You could just, I don't know that we need, I don't know that we need to.
Sorry. I'm just flipping around this. My pages are a little funky in terms of the name. So this, this would be under applicability. Yeah, no, I, yeah, right. So I think, so yeah, I see what you're saying, Linda, you know, in other words, just take that. I mean, I don't necessarily think it's problematic to leave that in there. It's not obligating you to do anything. But let's just say that there is a proposal that comes in front of you that technically, you know, is 499 square feet and like just barely under. But the topography and other aspects of what's proposed are just so extreme that you're not comfortable. Right. Then I think you've got to, that gives you a little bit of wiggle room. I don't think we need to say more in terms of what's required. It's, it's a, it's giving you some, some discretion there. Okay. And a little bit of an escape hatch for a proposal that you look at and just think, eh, I don't feel comfortable approving this without the commission looking at it. Sounds awesome. So we're just not going to address that comment. So that's, that's what we're going to do, right? Yeah, I can, I know Alex. So if, you know. Yeah. And then the other one's also on page four, which is, I think there's some just confusion about whether projects need to come, need to be permitted under chapter 195, 193, if they're getting in order conditions anyway, or if they have to comply with chapter 193, if they're getting in order conditions. And I think my understanding has always been, it's a bylaw. You have to comply with this. It doesn't mean you have to actually apply for a permit under chapter 193, but you still have to comply with it. Right? I mean, is that, is that not, it's just not clear in this, in this particular, but the section of 193.4b of the bylaw.
Yeah. Because it says exempt from obtaining a permit doesn't mean you don't have to comply with it. Right? I would assume, yes, because you fall, you don't fall within, you don't need a permit. I mean, you can't, you can go hog wild and do whatever you want. You still have to comply with everything else. You still have to have a permit. Yeah. I'm assuming it's what. Yes. I think I was going to add to this. Is it worth adding a clarifying sentence? I mean, we're saying that like for, you know, for projects that are, you know, partially or they're getting the 194, they're exempt. But they must still comply with the standards. And that's what we added. It says documentation of compliance with the bylaw and these regulations is required and will be specified in the order conditions. And again, Alex has a comment in here again that he thinks it's entirely exempt from a permit and associated design standards. We definitely don't want people exempt from it. They just don't have to do a separate application process, right? It's just the administrative piece they don't need to do. But they need to comply and it'll be part of our review and approval and part of the order of conditions. That's. We're saving them a hundred bucks for the application process, right? You're saving me work for writing two permits, too. So, yep. Okay. So, I think we're all in agreement there. So, we think the language is clear?
I think I should do this without changes shown because it's hard for me to find.
There's a marked up version and a non-marked up version. Yeah, on the website. So, but I'm often referring to his comments, which are labeled like AW6, AW5. So, it might be somewhat easier to keep that on. So, we're in B2 of accessibility. Yeah. For projects partially subject to the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Department. A separate filing isn't required. The order of conditions may serve.
Okay. Okay. All right. It is not like the most clear sentence. It does say what it's saying, but it's not the most clearest I have ever read in my life. No, and the problem is that's in the bylaw. That's not in the right. That's actually in the bylaw. It says that. And so, now we're trying to interpret that in the regulations.
Yeah. So, we're all on the same page. It was intent was still to comply. We're saving you time and headache and a little bit of money of going through us. And I, I, I, his comment about not sure what this means when we're talking about partially. There's, you know, many projects that we deal with. There's only a portion of the project that's in the wetland jurisdiction and the other, like, like Coptic Church, for example. You know, so, you know, we still, we still want them to comply with the bylaw. Nothing's really partially subject, right? You're either in, within 200 feet and or within, yeah. Could I, so we're saying that they have to provide the information required in Section 5. But just to, like, could, I, I could see a layperson interpreting that as, I have to give them the analyses, but not realize that, that they also have to hold to the same standards. And I know that providing the analyses showing that you're fitting these requirements is it. But I could see somebody who's not familiar with this, especially for a minor thing, just thinking they have to submit some, like, information on the analyses, not realizing that they need to, like, if we even just said something like include the information and meet standards required in Section 5 minor projects. But I totally defer to, like, Luke and other people who are more experienced with writing all of this stuff. Yeah, I think that's, I think what you say makes sense, Shannon. I mean, it's, it's just putting a very fine point on it. And it's taking away the ability for somebody to argue, well, your regulations say I had to give you the information, but it doesn't actually have to meet your standards, which, you know, I think common sense-wise seems silly, but I'm with you. Like, why not just be clear? And it's adding two words. So I think that makes sense. Just, you know. Is anybody good with that? Just what you suggested, the information and standards. Okay. And where was that, where would you put that in again? Show me exactly what sentence that you're talking about. Sure. So in Section, Shannon, if you, if we're talking about different things, please do. But I think we're talking about B1-2.
In the final sentence, you see where the word required was inserted there? Information required? Yes. So before required, just say information and standards required. Okay. Is that, Shannon, are we talking about the same thing? Yeah, exactly. All right. No, that's fine. That's a good add.
Okay. Rolling right along. Next.
Page eight. There's a question about including a butter list on that.
I mean, these, again, are not hearings. They are meetings, right? And, again, I, we've never asked for a butter list before for, for stormwater permits. And that was one of Alex's comments was that maybe we should start asking for butter lists. And there's no requirement in the bylaw of who is actually, it's one thing to submit a list. It's another thing to ask for a butter notification. And, you know, that, that, again, should not fall on the, the, you know, the, the office to do that, the department here. And yet there's really no requirement. And it's not really laid out at all. So I, I just assume not do a butter. Can I jump in here and ask you a question? We're, we're jumping over a whole bunch of comments that Emily has put in here. Emily, well, we're looking at the AW comments. So if you go to AW. I see that, but are we ignoring Emily's comments? I have addressed most of those, I think. Okay. All right.
Well, she, she does make a comment here about some soils do not work.
Stormwater on page seven. I don't think we can simply say stormwater shall be infiltrated on site. I didn't, I didn't see where that was incorporated. Maybe I missed something. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah.
Well, it does say, um, oh, it said it must, it should be should. Oh, that's, that's a simple, that's a simple fix. Okay.
So, sorry. So, Linda, you were saying you are not in favor of a butter notifications. No. We don't do that for formal determinations, which are public meetings.
Yeah. That's a dividing line between a hearing and a meeting, you know, whether or not you do, you require butter lists. I don't know. Well, yeah, I'm, I sort of see this one both ways. I guess I, I generally like the idea of a butter's getting notice. I think it just, uh, can help to avoid problems down the line. But, right, I had no idea. I can't believe you approved this. I never even knew this was happening. And now it's approved in all this construction equipment's in my backyard. We've certainly. But I take your point about not wanting to create, you know, unnecessary administrative. Wouldn't they. I guess that's the question. Is it an unnecessary. Wouldn't they need to be alerted based on getting a building permit or doing all the rest of the stuff that's associated with this? Well, building permits aren't a butter notices. It's only would be if they went through site plan review or zoning that they would be notified. So that would be for the larger projects. You know, I think they would get notified through that. But, um, I mean, this would only be for major projects anyway, you know, the notice. So, so that the butters would get the notice through some other, other means than basically. Potentially. Projects. I think. And for minor projects, it's not a big deal. I think maybe, maybe not is the answer, Cliff, right? Like if, if it's a major project that needs an order of conditions, yes, they're going to get notice. Right. If it's a major project that's outside of wetlands jurisdiction. Well, basically there's. Doesn't need any zoning. There's no part of wayland that's outside of wetlands jurisdiction. Fair enough. Just, just, just pointing out that it's, it's not. That's kind of the point I was getting at, I suppose, is there's, there's no guarantee. Is all I'm saying. So it's, I think that's the question here for the commission is, are we comfortable with the possibility that what qualifies as a major project could come in front of us without a butters being notified? So I do sort of share your ambivalence, Luke, because it, it is something that potentially affects them. Like if one neighbor clear cuts their property, anyone downstream of them is going to have a major change potentially in their hydrology. Um, so they, I wonder if they could put, like, I don't know. I'm sort of thinking of it. I mean, here's, oh, sorry, go ahead, Sean. No, please look good. I was just going to say, I mean, here's another thing to keep in mind, right? If they're coming in front of us for a permit, even if there is no requirement that they notify a butters, if it's a project that's apparent to the commission, you know, is, is, you know, they're clear cutting hard up to the property line or whatever. It's a question we could ask. Have you talked to your neighbors about this? Are they aware? You know, we could sort of put that to them. Um, it's just that there won't be a requirement that they have notified them. And some of them might very well say, I don't really care what my neighbors say. I can think of several people who've clear cut their back at lawn who truly don't care what their neighbors think. They're going to feel that way whether they have to notify them or not. Yeah. But it gives the neighbors a chance to, you know, make their voices heard. So here's what I'd say, you know, as Luke's pointed out before, nothing's ever perfect. And if I had to err on the side of where do I want to miss this swing, it would be let's require it. If it's really a big hassle and it says, hey, by the way, year in, I'm buried and trying to find out all these butter notices. It's insane. Okay. We can always, you know, adjust course. But as some of those who've been on the commission now a little bit and some of those are just coming on, you'll get a good flavor of this quick. We'll be the first thing. I can't believe you didn't tell. Well, you know, and now we got, you know, we're talking to a lawyer who's coming next to one saying, let's not, let's just make sure that's required for a major one. Hopefully the gate to what becomes a major versus minor is pretty easy and it's not a big deal. But I'm kind of with Luke on it. Let's not open that can of worms if we don't have to. And if, again, it's a major, major issue for workflow, we can always adjust sale there. That would be my thought. And this would be for major permits, not minor. It's just major. I mean, we can put it on the applicant to do the butter notices too. Yeah, do that, Linda. Just do that. Yeah, that's what I, that's what everyone has, that's what I had to do for my bill. I had to go and do that. So. Yeah. Definitely it should not be Linda notifying any of butters. Right.
That's the way it was done for many years here before I started. So, Commissioner, are we all going with that? Kind of make that change? Yeah. Okay. Shannon was adding trees, not taking them down. And I still told you. When I took it on the Norways, I was like, listen, I know this looks crazy and extreme. I promise more is coming. I have full trust.
Page nine, Linda, is that the next one? Oh, yes. Moving on. Page nine. He just suggested rearranging that section so it's more logical as opposed to discussing, you know, peer review last and as opposed to maybe first. So that's an easy fix to, you know, just to rearrange that section. As long as you guys are okay with his particular changes in here. So, yeah. I was okay with it. Yeah. I think it makes sense. Okay. Next one was page 10.
Another simple fix for just adding a time period. Pretty easy one. I'm missing his comment here. On the second paragraph on page nine under B. He says this meeting will be with 21 days of receipt of applicant. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And he says this section needs to be reworked. Do we rework that?
Yeah, well, that's what he was asking about, kind of rearranging that whole section so it's more logical. You know, you do a completeness check before you hold a meeting, right? And so I think that's what he's talking about, is that it's not in the right order. And I think that's, like I said, I don't think that should be that hard. I mean, his question about when will the public hearing be open, I mean, we addressed that. It said the meeting will be open within 21 days of receipt. So is that what he's actually asking on the page 10 then? I mean, that's the same thing, right? Yeah. Need to add a time period for holding a public meeting after receipt of application. Again, simple fix. So, yeah, it's the same thing. It's right here on the previous page. Did he just rework it already? Is that what this is? This meeting will be within 21 days of receipt. Yeah. So rework the order from before, and we're good to go. Okay. So we just skipped that comment. Okay. Yeah. The call-out's there. We already called it out. And again, Luke, feel free to, like, throw a tomato at me if I'm misrepresenting something. I think that didn't win. Right? Well, I think that's right. I think maybe he just kind of missed it, which is easy enough to do in a document. It's just size. But I agree with Linda. I mean, that's the way I read this. We've already addressed that.
