Green Committee, Planning Board collaborate on Green Communities Act

Date: 4/12/2010

April 12, 2010

By Courtney Llewellyn

Reminder Assistant Editor

EAST LONGMEADOW -- The town's Green Committee recently met with the Planning Board to hash out the language for an Annual Town Meeting warrant article pertaining to changes to a zoning bylaw that would bring East Longmeadow one step closer to becoming a state-certified Green Community.

The Green Communities Act was started by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008 with a goal of lowering energy costs, promoting renewable energy and making state and municipal power greener. The town's Green Committee was formed in August 2008 and has been working on learning more about sustainable energy projects and composting projects that could benefit the town as well as establishing a Green Learning Center, which will be unveiled on Earth Day, April 22, at the library.

Nick Breault, a member of the Green Committee and executive secretary to the Board of Selectmen, explained at the March 30 meeting that the committee will be making a presentation at Town Meeting to let voters know more about the Green Community process.

Breault explained that the first step in the process was adopting the Stretch Energy Code, which the selectmen did late last year. Next, an as of right siting designation for green industry would need to be approved, as well as an expedited permitting process.

"If the town adopts this, we can submit our application for becoming a Green Community," Green Committee member and Building Inspector Dan Hellyer stated. "I believe there are 17 communities currently under the Green Communities designation. There are $13 million in grants available for Green Communities every year."

Selectman Jim Driscoll, chair of the Green Committee, added, "We could move forward with this with just Board of Selectmen approval but we want the town's approval as well."

The proposed zoning change would allow manufacturing and research and development of alternative and renewable energy to the town's industrial garden park zone. Hellyer commented that that area has a lot of buildings that are partially or totally empty and that this zone change would be "a great way to bring in those [green] industries."

Robyn Macdonald, Director of Planning, Zoning and Conservation, worked with both groups present to refine the definition of alternative and renewable energy in the bylaw to include wind, tidal, solar, geothermal and river power -- biomass burning would not be allowed.

Macdonald pointed out that research of these kinds of renewable energy would be allowed under the new bylaw, not necessarily the implementation of them.

"This is a liquid thing," Anderson said. "We're looking first at getting the Green Communities designation, then we can specify what kind of power we want to see in town. We can make responsible changes in the future."

Since this is a proposed bylaw change, the Planning Board is required to host a public hearing to gather input from residents. The hearing has been scheduled for May 11 at 7 p.m. in Town Hall.