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MEETING: Conservation
DATE:
March 26, 2008 - 07:00 PM |
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Minutes
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Discussion of proposed East Longmeadow Wetlands Protection By-law
Mr. Kingston said that the model by-law has been modified to insert the name of the town of East Longmeadow, to remove all the references to the notes and to remove all references to costal and coastal issues such as shell fishing, etc. He said other than that he didn’t make any changes to it and addressed the Commissioners for their thoughts or comments on it. Ms. Hamilton asked if the state itself passed the law? Mr. Kingston said that the state has not passed the law, it’s a local by-law that MACC wrote and was approved by the Attorney General. He said that it has been enacted by 152 towns in the Commonwealth which is approximately half of the towns and was carefully written so that it would be accepted by the Attorney General. Mr. Kingston said while looking through the regulations he thinks maybe they could be promulgated by the Commission without going to town meeting. He said one of the issues is going to be the enforcement and the ability to level fines at $100.00 a day as an enforcement action that would go into the town’s general fund. He said that it would give the Commission more power to enforce locally as opposed to referring everything to the state and he thinks the argument they need to make is that the Commission has had only 1 or 2 projects that he could think of in the last 10 years where the state stepped in and fined people.
Mr. Salvon said so it will go to town meeting and the Commission will ask them to accept it as is, Mr. Kingston said yes that was his suggestion. Mr. Salvon said once it is accepted the regulations and enforcement powers will be the Commission’s, Mr. Kingston replied exactly. Mr. Kingston said that there are two parts to the Conservation By-law, one is the establishment of the Commission and the other is the regulations.
Ms. Foerster asked if the Commission was going to have any special requirements for filings? Mr. Kingston said it could be done in the regulations if we wanted more than what the state wants. He said the one thing that is in the by-law which is in our current by-law is the 300 foot abutter notice as opposed the 100 foot state notice. He said that it would replace by-law 10.011 & 10.012 and he thinks they would bring it forward as a single warrant article replacing the existing by-law with those sections of the by-law with it. Ms. Foerster asked if any fees were going to be charged? Mr. Kingston said that they have the ability to that in regulations under number 4 (applications and fees) it gives the Commission the ability to impose an additional fee for applications under the by-law. He said in the fourth paragraph it says “at the time of application the applicant shall pay a filing fee specified in the regulations of the Commission, the fee is in addition to that required by the wetlands protection act regulations. It also says that the Commission may impose reasonable fees for outside consultants and the major difference relative to consultants is that currently if the Commission hires a consultant and the applicant is required to pay the consultant directly. He said under the proposed by-law the Commission would get a bid from the consultant for the work and the applicant would then pay the town that fee which is put in a special account and the Commission would then pay the consultant out of that account. It also allows the applicant having to seen what the fee is going to be to withdraw their application rather than pay the fee.
After further discussion the Commission agreed that the proposed by-law would give them enforcement powers which is needed and it gives the Commission the ability to promulgate regulations after a hearing, which they don’t have currently. Mr. Kingston said at the next the Conservation meeting they will review the MACC suggestions on getting the by-law passed and he would like to schedule 2 hearings sometime in the during the summer for public input and work towards getting on the fall Special Town Meeting. Upon motion duly made and seconded, the Commission voted unanimously (7-0) to submit the proposal at the Special Town meeting in the fall.
Discussion of potential land acquisitions
Mr. Kingston said since the last meeting he was invited by Jim Driscoll to go on a tour of land that the Selectmen and the Recreation Commission are looking for as possible land acquisitions which were mostly the same properties that the Commission had talked about. He said that they went to Redstone Quarry which is a gorgeous piece of property and the issue with it is that there are wetlands on it and stuff was taken from the quarries and piled it around that’s basically fill and whether or not it can be built on is a question. Mr. Kingston said that it would be great for swimming and camping but it’s lousy for fields. He said the next piece of property they looked at was Robert Koch’s, 386 Somers Road which has some uplands that could be used as fields but it has access issues and they talked about Bluebirds but didn’t go there. Mr. Kingston said that there parcels at Bluebird on the east side and that is a possibility for fields because it could be connected to Pine Knoll with a sidewalk and they also looked at the Markham property, which is probably the number one priority. He said the problem with that property is the trust that owns can’t be reached and Jim Driscoll is pursuing it and Redstone is also a priority.
There being no further business and upon motion duly made and seconded, the Commission voted to close the meeting at 8:30 p.m.
For the Commission,
George Kingston, Chair
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