Page 22, determine what trees require protection. You can sit in a certain distance. You got that on, Linda? Yeah, I mean, you know, he was, he makes it, the way it's written, it makes it sound that they have to protect every single tree on the property, even if they are 100 feet away from the, you know, from the actual noise. So, I think what he's asking for is how many trees do you fence off with construction fencing, you know, so that some heavy equipment won't back into them or run over the critical root zone. And I think we could just say from anything from, like, what, 50 feet from the, from the erosion control or something, or from the limit of work. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. I think we're out of bounds here. It says trees can be an important tool for retention and retention and detention of stormwater runoff. Yep.
Stormwater runoff is a surface phenomenon. The trees deal with water that's infiltrated into the ground, and it's not stormwater runoff. Well, so, pardon me, so it's mitigating the runoff, so when water's sheathing, A, the tree stops the sheathing, slows it down, and then absorbs it, right? So, even if these hypothetical sponges work under the ground, it's still running. To the extent that it blocks the sheathing, yeah, fine. Yep. But you, you can put in a, you know, any old thing, you don't need a tree to do that. Where are you reading that, Cliff? What's that? Where are you reading that? On page 21. Oh, 21. Okay, I'm sorry. Number 8, where it says tree protection and preservation. The first, the first sentence there, it says trees can be an important tool for retention and detention of stormwater runoff.
We're on page 21? On page 21. No, no, it's not under 8. The first sentence under 8. Under 8. Is that not on, it's on page 21 on the document I'm reading. Oh, 22 on mine. Okay, well. 20 on mine. The first. I don't know. I have two of them open. I don't know yet. The first thing under number 8, tree protection and preservation. Yeah, this is widely acknowledged, I believe. Well, it's widely acknowledged, but it's not in the scope of the bylaw.
And that, that's my point.
I'm trying to find out where this is. So it's right under, it's literally the first sentence under 8.0. The first sentence of number 8. I mean. It's on 22 on the version I'm working at. So, yeah, I guess I don't, I'm not a scientist, Cliff, but I disagree with you, I think. This is not science. This is just the definition of stormwater runoff. It's water on the surface. And that's defined in the bylaw. Right. Once it gets absorbed, that's the whole point of the mitigation of stormwater is to get the water to go into the ground. Right, but Cliff, my understanding is trees help that to happen. So what? I mean, once the water is in the ground, it's not stormwater runoff.
Right, but it's more likely to go, but Cliff, I think it's more likely to go with the ground. We should take all the soil out and we should put sand in because the sand helps the water run into the ground. I mean, it's the same logic. So, I guess we could just change the word from runoff to discharge? No, I'm just using the definition in the bylaw that says stormwater is surface water. I think, so I'll just, final thought. I mean, it's my understanding that having trees, it will actually reduce that surface runoff because it will absorb the water and help to sort of draw water down. Yeah, there's no question about that. I don't think it's worth. It's not stormwater after the tree does that, and it's not under the auspices of the bylaw. I understand you. I'm just, I don't, I don't know that I need to debate this anymore. I disagree. I, I'm just going to leave it at that. I, maybe we can agree to disagree on that one. So, yeah, I, I disagree as well because, yeah, I'm with you, Luke.
So, Cliff, I guess, are you saying that sentence, you don't, the issue is you don't think that us saying that helps? Or we'd say out of bounds. You can say that for something, a legally issue? Legal issue? Well, I mean, the issue here, and it's been brought up a number of times, we really should have a separate tree bylaw if we want to regulate and do something about trees. It's, it's not really within the scope of the stormwater bylaw to do that. It, it's a real stretch. Well, we've been doing it for quite a while now. It doesn't, it doesn't matter if you've been doing it wrong for quite a while. Other towns have it, like Dover, they have it within their stormwater management system too. And I think if we take these tree protections out and we don't have an approved tree bylaw, then, then it's a pretty trouble. Yeah, but the title of this, you can't do it just because we want to, we have to follow the bylaw. But land disturbance is part of the bylaw. It's not in the bylaw. Land disturbance is part of the bylaw. Well, I mean, you could say land disturbance is a little child running across the ground. Well, yeah, so here, I mean, so yeah, but that's not how we've established it. So, so, so, so here I say, so could there be a time down, down the road where we have a more robust tree bylaw? Sure. But for now, I think we are, we're okay. Making that, making that case legally, environmentally or otherwise. And so, I guess, if, I guess if your, if your point is, hey, we could be open up to some issue because we're, we're getting ahead of our skis and how we're defining or using 193. I think we're certainly all, you don't have to, but I think we're all well, well, okay with, with kind of going that route for now, for sure. That makes sense. I'm also less concerned because there was no comment made by, by KP Law regarding that. And so, um, right. And our very own lawyer is like, like Luke, you're sort of, yeah. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's pretty well accepted across the Commonwealth. I don't think this is unique to Wayland at all. I think that's, there is a scientific basis for it. Again, I'm your lawyer. I'm not a scientist, but I do this stuff every day of the week. And that's my understanding. So to Sean's point, I'm totally comfortable. I think this is perfectly defensible clip. I understand what you're saying. I respectfully disagree. Okay. We'll disagree. That's all. Yeah, that's fine. We can do that. Um, okay. So page 28, 28 or seven, the regulations are, um, yeah. Non-criminal disposition. It's definitely not called out in the bylaw and we handle it differently. I think I gave you guys examples of how it's written in the chapter one 93 and how it's written in the chapter one 94. And we can utilize that same language, just cut and paste it. But, um, I don't think we should be, we should be labeling this as D non-criminal disposition. What do you think, Luke? Yeah. Sorry. I'm just trying to get there. I lost, I was looking at something else. I lost the email. Um, oh, sorry. No, no, no problem. We're on, sorry. So we're on page 28. 28. Yeah. Share with me for once. What's the section, just since we have different page numbers? I think it's under enforcement 12. Yep. I got it. I'm there. Okay. Um, the second for you. Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay. So, yeah. So what, sorry. So he, so I see, I take Alex's point. I tend to agree with him. Yeah. Before we get there, I have another concern on, on section eight, where it talks about a tree bank. Do we have a tree bank?
The last, the last paragraph in section eight.
I'm assuming that too.
And to me, the whole last, the whole last paragraph there is completely capricious.
Right. Currently, we do not have a tree bank. We need a revolving fund to do that. Um, and again, you know, it's like, it's like putting the cart before the horse here, I guess. Um, can we just add a parentheses that say can pay into the tree bank, comma, when established? Or is that just too vague? I saw something. I think it was the town of Dover that said it was the tree bank. But if, I think they were probably, I'm assuming they went through a similar process, but it could be paid into the general fund in the meantime, something like that. I can look up that language. Um, but I think there was a caveat there and I need to do a little more research to see, you know, if they have the tree fund now. I'd be comfortable with saying like when established. Yeah, and I've, I've seen that done, um, you know, in other regulations and agreements and that sort of thing. So I don't, I think that's in bounds. Another question on that part. Do we have some basis on the, the two to one ratio for, uh, diameter breast height? Or is that just something we made up? A lot of towns have that ratio. We, we, we, we've been doing it for, for what, for months, uh, on other towns and kind of baking it with other, yeah. We even pulled that out of nowhere. We've even, I believe this is actually softer than some towns. So. Yeah. We brought it down. It was higher.
Okay. Now, if someone does a 194 application, do they, and they present a, under 193, a stormwater mitigation and they still have to cut down trees, I mean, to me, and tell me if I'm wrong, if they've shown that the stormwater doesn't run off of their property, they're not subject to this requirement. But this, this is all about tree removal though.
Well, if, if the stormwater doesn't leave the property and you're just saying, oh, you, you, you got these trees removed here. It's clearly not under the auspices of this bylaw. The bylaw is stormwater. Stormwater and land disturbance. Oh, stormwater and land disturbance. Yeah. It's not just the word stormwater. The word's land disturbance. If you cut down a tree, it's not disturbing the land. It's only when you get into the roots that's disturbing the land.
Oh, no, no, no. You can do wind erosion. There's a lot of things. So again, this is like common law, but wind erosion, you're doing a lot more than just, just below the ground. Yeah.
Back to 28. Are we done with that one? Which one? What page did we get to? Page 28. 28, non-criminal disposition.
Like I said in the email, this is not the language we used in the bylaw. The language in the bylaw says the authorized agent shall enforce this chapter, blah, blah, blah, regulations. What section, Linda? 12. Whoa. Um, D, 12, D. Luke, you think it should change what the attorney said? Well, so I guess that's what I was just trying to pull up the bylaw. So I'm a little, if I'm, it seems like Alex is saying we can't go the non-criminal route if it's not authorized in the bylaw. But I, Linda, are you saying it is in the bylaw? Well, I gave you the language in the email that says the authorized enforcement agent shall enforce this chapter regulation, order, violation, and enforcement orders and may pursue all civil, comma, non-criminal and criminal remedies for such violations. Yep. So that, that seems like it is in the bylaw. Right. Um, the only thing I could think of that he might be getting at is that if we don't specifically call out the state statute, 21D, which allows for that, maybe that's what he means. If we're not, you know, explicitly calling that out, then maybe we can't, that, because then we do, you know, in the next, obviously in the regs, we are calling that out. So I mean, is that, I, that's, I guess that's the only thing I, I can think of that Alex is driving at, like, and I think he's probably right about that, that the authority to impose fines under 21D would have to come from the bylaw. We can't generate that in the regs. So should I just cut and paste the same language that we have in the bylaw into these regs and then put the same violations, the, the penalties on here, just, just delete that whole paragraph where it says as an alternate to criminal prosecution or civil action. Sure. Yeah. I mean, look, as a practical matter, enforcing those fines might be problematic if we don't have authority under 21D. Um, but that doesn't mean we can't levy the fines and do our damnedest to get them paid. Yeah. I mean, for me, that's the ultimate last result to do fines anyway. So. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, basically 21D then, you know, you go a step further and you're, I'm dealing with this right now. As a matter of fact, you have to file everything. You're giving it to the violator. You're filing with the court. You have to request hearings in court. You go to court and you try to get this fine. So it's, if we're talking about administrative burdens, it creates a significant administrative burden. So, um, I think what you suggested, Linda, is, is I should do the trick here. Um, address Alex's comment and still give us some, some teeth. Okay. Okay. Thanks Luke. Uh, and then page last one, which would be good. Page 29. Agree that all products require COC. Yeah.
I mean, it's rare that we ever get one request anyway, but, um, at least for large projects, we definitely need that. I want to, I know we always ask for an as-built. Of course. For major projects. So if you're going to get submitted as an as-built, then submit a closure document at the same time. We can close out on this. So. Yep.
We agree. Okay. Commission, any other, we just bang through all the last minute things from the attorney and they give us a green light. So I mean, we kind of tie these in a knot. Any other questions or thoughts on these? Uh, I, I have to say I'm still very uncomfortable with the trees. Every person in this town lives in a, a building of some kind. There were trees there that were cut down to make that. What we're doing is penalizing people who have not yet done that. Why don't we just go back and say, oh, all you people that have done that, put the trees back, tear down your house and put the trees back. I mean, you're just being totally unfair to, to, to, to, to new and old. I mean, this is going to make such a burden on trying to have auxiliary housing. The burden is actually less than what we're doing now. Right. So we're, we're codifying what we already do. I mean, to me, it doesn't, it doesn't matter whether it's less or more than what you're doing now. It's still, it's still, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's just not right. I think that, that, that all the people who have already cut down the trees get a free pass, but the people that have not don't. What can be said that we've learned and we've learned the damage that can do. And now we're all trying to do better. We've learned that. So Shannon, take your house and tear it down and put the trees back because we learned that that's the case. Well, you know what, Cliff, I've actually planted over 130 trees here. Guys, I'm not getting, we're not going to get personal work. I don't hear it. Make it real quick. Cliff, we're doing nothing different than any other concom. In fact, quite less. So this is our job as concom, right? So we're doing far less than some of our neighbors. Frankly, I think we should go farther. We ask me personally, I think we're, we're laying off that. And so that's, you know, and we've been doing this now for the last couple of years, getting to this point with all feedback and we're not pulling anything out of it. Out of our rear end, we've researched this to death, commented this on to death. This is literally what, you know, our, our, our task is, our, our, our piece. So that's kind of our job here. And keep in mind, we are allowing six trees to be removed without a permit. Okay. That's, that's a quite, that's quite a lot of trees already, you know, for, especially for all these small lots. So it's quite a lot of trees. If you live on a quarter acre lot and you have one tree, that's really an ornament. You're right. But Wayland is, is, is a town that has a lot of trees and a lot of mature forest. And that's why people move here. Right. Yeah. I keep it that way. And there's one way and taking, you know, there's a reason that other places have lost their trees. They didn't protect them. But, right.
Okay. Commission. Any other thoughts on our, our legal, getting our house in order there before we officially take a vote to adopt or not? I had, I did have a couple of thoughts and they were related, but I will say I drafted them last, last meeting. So I'm not a hundred thousand percent sure they haven't been addressed, but I will say that at one point when we were talking about the replacement and on mine, it says 11 of 39, but God knows what page it is in this version, the replacement and replanting of trees or vegetation as required shall be done within 180 days of vegetation removal unless seasonal restrictions prohibit planting or landscape stock for the approved planting plan is not available. And I don't, I wouldn't want there to be some easy out if someone deliberately is selecting extremely uncommon species and then saying, well, I couldn't find them, so I'm not planting anything. So, you know, I don't know if it would be worth, and I, and I would abide by Luke and Linda on this, suggesting that there be some list of alternatives available to the agent if, um, the selected trees are not available. Like if, you know, they can't find some, I can't think of great examples, but you, you follow my meaning. Maybe, you know, I'm thinking, Shannon, I wonder if that's just something that we deal with more on a case by case basis, right? So if a project comes in front of us and we see their planting plan and the list of trees to go in, you know, sort of sets off a little bit of an alarm, like that would be great if those are all available, but, you know, we're skeptical that they will be, we can just build in a condition to say, you know, if you can't use these trees, you can use, you know, these or, you know, just give them an alternative, um, to sort of, I think that would kind of protect us against this and, and protect against what you're worried about there. I, it's maybe not as explicit as sticking it in here, but it, it would be where, you know, it's a way we could sort of get around that type of a situation. Yeah. Okay. I'm fine with that. And then my only other thing was, um, the replacement and replanting plan to compensate removal of trees. Is that just applying to major projects or, or minor or both? Both. Okay, good. I, I think that's my main thing. I did also think it was a great idea to tie long-term pollution prevention plans to the deed. Um, those are my main things. Okay. Anybody else?
All right. So with that, I'm looking for a motion. Someone is so inclined for the approval. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Before we do that, we're, we're modifying this set of regulations and we're not planning to hold a public hearing on the modified version. We have to have a public hearing on this. We are, we are, we are held public comment. What was we, what was that? That was on a different set of regulations. That was a different, a whole different, you know, disagree. No, I don't think so. Right. I mean, what we're talking about tonight, I would characterize as kind of like, I mean, it's, you know, basically Scribner error type corrections, almost pretty minor stuff. I don't think this rises to the level of requiring an entirely new public hearing. I disagree. Okay. We can disagree. Can I raise one more point? I don't think I, and this could be out of our purview and Luke just shut me down. If it is this, I didn't remember seeing specification on native trees. Um, so is there, are we potentially running into a situation? Someone takes down 30 mature sugar maples and replaces them with Kusa dogwood and green giants and Japanese cherry.
I mean, we always want native trees. Okay. That's more conservation, right? So, I mean, we still get to improve the planting plan. It's not that we're going to, you know, just let them put anything in they want. Right. Okay. Right. I think that's just all I wanted to make sure of.
Okay. Anybody else?
Okay. The motion should include all, you know, all the changes that we discussed tonight will be incorporated into this, into this version. Correct. So I'd like to make that motion.
Or I'll give it a shot. Uh, I move that the commission, sorry, just bear with me for one sec here. Um, I move that the commission vote to adopt the chapter 193 stormwater and land disturbance bylaw regulations, uh, including the minor revisions discussed this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. I think I heard Shannon in the seconds. Quick roll call, please. Uh, Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. No. Sean Ferzi. Yes. Thank you, folks.
Okay. Uh, 3B, 108 Lakeshore Drive, DEP file number 322-1042 is a continued notice of intent filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Wetland Protection Act submitted by Melissa Haley for the prior unpermitted renovation work and completion of said work at 108 Lakeshore Drive in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is within 100 feet of a deadly pond. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 46B Parcel 35. Linda. I believe I saw Doug Dillon and the homeowner on as a participant, if they want to join and give us an update. Hello. You said Dillon, wetland scientist with Goddard Consulting, and that is exactly right. We have Melissa Haley, the homeowner of 108 Lakeshore. Um, so, uh, Sean, I, if I recall, I don't think you were at the prior hearing, um, so just to kind of bring you up to speed, we, you know, are just kind of looking to establish kind of a baseline, kind of ground, kind of level overview. Um, and so, Melissa Haley is kind enough to attend, and if you are on, Melissa, if you kind of want to run through things and describe, kind of, uh, uh, things from square one, kind of from the homeowner perspective briefly, that would be wonderful. You said you were looking for, for Melissa to say that, Doug? Yup. Yeah, she is. I see you, Melissa, if you're, you're on mute, if you're, if you're speaking.
Sorry, I'm here. Oh, there you go. Sorry, but I just joined. I don't know what.
Oh, uh, Melissa, if you just want to kind of just run through just like square one, kind of, you know, from the homeowner perspective, just, you know, like summer of, uh, or December of, uh, 23, just kind of, you know, the, the project prior to the enforcement order, just so we can kind of get a baseline to start our discussion. Okay, sure. Before we do that, is there something in our packet that we should be looking at? I can, uh, screen share the plans if that would be helpful. Um, he's, this is for an older notice of intent. Um, so there, there's no additional submitted materials at the time.
I think it probably would be helpful. Um, is what you're sharing, Jug, what was in, um, the last meetings materials?
I'm assuming, yeah.
Well, if I could start it off a little bit. I mean, I think we do have some hard decisions to make. There was a lot of work done in the 30 foot no disturb that wasn't permitted and wasn't, um, uh, approved. And I think we, the commission really needs to, um, uh, take a look at this and find out if there's some ways that, um, we can mitigate for the work that is in the 30 foot or the, even the 15, I mean. Um, and so that's, that's one reason why I requested that the homeowner come on because there, there's gotta be a little bit of give and take here and we have to just, and, and something that I think requires, requires a discussion, you know, from between all of us and so. Is this, uh, visible? Yes. You guys? What's green here? Thank you. Yep. That's good. Okay.
Um, Melissa, I guess just describe, I guess the kind of prior. Sure. Condition of the property. I mean, when I bought the property and I mean, let me know if I'm saying things that aren't right, but when I bought the property in 2021, I renovated the house completely, but maintained the footprint exactly as it was. So the house, um, when underwent a complete renovation, but within the existing, um, walls. So nothing on that was. The detached office space has not been added since then. That was there. No, that was already there. It was apparently a chicken coop.
And it's, but it was, it was cement walls. Um, and so all I did there, it would already had electricity. It already had a footing, all that stuff. So that's all exactly the same square footage as it was before. I just, um, it was collapsing. And so I shored it up. Um, it already had electricity. So yeah, I don't, I don't. You replaced a chicken coop with, with a structure. Okay. Yeah, exactly. But it was, it was already cinder block and cement and all those things. I mean, they called it the chicken coop, but it was basically this bizarre shed that was built into it. And this thing comes out of the slot. It automatically changes back to the other one. Sorry.
Oh, my apologies. I was off mute inadvertently. Okay. Um, yeah. So when I bought the property, it was in really bad shape. Um, so I renovated the house completely. The yard was a mess. Um, it was just, you know, where you can see, I'm sorry, I can't point, but where it says patio area, kind of on the right at the top, that was pavers that were under a foot of dirt that would just had weeds all over them where it says patio below living space above. It was broken up concrete. Again, it, you know, it looked like it was green, but it was concrete and then underneath it. So you can kind of see, so where it's green by where that staircase was, there's actually pavers under there. They just had sort of sunk into the ground. Um, and everything I should say. So that's the, that's also the, the chicken coop slash barn thing that was already there. Um, this is a before or an after. This is the before. Oh yeah. This is the before. I wouldn't want to live in it now like that. Um, and the staircase is not mine. So everything from the staircase, um, I guess, to the right of the property is not my property. Um, so it's just where the shed is. And then you can kind of see, um, you know, I'm right on the water. So there already is an overhang that almost leads directly into the water. And then I have a retaining wall, which is crumbling. And so that's part of what I would have not done yet. But what I would like to do is repair the retaining wall or sea wall that goes into the water because it's just, it's, there's erosion and it's collapsing into the water there. But I haven't touched that because I knew I'd need permission for that. Um, so I don't know. So, I mean, the other thing you can see is that we're dealing with very little land. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's a really tiny property and most of the property is the house. I do own land that goes up on a hill above it, you know, between Lake Shore and Sycamore, but it's very, very steep. So I think it's very difficult to do. I can do plantings there, but it would have to be, you know, bushes and things. It would, I wouldn't be able to do big trees because they would just fall over. The, the covered parking area, is that new? So that was already paved. Um, so yeah. So I did put in like a pergola type thing, um, over the parking. Um, but it was already paved over there and it had a retaining wall there too into the hillside. Isn't it? Uh, what about the wooden deck over on the slide? Wait, wait one second. So that, that is, that is new. It was again, like kind of broken up concrete and things covered in weeds and brush. Hey, one second. Stop. I have two cats, two kittens. They're going crazy. Um, but it was broken up concrete and you can kind of see, and again, it looks green, but it, it was, there was stuff underneath it. So what my contractor did was dig that all out. We put in a bunch of, um, crushed stone underneath so that it would drain. And then he put in the decking on top so that when the water, at least from that side came down the hill, it wouldn't, it, I'm pointing, but it like filters through the rocks that are underneath the decking before it goes into the pond. And this is the before picture also. This is again, yeah. Okay.
Um, yeah. So I don't, I don't know what else you want to know, but again, I think, you know, part of the problem is I just don't have so much space to work with. I mean, I would love to put in whatever you want to make it better with native plants or anything, but I'm working with like, you know, I can barely fit like a sofa or, you know, like an outdoor sofa or a chair or anything I can, you know, there's no place to put in trees or anything because, okay. So you can see where that giant pine tree is. That's not my property. That's my neighbor's.
Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead, Doug. I just wanted to, yeah. Like just the actual like workable, I think I said, you know, probably two or three times prior meetings, but just for everyone's reference, it's like 2,500 square feet. And, you know, nearly half of that is occupied just by the roof, like footprint of the house. And I just, it's exactly right. It really is a very, very small lot. I just wanted to throw that out there. Yeah. And I guess you can see like where it's like sort of on the left of the photo. None of that is mine. That's all my neighbors. Yeah. Because the people in Sycamore have water access, so they own their like slice of property that gives them water access down below.
Doug, let me, I understand this is a very small piece of property, at least on this side, on the pond side of the road, the other side, not so much. But has there ever been any kind of stormwater analysis? I mean, you get stormwater that comes down the hill. You've got stormwater that comes down the road. It sort of looks like this wall and things that you put in is designed to deflect the stormwater away from your living room, which I could understand. I wouldn't want it there either. But I just wondered if there's ever been any kind of analysis of the stormwater. I don't know, Doug. Have you done that? I don't know what you did. No. Well, the engineer has not done a formal stormwater analysis from, you know, the information that you've provided, Melissa, as well as, you know, just visually inspecting the site. It looks like there is, you know, the runoff does kind of want to go a certain way. But no, hydrocat has been done or anything like that, if that's what you're asking, I guess. Well, can I just chime in on what Cliff is saying, too? So you put this retaining wall in over, you know, in front of the house and it ends right on your property line. So all the stormwater that collects there is now deflected actually to your neighbor's yard. Yeah. You know, Linda, that's not really true because really where it's going right now is down to my front door. So that's part of what I need to deal with because it comes down the hill and then it funnels down my little walkway because I'm on a hill. So it funnels down and it funnels down right to my front door. So there's this massive swimming pool in front of my front door, which I obviously need to deal with. Um, and I don't know. I mean, Doug maybe has ideas like the best way to do that. Should I put in like a stone trench in front of the wall? Or I don't because it's a slope both towards the water and down the hill this way. So I don't know how to make water go that way. Water was no one's easiest path down, not, you know, but before you interrupt me, I was trying to say that I've been out there and there is a, there's quite a bit of erosion right on the backside or right at the, at the end of the, at the retaining wall. And that, that is, I mean, to the extent it does that at all, which by the way, it really does go to my front door, but to the extent it does do that, I think Doug has already said we can put in these stones, you know, that's what's in the picture here. Right. Like putting, that's not on your property. You're now working on somebody else's property. That's a mind. We shabby. And I've talked to my neighbor, Nicole, because it's a weird thing where my neighbor and I, it's some, at some point they decided to be condos. Like this was, this predated both of us. So there's like a little bit of joint property between our houses. Um, so you're saying this plan isn't accurate that that that's not the property line then? No, it is, but it isn't. Like, I think it's very confusing because like in 2012 or something, they decided to be condos. And so it's, it's two dwellings on one piece of property and it had to become condominium in order, in order to deal with the title issues. Yeah. Or something. I think it was when they built the joint seawall. Um, this is the limit of the area of exclusive use for 108 Lakeshore for you. Um, and 106 to the north of you, you know, has around. So for purposes of a notice of intent, these are our working property lines. Um, yeah, there are some, you know, like they do a shared, uh, retaining wall on the, you know, lake end of things. Um, you know, I think what the issue you're seeing on, on the seawall is the, the water's coming down at both the hills and it runs in and it erodes out the back of the seawall. Yeah. And I think part of the issue too, is that, you know, I bought the property from someone who had been living there a long time and it wasn't maintained at all generally. Like my neighbor's seawall is great and they built them at the same time. Mine is falling apart, but so was the rest of the house, right? Like it just wasn't maintained over a period of 40 years. So, so, so Linda, what, what violations are you asking us to consider? What, what's the hard decisions we need to make tonight? Well, Hey, there was no permit that was, that was issued for this, for all the work that was done on this property. And I think there's two issues here is there's a lot of work that was done without a permit within, with this whole properties within the jurisdiction, you know, this, at least where the house lot is. And, you know, there's, there's a lot of imperatives, there's wooden decks, there's patios, you know, there's pretty much no green space left from what, what you saw in those before pictures. And there has to be some discussion about how we want to, you know, provide at least some mitigation for all the work that was done. And, and work that was done in an area that we consider a no disturb and, and every, almost every single property that we permit and, and Dudley. And again, this one's unusual. I, I, you know, I agree that, you know, we require some sort of a, you know, a no disturb, you know, wetland, like buffer along the edge. And that's, that's going to be hard to do on this property. But again, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's some things I think that can be achieved, that can be accomplished here to make an improvement over exist, you know, and take away some of this impervious. But the other thing is, is, you know, there's a stormwater issue and this shouldn't be addressed by a contractor. It should be addressed by somebody who understands water and understands how to manage it. And, and, you know, that's, that's the second part of this, this, you know, if you want to put in a retaining wall and not necessarily address the water issues, it's, it's not going to be a long-term thing. You're going to have to replace it again at some point. So, you know, putting up a retaining wall to deflect the water somewhere else is just going A to your neighbor's property, which we don't allow under chapter 193. And, and, you know, and you're putting in a stone bed behind it, which I'm not sure how effective that is. Again, you know, it just needs to be done by somebody who, who has a better understanding of how to manage stormwater and how to manage runoff. Linda, do you have a recommendation? Because I thought I had hired the right people. These were specified by our project engineer. Um, uh, I guess the work, which got the enforcement order was done specifically by a contractor without an engineer. These remedies were designed by our project engineer, you know, after observing the site and observing the characteristics. Um, we do have like stone trench. We're not trying to put stormwater runoff on the neighbors. Um, it really is just such a light lot. I mean, it, it can't really go here because the, the, you can goop now office is there. That's a structure. Um, the only place it can go is around the Northern side of the structure. And that's further complicated, right? I would love to specify, you know, we, oh, we could put a dry well in, but you know, the septic system has its own offsets. Um, so we are specifying. Where's the septic? Right there in the front. Right where my, uh, icon is. That's the tank. Yeah, there's two. Those two, those two squares. Okay. And the leaching field is across the street up the hill? Potentially. Uh, yeah, like on the end of the parking area. Um, you have a, you have something that says remove asphalt within limits of property, install grass slip strip. Is that, is that referring to the retaining wall? I'm just kind of confused. No, so in front of the retaining wall, the, you know, the landscape retaining wall, um, they over paved, I guess. Right. So they essentially paved an additional 18 inches to two feet of what would be Melissa's, um, front yard in front of the retaining wall. So we would want to remove that and make that some sort of, uh, pervious purpose to, you know, remediate this water if you, and then direct that to whatever, you know, then the engineer can back to the stone, uh, trench here and ideally solve the water issues currently, uh, uh, flicking the property.
Yeah. I, I, I think this is sufficiently complicated that we, we need someone that really understands us to look at the situation. I mean, Melissa, you don't want water coming, continuing to come down your walkway into your living room. And I understand that. And that's what you got now. You gotta, you gotta deal with that water somehow. And I, I just think we need somebody that really under, cause this is a complex situation. We, we, we need someone that really understands us. And I mean, I don't, I mean, I think I'm the only engineer on, on the commission and I don't understand this. Um, I, I, I just, we need that. So, so Linda, you mentioned a couple of things. There was a couple of edits you had in the kind of Clif's point, having a third party, uh, hydro engineer, take a look at this. Um, what, other than that, what were the things you thought would be a good way to start? And then we can talk about getting a third party person to take a little look at this.
You're talking to me or to Clif? Yep. I'm talking to you, Linda. Oh, no. There were a couple of things that you'd recommend, um, other than the third party, uh, engineer looking at this, the hydro part of this, that, that, that, that would be a good place to start. What were those in your mind? Okay. I mean, we have to address this a twofold, which is, you know, there's, there's work that was done with on the 15 foot no disturb that wasn't, that wasn't permitted. And what would we have allowed if, if this had come before us and, um, you know, having some, some naturalized area, you know, some, you know, part of that 15 foot being a notice, you know, doing naturally vegetated, which is what we always ask for, I think would be a huge improvement, um, you know, over current conditions. And again, you know, addressing, you know, the runoff to, to manage that a little bit better. Cause again, if we're going to, if you're going to replace the, the, the existing retaining wall on the, on the pond, what you don't want is that to dissolve, you know, pretty quickly based on the runoff issues that you have. So that, that will happen because the runoff is going to go behind that wall and continue to erode and it's going to fall down. So, so order of operation, can we do two, two things at once? One is that work with you to figure out what we would have tried to permit, you know, work within whatever little space there is while we look for a third party, uh, engineer to kind of look through this, the hydro piece and figure out that that's something that could, that could stand on its own or is Cliff said, we need to have some changes there or does that order of operation have to, one have to follow the other, does it have to go sequentially?
It could, I mean, it could work in concert a little bit because, you know, you know, you have this entire patio area that's right up budding, abutting pretty much the, the retaining wall. So there's really no place of the water to go. And, you know, at this point there, if there's some way of, even the stuff that comes off the street, but now that you've, you know, you've pretty much put impervious right up to the retaining wall. Well, I don't know if that's a good thing or not, you know, again, an engineer would be able to answer that. So, yeah. So, I mean, just from living here, I will say, so where it says patio area and then there's the retaining wall. I did leave a space of maybe a foot where it's rocks. So all along between the retaining wall and the edge of my property, there's a foot where it's just rocks. And I would say most of the water when it comes down because of the shed thingy goes where the staircase is, which again is not my property. So none of that is paved or anything because that's just the, the neighbor's wild area that hasn't been maintained at all. So, you know, in terms of actually where the water goes, it typically goes down where you see the staircase thing.
But so one of my other questions, Linda, is, so I think it, I mean, I'm happy to do whatever you guys want, but it's going to be very difficult to get plantings very close to the water. There's just not very much space, but I do have where it says plant area in the front, you know, where those two rectangles are and like where we've shown the stones, all of that right now is just ground cover and random bushes and things, whatever plants you want me to put there, I'm happy to put there. And also I do have all the land up the hill. So if what you want me to do to remediate is to put in a bunch of native plants all the way up the hill, I'm happy to do that too. I think that's probably a heck of a lot easier than trying to squish everything in right by the water. Yeah.
Most of the water that you see, does it come down the road or down the hill? It comes down the hill. It comes a little bit down the road if it's really raining, because like I said, it slopes two ways, down this way, you know, down the road this way and down the hill. But if there could be some way to terrace the hill or something so that it doesn't, because when it's a big rain, it shoots down the hill. And that's nothing I've done. That's just nature. But if you could eliminate some of that. If I could divert it or put in a stone, I don't even know what they're called, but like catch basin or whatever, like on the hill, that would help a lot. Because it's when it's, the issue with my front door turning into a swimming pool is when it's really, really raining. And that's when it shoots down as if it's coming from a spigot. I mean, it's crazy. So Linda, what would you like to see happen tonight to move this forward? Well, I think I'd like to see, you know, some decision by the Conservation Commission, what they would like to see, you know, if they want a memorial, if something along the ponds, you know, that some native or natural planting area along there, if they want to just make some, you know, some effort to naturalize that a little bit, or if the focus is going to be, you know, on the uphill section or in the front of the house. I mean, that's, that's, you know, I think that's up to the commission to come up with a solution, you know, what they would, what they would consider acceptable for the, in this situation. And you'd like us to do that before we talk to a third party engineer about the, with the water. Well, the water, yeah, I mean, that's, that is kind of a separate issue, but I mean, if they're going to, if they're going to make some changes to the plans, it should, I think both of those, those concerns should be addressed. Okay. All right. So commission, we got, we got kind of our, our charge. Let's speak openly real quick about the first part of, of Linda's piece, which is what would we have allowed had it gone before us beforehand and what can we do now that we're sitting here?
Thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, and tuition. I mean, I will say it, you know, it's, it's kind of a bummer to see that a lot of the work has involved removing green space and some of the proposed remediation and who involves removing, you know, yet even more like the removal of all vegetation for stone garden. Um, and like, I feel like, one second, that the guard, the stone part is just for water filtering through to the pond. So we could put dirt on top of that and put plants on it. If you want, that's, that was just trying to respond to Linda, where she said, you need something to make the water go through stones before it goes to the pond. Okay. That's all I want, particularly. Yeah, but also like the, you know, like Linda says, there's typically a vegetated buffer, typically a 15 foot no disturb, and those have been pretty much eradicated, but the patio area, that green space below the deck and the wooden deck, all eradicate that. And, you know, I guess it, I wonder if we were looking at this before in the pre conditions, and we were looking to permit this, if, if we would have been seeking some native vegetative buffer in those areas instead of what has happened there. So I put, I guess I put that to the other commissioners. Like, is that something we would have really been, been looking to see installed instead of what, what has been? We always ask for an average, at least an average of 15 feet to protect along the, the water. And if you can't give us that in one place, you can make the equivalent someplace else, like shrinking that patio and giving us more space there. I'm only laughing because the patio, I mean, if you, you can't even fit a queen size bed on it. Like my house is, my property is so small, but I, but sorry, go ahead. I mean, it's, you don't have 15 feet there.
I want to add like 15 feet from the water's edge would be about right here. And there was green space there and there was green space, you know, it was pavers underneath it. It only looks green because it had sunk into the water and dirt had come onto, I mean, when we dug it up, it was pavers underneath there. It wasn't like, you can kind of see like the grass is growing over it. Like, but anyway, I, again, like just. Is pavers underneath this green? Yes. We reused it. Why did you put soil on top of the. I didn't. I think it was a woman who had been, I mean, she died in the house. I mean, she, you know, she had been, she didn't maintain anything and including the yard. And so it was, it was a big mess when I moved in. What, I mean, what happens here is the water comes down, the storm water comes down and with it comes some dirt and the dirt settles on top of the pavers and then it runs into the pond. So the dirt just, you know, built up over many years and then the green grew on top of the dirt. The dirt is there because of the storm water coming down. That dirt may have been doing a little something to capture and soak up a little water. And, and me, and it's, I don't know, like as a commission, would we have said like, instead of, you know, creating patios and, you know, all along. So just one other thing I want to say is the patio now they're spacing in between each paver. So it's not completely. Get rid of the pavers. I mean, I can't, what do you want me to put there? I mean, I can put grass, but I don't, I don't, I'm completely all electric. I have no fossil fuels. I don't want to buy a lawnmower. So I don't want to put grass in there, but I need some usable property. Like I'm on the pond. I want to be able to be by the pond. And so, I mean, if it's not grass, I don't know what, I don't know what it would be in order to still be usable because it really is tiny. I mean, when I said, I can't fit this queen size bed there. I'm not lying. Like it's tiny, tiny, tiny. And, you know, so that's why I'm saying, why can't we do this on top of the hill or in my front yard, which by the way, my front yard is not far from the pond. My front yard is like 20 feet from the pond or, you know, it's not.
We always ask everybody to abide by the same rules and regulations that we enforce, you know, throughout the town. And I mean, you, you purchase this, this is what you got. You know, you got a tiny, tiny little yard and, and, you know, converting it all to impervious is not, it's really not something I don't think we would have ever allowed. Yeah, but I do convert it all to impervious. The whole front yard is not impervious. No, I'm talking about the backyard in the area that we call the 15 foot, no disturb, you know, and that's, you know, we're just looking for some, you don't let us finish. Okay. Would you, we're just looking for an improvement over existing conditions and allow, and, and, and, you know, provide some sort of a vegetative buffer in there. I'm not saying that you have to rip everything out. I'm not saying that at all, but I mean, show us to, you know, we're just, we're looking for something that, that, that provides, you know, some improvement over the existing condition that you, that you created. And I don't think we would have ever permitted this, you know. Yeah, I understand that. But it was in such bad shape when I got it and it was so bad. Like, it's not like I took something that was, you know, nature personified and I, you know, destroyed it. It was a disaster. But, but, but, but I guess if I get any help here, so I guess where we're missing each other, we're not saying anything about how green or not green this property is. I, I, I walked by here, so I'm well-maintained. I'm not, we're not saying that, but we are saying is there's a legal standard by which we hold other people accountable in a case that comes to mind on the Sudbury River, a woman who had inherited their old dilapidated issue where through the years they had encroached into the No Disturbed and what she thought she was getting or buying, we actually said, Hey, sorry, unfortunately that has to come out. Right. And so because she came to us beforehand in the right way, I was like, you know, she had to change into, we worked with her, you know. And so I guess what we're saying is had this come before us, what we're saying is we would have had to work with you beforehand and what we're in, what may not be what's here now, because we have to set that same standard for other kind of smaller spots on Dudley Pond. Um, and so that's, that's kind of what we're saying is, is it's, it's a standard we have to legally keep and maintain for everybody. Um, and it's really about the No Disturbed in front of the waterfront, not necessarily the upland. That makes sense. And I would say also, Linda, one of the things we had talked about was, so in, like I said before, the staircase and everything to the side is not my land. It looks like it should be my land. But so I talked with my neighbor, Cindy Turner, and she agreed that if I help remediate that land, because right now it's a disaster, it's, you know, all these invasive, invasive plants, and it's just a disaster. I could, she would agree that I could take her land and put in need of plantings there, which is right by the water. And right now it's a mess. I mean, it's, you know, it's just really a mess. So that, I mean, it wouldn't be my property where I'd be remediating. Yeah. So where it's all that green on the left-hand side. I mean, that, that would be a great idea to me. And it would seem that the first step, rather than what we can permit now, or what we would have permitted, is let's look at the whole picture of where we got now. Let's look at the stormwater, see what it is. Have Melissa talk to her neighbor, and maybe even the neighbor on the other side. Somehow you can, you know, mitigate something or offset something so that, you know, when you're done, it's better than it was when you started. And one other quick point. Yeah, Cliff, I'll say on the other side, there's no space. My other neighbor is like the same situation I'm in. But on that side, there's plenty of space. Oh, good, okay. Well, I don't know. What you guys want is me to clean. I mean, it'll cost a gazillion dollars, but if you want me to clean it up and put in native blueberry bushes or whatever is appropriate by the pond, I'm... That would be great. And if we looked at the whole thing. Yeah. Maybe there's a solution there. And you can buy a battery-powered lawnmower. I know, but it seems silly for my lawn. I think, you know, the whole big picture of the thing would be the place to start. Someone that really understands how the stormwater goes and what we can do and how to make it better than it was when you bought it.
Yep. Commissioner, anything else before we take some votes here? I'm still interested in exploring, like, the possibilities for getting what buffer there can be. And, you know, I agree. We definitely don't want grass there. Lawn is not the answer. Um, but, you know, there's all kinds of really great, but, you know, sedges, reeds, um... But I need to walk on it. That's the issue. Like, I need it to be short enough that I can... Because it's the only place I have to walk. It's not like I'm trying to be difficult, but there's no more to walk if I put reeds in there. Like, it's... Yeah, I know.
Okay. Anybody else? Commission? Maybe we could do enough on the other side to offset that. I don't know.
Linda, any final thoughts? No, I mean, let's, you know, we need to work together to come up with a better plan for this. So, you know, let's do that in the interim between now and our next meeting. Okay? So, you're going to work with Melissa and her team to figure them, make each piece out and how we're... And who they're going to hire or have a look at the stormwater. Is that right? Or use their existing engineers to come up with a better plan. Okay? Right. Okay. Should we go with that?
Melissa, are you okay with this idea? Yeah, no, I just... I want to make sure. Is there somebody I need to hire for stormwater? No, you already have an engineer and he's already designed... Okay. I just wanted to make sure that if you guys had a recommendation for an expert or something. Well, it sounds like you already have an engineer and he designed a retaining wall. And what you're saying is now you have a retaining wall that's just shooting water off of it. So, that doesn't seem to be the right solution. No. So, you need to explore something else. You know... The engineer did not design the retaining wall. He designed the trench that would be around and in front of that to catch the stormwater. He did not cause the issues that we're talking about. Well, he caused it, but he said, now you have a retaining wall across the street. Maybe something else needs to be added in order to manage the water that's coming off the hill. And maybe he needs to address that also in addition to... Well, I think that's what he tried to do by saying we would have to jackhammer some of the new asphalt that went in and put stones, you know, dig it out and put like two feet of, two feet depth of those stones to make the stormwater. I think they did. I mean, we talked about it. So, I think that they did try to come up with the best solution they could. Who is the engineer? Chongrus, I think it was called. Yes. Is it the Chongrus engineer? Correct. How do you spell that? D-H-O-N-D-R-I-S. It's on the... I can email you a plan. Okay, great. Okay. On the plan right here. So, Lynn... All right. Well, let's just continue this to the next, our next meeting and we'll try to, between the intro, I'm trying to come up with a better plan for this. Okay? Lynn, I'd be happy to work with you on this. I mean, at least I'm an engineer. I'm not this kind of an engineer, but I had some idea. I'd be happy to help.
Okay. I'm glad you are, because I'm not. So, I need help. So, we'll continue then to the 7th, Linda? Sometime for 630? Yes. Okay. Commission, can I get a motion for continuation for the 7th of January 26th? Sorry, 2026. Sometime for 630, please? Thank you. Thank you. I think that was Luke. Do you have a second?
Second. Yeah, that was Babs. Roll call, please. Luke Legere? Yes. Barbara Howell? Yes. Jenny Brown? Yes. Shannon Fischer? Yes. Lisa Aubin? Yes. Cliff Lewis? Yes. Michelle Fairsey? Yes. Excellent. Okay. Have a great day. If you guys need anything, Linda, if you need anything out of me, just, you know, please let me know. Let us know. And, you know, happily, happily. You're going to help me with this, Doug. No, I mean, like, to meet your requirements, like, I want to, you know, obviously make it We very much appreciate your willingness to help. And also, I'll second that. I really, I'm not trying to make this difficult. I do want to resolve this because it has been two years and, you know, my pertaining, well, I mean, you know, the sea ball is crumbling and water is coming in my front door. So, you know, I'm with you all. I want you to just tell me what you want me to do so that I can fix it. All right. Okay. Perfect. Yeah, I didn't mean it like, all right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Okay. On the next public hearing, this is on 3C. This is 397 Boston Post Road, Russell's DEP file number 322-1048. It's a continued notice of intent and file pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Oil Protection Act, submitted by Dan Skihan, for the after-the-fact paving work and installation of stormwater management at 397 Boston Post Road and 99 Pelham Island Road in Wayland, Mass. The proposed work is within the 200-foot riverfront area and the 100-foot buffer zone of boarding vegetative to Welland's. Property is shown on the assessor's map 23, parcel 004 and 015. Linda. So, we had one outstanding stormwater issue to address, and so there was two documents, one from Dills and Roy on December 10th and another response from the engineer, I think, Matt, Matt, was that from you, Matt? Yes, that's correct. And just addressing the response to the last outstanding issue. So, I do think we have, I think we've reached a sort of solution, right? Again, I just, what I'd still want to reiterate is that, you know, that whole area of the Subbury River is a priority habitat. So, you know, we, you know, stormwater and the treatment of stormwater is a very important factor in this particular project. Okay. Anything to add, Matt?
I don't think so. I think the written materials probably say better than I could extemporaneously. Okay.
So, you're good then? Yeah. I mean, you know, this is based on our peer review's response. So, we're relying on their expertise. Okay. Commissioner, anything else on our end?
The peer review was fine, Linda. I just want to make sure. Okay. Thank you.
All right. It looks like we're going to motion then to close the hearings. Anyone want to make those motions? I move that we close the public hearings for DEP file number 322-1048 under Chapter 194 and the State Act. Thank you. We're here second. Second. Thank you, Babs. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. And Sean Fares a yes. Thank you. Next motion. I move that we issue an order of conditions approving the project as proposed under both the State Act and Chapter 194.
Thank you. Do I have a second? Thank you again, Babs. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin.
Lisa. Yes. Oh, sorry. Cliff Lewis. Yes. And Sean Fares a yes. All set.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome.
Okay. Linda, I did want to thank you for putting in these little notices in the packet of where one item stops and one item starts. It's super helpful to be able to find the things in the packet. Thank you for doing that. Well, you have to thank Emily for that one. Well, thank you. Is Emily here? Thanks, Emily.
Super helpful. Uh, yes. I second that. Um, on to 3D. So, 67A Loker Street DEP file number 322-1055 is a continued notice of intent and filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and a Wetland Protection Act submitted by Matt O'Connor for the demolition of the existing barn and construction of a six-unit compact apartment facility, uh, 67A Loker Street in Wayland, Mass. The property is shown on Assessor's Map 48, Parcel 42, and is located within a 100-foot buffer zone of a boarding of a vegetated Welland in a 200-foot riverfront area. Linda. The applicant has asked for a continuation until our next meeting on January 7th. Thank you. Do I hear someone make that motion? I move that we continue this hearing under Chapter 194 and the State Act to January 7th, 2026, after 6.30 p.m. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Babs. Roll call, please. Luke Legere? Yes. Barbara Howell? Yes. Jenny Brown? Yes. Shannon Fischer? Yes. Lisa Aubin? Yes. Cliff Lewis? Yes. Sean Fares a yes. Thank you, folks.
Out of the public meetings, this is 4A. We're at 230 Concord Road, D-1051. This is a continued request for determination filed pursuant to Wayland's Wetlands and Water Resource Protection Bylaw and the Welland Protection Act submitted by Joe DeLomba for the replacement of a covered porch and construction of a deck and walkway at 230 Concord Road in Wayland, Mass. The property is shown on the assessor's map 07, lot 06, and the proposed work is a 100-foot wetland buffer zone. Linda?
I'm hoping to have somebody this week to talk about this. I don't know if there's anybody on. I see a Joe. Joe, if you're speaking, you're on mute.
Let's see if I can ask him.
Hello? Oh, there we go. Sorry about that. Nope, you're good.
You want to introduce this product to us? Yes. Hi, my name is... Can you hear me? Yep. Yeah, my name is Joe DeLomber. We've been around... I mean, I have been around for 42 years. We recently was hired by a family in Wayland, Mass, to construct... Actually, we're going to be using the same footprint that's there right now. The only addition to it is a deck with some pillars. We, as my understanding, the building official has to approve our plan as of two days ago. But we're waiting to talk to conservation in regards to concern about wetland and disturbance of the area. We're going to be... Basically, there'll be no excavation machine. The disturbance will be at its minimal. We're going to be digging the pillar 42 inches down below with canvas. We'll put the dirt over the canvas. Once we put a sun or two, concrete at 12 inch, take the dirt from the cover canvas where the dirt is, and put it back in the hole. That's pretty much... There'll be no disturbance. There'll be no grass disturbance. There'll be no water runoff. The deck itself will be... We'll have an eight of an inch gap, which all waters will be sipping right into the same area as it was never there. So, what you're speaking of with this digging, that's just to put in the footings for the pillars, is that right? That's all we're doing. That's the only extra thing we're doing. Everything else, we're just going above what's there. I got it. Okay. And I know you're very concerned about, adamant about the water runoff, which I myself, at the age I am right now, 27. You can reverse the age if you like, as you're looking at me right now. I am a very big fan of protecting the environment.
And basically, what I'm trying to say about the roof discharge would be the same amount of discharge as it's existing, even though we're going one story high. Because we're going above a roof, once we raise it up, it's the same amount of water runoff, I mean, discharge that we'll have. There'll be no more. So, what's underneath the deck, then? Is that just going to be gravel? Yeah, yeah, grass. Just like what it is now. It's grass. Oh, it's grass. Okay. Yeah, it is grass. Fully, it's all grass. We need fresh stone. Excuse me? Well, I think it's high enough, Barbara, that it could support grass, so it doesn't matter if it's grass or gravel. Oh, it's high enough? Yeah. Uh-huh.
There wasn't much wetland info on the plan. It was assumed datum.
Is there going to be a new septic? No. No, it's an existing septic, ma'am. It's designed for four bedrooms. The Board of Health is approved? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So is it not official. Yeah, no, I mean, that's good. We're not approving. I mean, we're making a determination off a 2001 wetland delineation that was done for the septic system, and it looks like the 100-foot wetland buffer goes right through the middle of the house. So the entire three-season porch that's being converted is all within the wetland buffer area. So I didn't get a good plan. You didn't get this? Okay. I thought that was part of the packet. So it was last week, but we got. Oh, that's right. It was in last week's packet. That's right. It was in my packet that I got. It was in both. It was the same set of, I think, documents from last meeting that we continue to now. So it was in this week's packet.
Yeah, I don't have. That was one of my questions about adding gravel or grass below that. And my note was that there's no current wetland delineation, and there doesn't appear to be much planned mitigation for the work in the wetlands either. But there will be no expansion of lawn as part of this project, I assume. Correct. No expansion.
All right. I'm, you know, it's pretty straightforward. It's a deck over lawn. So I'm good.
Sean, are you talking?
Sorry about that. I was, and I was muted. Thank you. I said, so if Linda's good, I'm good. Linda's good, I'm good. We're going to make a motion then to some members' request for a determination. Sure. I move that we issue a negative determination under the Act and a permit under Chapter 194. Thank you. Luke, do I hear a second? Second. That sounded like Shannon, I believe. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. And Sean Ferser. Yes. Thank you, folks. All set. This one was easy. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. Have a Merry Christmas. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. You too. You too. I wish everyone, especially the attorney, 150 years. So you can do good work for the town. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it. Yep. Bye now. On to Stormwater and Land Disturbance. This is 5A, 5 Garden Path, SWLD-156. Linda.
Linda, you're on mute. I'm on mute, too. I think Bert might be on the attendees, Emily. He didn't get a... Yeah, Bert's on... If you could move him over. He didn't get a... Yeah, he's moving over. Okay.
Bert, are you with us? You're on mute for speaking, Bert.
We lost him. No. There he is. Bert. You got me? You're on. Yeah, you're on. Well, if you could just give me, like, four minutes. I'm almost back to my office. I'm just driving back from the hearing with the planning board. So I'm trying to maneuver on this phone as I'm driving. But I'm almost back. If you give me three minutes, I'll be joined. Yeah, that's perfect, because we have two search certificates, the compliances, we can do really super quick, and then we'll go back to you. How's that sound? Excellent. That'd be perfect. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's go on to then, six. This is the COC's 6A for 31 White Road, DEP file number 322-1043. Linda? Well, believe it or not, we have two closings tomorrow, 31 White Road and 24 Claypit Hill Road. So we need to issue COCs for both of those. White Road was a septic replacement. This is the one we did a few months ago. Really, really tight. They had the leach field within a few feet of the wetlands. That was the only way they could manage this. They put in 30 shrubs behind the fence. So we do have an issue that whether or not we issue a complete or partial, because they still have a two-year growing season to deal with those. And they also have a fence that doesn't have a wildlife corridor underneath it. So there's a couple of issues I have with that. But the septic itself was put in, and everything is done with that, and signed off by the health department. Did we require the wildlife corridor? This wasn't the house of the dachshund, was it? No, no, no, no, no. But that will just be a note in the COC that under wetland regulations, fences do require a wildlife corridor. And I'm guessing this fence was probably put in years ago without a permit, because we don't have a lot of permitting for this particular product, this house itself. So, but, you know, that's usually what I do. I just add a note to the COC about, you know, what still needs to be, you know, considered, I should say. Okay. Okay. Anybody else?
Okay. Can I get a motion, please, to approve the Certificate of Compliance for 31 White Road with notes, as Linda mentioned. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Roll call, please. I'm sorry, do I hear a second? Wait, is that a partial or a complete?
A partial, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I heard Luke make the motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Shannon. Roll call, please. Luke Legere? Yes. Barbara Howell? Yes. Jenny Brown? Yes. Shannon Fischer? Yeah. Lisa Aubin? Yes. Cliff Lewis? Yes. And Sean Fares, a yes. Thank you. Linda, we're now at 24 Claypit Hill Road, DEP file number 322-857. That's back in the day.
Yeah. Same thing here. We have a house that had some work done. Can I tell you one thing, Linda? Who's that? I live across the street from these people, so I just want the board to know. Well, you can recuse yourself from the vote. You can recuse a good neighbor. We typically recuse if we have a neighbor. Okay. No, we do.
Linda, we good here. What do you need to know about this one? The only thing is, is, you know, there was work done that was outside the permit, which was adding a patio to the back when the two of the trees were removed and they were supposed to be left of a snag. So additional plantings were put in. I think the only comment I would make on this one is that, you know, there's already, I think, 18% of the riverfront has been altered. And I think there's just, you know, I don't think they were ever going to get another permit to do more work in the riverfront area for this. I mean, I don't think they would get approval from us to do that. And again, that would just be a note on the COC regarding that. So I remember that we had multiple problems with this. And we went back to this for site visits many times for one thing after another that was done without permit. Well, those are the only two things I thought. So not, not, not, none are under my ownership. No. Maybe prior to that. Yeah. Because this is, this is the only permit we have open for this one, Barbara. Barbara might be thinking back in the day. Barbara's been on the commission for 40 years. So there might be a nice long history. That was three hours ago, Babs. The previous owner gave us problems. Not this owner. This is a good owner. Love it. You remember George Peralta who used to live there, Barbara? Remember him? It's an aside. That's okay.
I would encourage all you guys to take a site visit here because it was one of my favorite houses. It was the Swiss ambassador. Or some. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was the Swiss ambassador. He was Swiss. Yeah. Yeah. I was in 1904 before Waylon was invented. I heard of him.
Linda, so you're good here or what do you want to do? Yeah, I am. Like I said, I'm just going to make a note that, you know, additional work in the riverfront will, you know, be difficult to permit, I guess, is the best way of saying it. Okay. Christian, did we go with this one? Yeah, but it was a bummer to see that there's, like, almost no native plantings. Like, looking at that list of plantings, like, almost nothing is native.
Okay. Bummer. All right, so that's real good. Can I get a motion for the shift of compliance for 24 Clayton Hill Road, please? So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second?
Do I hear a second?
Second. That was Jenny, I think? Yep. Roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Abstain. Thank you. Sean Fares, yes. Okay. American Boxwood is not American. Just putting it out there. What was that, Jeff? American Boxwood is not American. Oh, it's not, it's not an American. Buxus Sempervirens, non-native. Nothing on that list is. But it's very European, Shannon, so.
It is Five Garden Path. What's his name? Is he back? Is Burt back? Yes, I am. I'm back. Well, I'm going to drop you off. Thank you, everybody. Have a good evening. Thank you. You're all set. Thank you, Julio. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. So we're going back for those keeping score at home. We're going back to Stormwater Land Disturbance, which is 5A, 5 Garden Path, SWLD-156. Linda, slash Burt. Who wants to kick us off? This was an after-the-fact stormwater permit. This was a teardown of a small shack and a rebuild of a, what, four or five-bedroom house. I don't know how big that is, and it's a fairly good-sized piece of, good-sized house that's beginning, built there, and it was disappointing that, you know, there was no permit that was issued for that prior to this. So they did hire Burt and DGT Associates to prepare a plan that would include stormwater management, and I guess that kind of covers it, doesn't it? Yes, it does. If I can share my screen? Yeah, definitely. Let's see. Screen two, share. Not sure which one I'm sharing right now. How about I do this?
Can you see that? Yep. Okay. All right. So, yeah, we were brought in a little bit after the fact. The house has already started construction. We took a look at the conditions that were there. A lot of the trees were already removed at that time, so we needed to get some information back from the owner and the contractor as to what got removed, and I'll go into that in a little bit. We still modeled it in the hydrologic model as a wooded area, and we went back to some of the aerial photography to get an idea of what was wooded cover, what was associated with the existing building, the existing gravel driveway, and any kind of meadow areas, and did our analysis from that. Are you from DGT? DGT. You're from there? Yes. Okay, thank you. Yep. Formerly Schofield Brothers. That's okay. I just want to make sure I know who's talking about what. Okay, go ahead. Yep. And so we modeled it under existing conditions, proposed conditions. The top of the screen was a design point that goes out to a low spot on the site. It's actually, this property continues back here. There's really nothing going on. The 200-foot riverfront area, by the way, extends out into this. Everything has been trying to avoid that 200-foot. The septic system that has been designed, and I believe it's been constructed at this time, was designed by Doucette Engineering, so we weren't involved in that one. But again, I think they were honoring the fact that there's a 200-foot riverfront and to stay out of that. So when we came in, we looked at this as a design point because it's certainly a low spot in the backyard. Everything that flows down to this bowl, essentially, doesn't leave the bowl. So, and I'll get back to that in a second as to the reason why it's kind of an important thing. The other design was out to, or design point was out to the garden path. So there was a divide on the property, most of it going out to the back, some of it coming out to the front. And we then looked at, you know, what would happen if they put in like a lawn area out here. Well, the problem with that is there'll be an increase in peak flow just by changing the trees over to a lawn area. And even though it wouldn't leave the site, we would still show an increase. So we went back to the owners and said that you can't really have a lawn out there. It's going to have to be a meadow area. And we're proposing some plantings, which I'll get to in a bit. But we wanted to bring that back with like a wild, a wildlife seed mix, a wildflower seed mix. So that we could, we could truly meet the, meet the existing conditions, peak flows and volumes. So with the stormwater management for the house, we've got two, two BMPs. We've got a subsurface infiltration galley, storm tech. So the plastic chambers, that's in a, actually we did a soil test pit over there. Great sandy soils. This one actually, well, actually, wait a minute, hold on. This was a, this was a loamy sand. So there was some fines in it. We ran a permeability test in this, this particular soil. And it came out to be, I think it was about four point something inches per hour. In the model, we use 2.41. We use the standard Rawls rate for that. So about 50% of what we saw in the field, we use for the model to be on a conservative side. This takes all roof runoff. So roof runoff is considered clean, goes directly into the infiltration galley, out it goes into the, into the ground below. In case there's an overflow and the model doesn't show that there's an overflow, we still had a, like a pop-up emitter, or actually it's a, a grate with a, a small sump in there because we don't want water coming from the, from the surface of the ground and flowing back into the infiltration galley and, and mucking up the works in there. So we put a sump into that. The other part of it is we've got a, a driveway, residential driveway, albeit, you know, it still has more of the, the dirty water coming off of that. The test pit that we did in this front corner was the sand, excellent sand and gravel. But because of the, the, the, the permeability rate and the Rawls rate being at 8.27 or higher than the 2.41, it required 44% TSS removal as pretreatment prior to this rain garden. So even though we can take a roof leader and take some of the roof runoff and put it in there, the water that comes off of the driveway has to be pretreated. Um, we originally had a sediment four bay in there only giving us the 25% TSS removal. Uh, we couldn't get the 44 any other way really in this, in this relatively small area. So we ended up putting in a, uh, a deep sump, uh, manhole with a hood, uh, that gives us the additional 25% TSS. So even though it's a residential property, uh, with a residential driveway, it has a deep sump catch base and followed by a sediment four bay before it enters into the, uh, into the rain garden. All of the, all of the, the two BMPs, uh, handle all the water that, that comes onto the, uh, onto the property. I think it's only on a small amount on a hundred years storm where we'll actually start to see water go over a, uh, over, um, like a, uh, stone berm, uh, as like an emergency overflow. Uh, so all of the, uh, peak flows and volumes are mitigated, uh, for that. Uh, um, let's see for the plantings. Uh, before I move on to that, the, what's the drain line that comes off like the, the south, the corner of the house at the bottom there, that looks like it's going straight into the, into the, this right here. Yeah. Uh, that is a roof leader for a small portion of this roof. Oh, okay. So the roof will, will go into this rain garden too. But the rest of the roof is captured even at the back of the house? Because I didn't see a roof drain back there. That's why. Okay. Yeah. There's a roof drain over here. So there's a, there's a, a gutter system downspout into the roof drain. And ultimately that pulls it around to this side and into these chambers. Uh, and then across the front, we've got, uh, the roof drain also joining in. Okay. But, um, you know, it's, it's, it gets to, it's a small lot relatively. Uh, and so when you start looking at the, uh, peak flows, uh, in volumes, but certainly the peak flows, when you start looking at the, the, the two, the 25 and, uh, the 100, um, even the 10 year storm with the small numbers, every little bit helps. And if we transfer that small portion to that recharger and had a slight overflow, it would tip the, the, the, the peak flow on say the a hundred year storm by like 0.01 CFS. Not a lot. And not that it's going to flow off the property. It's going to stay on the property. However, you know, number wise, we didn't really want to get into that. So, um, you know, and trying to explain that. So we pulled a small portion of the roof off to this rain garden over here. No, it's the reason for that. Before we move on to the, to the plantings, uh, any other questions on the, the stormwater management? Is the property line in, in, in red? Yes. Yep. Out through here, up through here. So your, your driver is going out to. Overflow from the rain garden, uh, would go out to garden path. Although there's no overflow from the rain garden. You would go out to garden path. That's correct. Isn't that a public?
It's a, it's a gravel road.
Yeah. It's also. I don't. That's greater than a hundred year storm, Barbara, that it would overflow according to the model. Yeah. Yeah. And this, the address has now changed to one high, Hiawatha path that was happened today. So you're going to get a permit. Oh, really? You're going to get a permit for one Hiawatha path. So, okay. Yeah. We originally had the driveway going out to garden path and then, uh, we were told move it over to, uh, Hiawatha. Oh, okay. Yeah. My only issue, my issues are with the planting plants. Cause I don't think, I don't think the mitigation was done correctly based on the number of trees that you were taking down. So, or were, had been taken down. So. Yeah. They were going to mitigate it with wildflowers for nine trees. Yeah. Okay. So let me, uh, move on to this, this one over here. Okay. So here's the planting. So, uh, going back up to here, uh, total number of trees removed from the site was provided to us from Arbor Works. Um, and that was apparently the, the person that dealt with removing the trees. And so what he told us he removed was 10 trees that were between five and 10 inches, 12 trees between 11 and 20, and four of them that were over, over 20 inches. Um, so, and it seems to me that, all right, so there's, what does that add up to? 26 trees, 26 trees that were, you know, within this site. And you got to remember too, I think you can barely see it. I can barely see it is, uh, I think there was a, I can barely see it. There is some existing, uh, development that was on here. There was a garage over here. There was some type of a dwelling here. There was a dwelling over here. Yeah, it was like a shack, Bert. Okay. Okay. So there weren't any trees in that. What I'm getting at is there weren't any trees in that particular area. So it was around the, the perimeter and obviously where this, this house is, uh, that those trees removed. But when they, when they told me that it was, you know, this kind of account, that's somewhat believable. Um, so I took it as, I think they're telling me the truth on that, um, you know, and I didn't really have any other evidence, uh, out there. It wasn't like I could see trunks or anything like that. We were out at the site and looking around. Um, but Linda, I don't know if you had a chance to, uh, take a look. Oh, I did. I know this site because we, I walked with Fred years ago on the riverfront, did the, did the riverfront analysis, but you have another, you have another table that says proposed trees to be removed. So they're still going to take down more trees. No, no, this is, this table is just set up a little strangely. Uh, and I apologize for that. This is the mitigation requirement that's in your bylaw. Oh. And so for every proposed trees removed, if there's, uh, I think there was, was it five?
Yeah. For five to one. Yeah. Yeah. For the small trees. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So the table on the left. Okay. Yeah. Sorry about that. The right one is confusing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So. But you still, you're taking down four large trees and you're only replacing with two when you're supposed to be replacing with four.
Say that again. Let me see. And you had, they took down four large trees and the proposed mitigation is two. And. And four of the three foot tall shrubs. Yeah. Oh, okay. Because you could do, you could do a combination of these. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. It's a combination of them. Yeah. So, but we also, um, looking at the bylaw, it said, and we put it on here too, that if the trees are removed, uh, prior to an application, a 193 application, then the total number of trees and shrubs are to be doubled. Um, so we went through and we doubled the amount of, uh, replacement, uh, trees and shrubs. Okay. Uh, and so going around here. Can you go back to that? I just, I just, I can't. Sorry. I can't go around the, the, the column headings and the title headings. Go, go through that table and tell me what, what, what column means what? Yeah. Okay. So this, this table here is the right out of the, the chapter in 193. Right. Okay. All right. So for every five trees you remove, you need to replace that with either one, uh, tree that's greater than two inches in diameter or two, uh, three foot or smaller shrubs. Right. Okay. So in this, is that, is that, is that right? Is that what that says in 193? Currently, that's when this one was permitted. But we just, that's been changed to what we just adopted today. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Linda, we were having a conversation about that too, especially for that other, that other hearing that I was just at, and, uh, you know, they couldn't find certain things in the regulations. What I'll do is I'll make a copy of what I was using, which was the March, 2025 draft regulations. I'll highlight that and send it over to them so they can. Now on the other side of that table, tell me that again. So on this one here, this is the proposed mitigation, right? So there were 10 trees that were removed according to the, the mitigation requirements for every five, you need to replace it with one, two, two foot tree or two of these, these shrubs. So with the 10, we're proposing the one tree and the two, three footer or, uh, three footer tall shrubs. I got it. Okay. Yep. Yep. It's kind of a tab. It's, I don't know. It's, I'm not going to say anything bad as far as, you know, what it, what it requires, but, uh, it can be a little confusing. So, yeah, we just simplified it. Yeah. Oh, perfect.
And not that we do very hard math here, you know, it's, it's pretty simple, but, um, anyways, moving on to, uh, to the proposed plantings. Um, I think we tried to stay in there. First off, I'm not a landscape architect. I'm not an arborist. Um, you know, we did our very best by trying to stay to the, the, the natural species. Um, and what we were also told was, um, I don't know if it's on here, but they removed, uh, red oaks, red maples. Um, I can find the email, but it, it was predominantly red oaks and red maples. And so we just replaced them in kind, uh, using, using the quantities here. Uh, and then just, you know, scattered them around the perimeter of the site. Uh, there's not a lot of room there. Um, and also for screening purposes, uh, the developer, you know, wanted to plant, uh, some arborvites along, along this row. Uh, just again, for screening to, to the residents that are over here. So, and then within this area, like I was saying, we wanted to, to not create a lawn area. It just, unfortunately it, it doesn't work well with the hydrologic model. Um, so we were proposing a, uh, the wildlife mix and conservation wildlife mix just to, to bring that back to more of a meadow area and using the, the, uh, runoff, uh, curve number for meadow area. It, it, it works for the, uh, for the peak flows.
Uh, let's see. I don't know what else I can say about this. Um, you know. No, I mean, I don't, I don't have any issues with this, the stormwater. I don't, um, the only one issue I have is the arborvites, which I know Shannon and I don't like. Um, you know, sometimes an Eastern Cedar can, is just as nice and, and, and it's actually a much more native variety. So I don't know if you can, or, or those already planted. I don't think they're planted. I don't, I don't think it's the time of year to be planting. No, no, no. Anyway, so I, I don't think. You can convince them to, to put something a little bit more native, like an Eastern Cedar. That would be, um, that would be well appreciated. What do you think? You got other suggestions, Shannon? Uh, the, I like, I love the Eastern Red Cedar. Hemlocks are underappreciated. They're super easy to keep healthy. Um, despite, you know, they've got a bad rep now, but that can be controlled. Pine trees, native spruces, firs. You could even have like a mix. A lot of times this looks a lot better when you have more than just a monoculture and it can become a really attractive native evergreen hedgerow. Um, the, the problem with Arborbitee is that they've been sort of mutated to death and don't really serve the same, a lot of the same, like ecosystem benefit niches.
Unless you want actual straight up for realsies like Swamp Cedar, and then that's different, but I don't, I don't think that's what they're doing if they're just throwing Arborbitee in the ground.
From personal experience, I know that the, uh, the Arborbitee deer love that and, uh, it turned into topiaries. Yeah, throw some hemlocks in there and just keep, you know, get somebody who cares about native trees to monitor them from time to time. Um, treatment is super easy and they're a gorgeous tree that we need to keep around. I also have a bunch of white spruces here too. They're doing great and they're really fat. So for, with a, uh, for, for screening purposes, I've heard Eastern Cedar and Eastern Hemlock and I'm not going to pretend that I, I know what I'm talking about with this stuff. I'm relying on you to tell me if we're going to replace these, uh, these Arborbitee, what would you like me to replace them where that I'll tell the, the, the owner and the contractor that they need to be changed out? I'd suggest, I mean, I, I don't want to take over completely, but I, I'd say they should eyeball and see what they like of the Eastern, the Hemlock, the white pine, white spruce, and, um, you know, the Eastern white Cedar or Eastern red Cedar, as Linda said, that's a great tree. I'd stay away from balsam fir because the deer will also eat that down. So red Cedar, Hemlock, pine, spruce. I would recommend staying away from the pines because they have a bad tendency to die. I planted hundreds of them here and they've all died. The white pine. Well, out of them, I have a whole bunch that are thriving over here. Maybe you should come over here and help me. All right. We'll take a look at what's going on. Careful there. I have more. You know, we're, we're open to anything, you know, I mean. The native screening trees that we've. Well, so, okay. So what I can do is if you'd like, I can, I can either amend this or you can put it in a decision or whatever, just to say that these arborvitaes are to be replaced with a combination of white spruce, Eastern red Cedar, Eastern red Cedar, Eastern red Cedar, or Eastern Hemlock. Yeah, that's fine. I'll put it in the, that's, that's fine. I think, I think we can, we're going to close this out because I think that those, that's the only issue I have anyway. So, and I'll add that, I'll add that statement to the, to the conditions. Okay. Okay. All right. Christian, are we good? Yeah. I just want to make one note, Bert, you're really good at communicating that stormwater stuff. I follow that really well. You're, you're, you're skilled at that. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, Shannon, you know, we use Bert a lot for peer reviews, so. There you go. You're good at it. Yeah. He's our go-to person for that. So I can see why. Okay. Actually, I do have a question. So, cause I think Barbara had asked this earlier. So the, the we've got the, the tree replacement and then the kind of the wildflower meadow area, like near the septic is additional just because of the storm, expected stormwater because of the new construction. Right. So, cause I knew that like when people try to plant that, sometimes it just ends up being a bunch of weeds and, you know, it's tempting to mow it and, and change it to grass in the long run. But, um, so just a comment there. Yeah. They do take maintenance and I, I don't know what they said. Um, I assume someone's checking the seed mix because sometimes people buy pollinator seed mix. And then it turns out to have a whole bunch of like, you know, poppies and other completely non-native things that are very pretty. So I assume someone's checking that out and there'll be some maintenance, hopefully.
Um, Linda, on a decision, if you want, you could, you could add a requirement that the contractor will need to, uh, send in a submittal that, that shows the seed they're buying. That's fine. A lot of times what we do is we mow it after like the first hard frost or something just to keep down the invasives and the woody plants. So. But then there's a lot of dudes. Anything else? There are a lot of dudes who live in the stems though. It's a tough call. Hmm. All right. We've been beating someone dead for the last 10 minutes on plantings. I want to move on. Uh, all due respect. Um, so can I get a motion then please, if we are in agreement with this? So moved. Uh, for, for a, a stormwater permit under one any three is what we're saying. Yes. Yeah. I, I move that we issue a stormwater and land disturbance permit under chapter one 93 four or five garden path with conditions as discussed and, uh, subject to the tweak in the planting plan also as discussed. Uh, thank you. Luke. Do I hear a second? Second. Uh, sounded like Babs, uh, roll call, please. Luke Legere. Yes. Barbara Howell. Yes. Jenny Brown. Yes. Shannon Fischer. Yes. Lisa Aubin. Yes. Cliff Lewis. Yes. And Sean Fares a yes. All set. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for your patience too. While I tried to get back to the office. No worries. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. All right. Take care. Take care. Hey, and happy holidays too. You too. Yeah. You too, Bert. Appreciate it. Um, all right. On to 7a. Topic not reasonably anticipated by the chair of 48 hours. Only I want to touch upon here and Lisa, or Lisa, sorry. Uh, Linda, give us a quick two seconds. Where do things stand with the, uh, dam? Um, I'll leave there. Where do things stand with the dam? Uh, well, let's see. A couple months ago, we went out to bid for this project. Um, this was all run by our, our engineering service or engineering company that we use, Power Corporation. Uh, so, uh, uh, uh, a low bidder, the low bidder was selected, um, and evaluated. And so, um, since then we have signed a contract with Power to do all the construction management for the project. We, they also, we also paid for them to do the bid processing. And so, right now, what I received today was a contract for the, the contractor, which is David G. Roach and Sons, LLC. And so, that, I guess, needs to probably go through KP Law Review. The front office is, um, uh, handling that. And they decided that what, what needed to be done also was to hire, um, on, uh, owner's project manager, which was, I was not aware of. I thought we had somebody doing all the construction management for us, which is Power Corporation. But I guess there has to be some other person, uh, entity involved in that. And so, Michael chose, um, two folks for internal, the, uh, facilities manager, Mike Fea, and Tom Holder, the DPW director, are going to be performing, doing the, uh, owner's project management for this project during the construction phase. So, and that's where we stand. So, I guess I will, uh, probably take a back seat to all this. So. Okay. So, are you from us or anything you want us to take a look at? Are we good to go? Oh, you know, I, I, I don't know where, I guess, I guess we're just, um, we're waiting for some better weather, I guess, for, before we start this. I mean, we did discover that we had bats, um, potentially the endangered northern long-eared bat over there. Uh, it's hard to decipher the, the, the acoustic study that we did has, um, groups, you know, the, the long-eared bat with two other bats. They have a very similar sound, I guess, and, uh, but, uh, the, the report we received said there is highly likely that we do have endangered bats over there. So, that's why we have to do the tree removal before April. And it also requires us to probably put back most of the trees that we are taking down. I think it's up to 48, I believe, we're removing. So, we will have to do a little bit of restoration work after the project is done. And, uh, but the tree removal we're hoping to do, actually, in the, in the, in the deep winter, when everything's frozen. And the, and the dam itself is frozen, too, so we can get some equipment over there. So, so, yeah, no, there's a lot of work, um, proposed. And, uh, uh, you know, the eight to ten-month construction project, I think, is, is what we're looking, looking at. So, so, oh, no, I was just saying that's exciting about the bats. That's very cool. Yeah, it's, uh, somewhat expected because it's like the perfect habitat over there. So, especially, I mean, for summer habitat, you know, yeah. Right. Uh, okay, thank you. Um, that's all I got on my end. Um, public comment, I don't see any raised hands. We're good there. No one's in the chat. Uh, Babs, how are we looking for December 3rd's, uh, minutes? You got your stamp of approval? Yeah, they're fine. Yeah, they do. Anybody want to argue with her? I don't, but we're just going to rearrange it a little bit so that the planning board meeting would be in the front of the minutes. Yeah. Yeah, as opposed to in the middle. It was one typo. Yeah, that was, that was it. Other than that. Minor, minor. Okay. If anybody else had any other thoughts, if not, let's get a motion to approve the minutes for December 3rd, 2025, please. As revised. As revised. Yep. Thank you, Cliff.
Is that a motion, Cliff? Oh, yeah. Sure, why not? Perfect. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you, Babs. Roll call, please. Uh, Luke Legere? Yes. Barbara Howell? Yes. Jenny Brown? Yes. Shannon Fischer? Yes. Lisa Aubin?
Yes. Lisa? Yep. I don't know why you guys can't hear me. No worries. Cliff Lewis? Uh, and Sean Fares, a yes. Thank you. All set. Anybody else have anything else before we, uh, see everybody in the new year officially here in a couple of weeks? That's right. Happy holidays, everybody. Yeah. Let's, uh, go, go forth and have fun. And what, we're on the seventh, right? Yeah. So with that, we're all good. Can I get a motion to adjourn for the evening? Okay. Thank you. Do I hear a second? Second. Thank you. Cliff, last roll call of the year. Luke Legere? Yes. Barbara Howell? Yes. Jenny Brown? Yes. Shannon Fischer? Yep. Lisa Aubin? Yes. Cliff Lewis? Yes. Sean Fares, a yes. We're adjourned, folks.