Planning Board Meeting
February 3, 2009
City Council Conference Room
6:30pm
Board Members: Fran Cusson, Lucien Langlois, Greg Estrella , Julie Cooney, Dick Merrill, Ralph Collins, Tom McCue, Ernie Allain, Dave Morin
Staff: Pam Laflamme, Pat MacQueen
Others: David Brooks and Simon Thomas, Barbara Tetreault, Berlin Daily Sun
Chair Cusson called the meeting to order and appointed Ernie Allain and Greg Estrella to fill the two absent seats on the Board.
PUBLIC COMMENTS
There were no public comments
APPROVAL OF MINUTES January minutes
Mr. Morin moved and Greg Estrella seconded a motion to approve the January minutes. The motion was passed unanimously.
Ms. Laflamme said the ZBA tabled the Clean Power request and they are voluntarily asking the Planning Board for delay. Clean Power will not be available at the next ZBA meeting. Ms. Laflamme indicated it didn't make sense for the Planning Board to meet until after the ZBA met. The next meeting for the ZBA will be March 11. The Planning Board agreed it would move its regular March meeting to March 12.
CONCEPTUAL PLAN REVIEW - Jericho Mountain Wind Company
The developer was not available at the beginning of the meeting for this item so the Board completed the other items on the agenda. The developer Mr. Brooks showed up at the end of the board's review of the other items on the agenda. Ms. Laflamme explained that this review was just conceptual and therefore informal and non-binding.
Mr. Brooks explained that last year he contacted Christian Loranger who had created a lot of value in his wind project and he had proved that Berlin was receptive to wind power. Ultimately, Mr. Loranger decided he wanted to sell and Mr. Brooks bought it and Mr. Loaner's company as well. Mr. Loranger is still the President even though he is no longer in control of it the company.
The purchase was made in July of last year. Simon Thomas of Atlantic Engineers which has been involved in about 40 wind projects throughout New England is working with Mr. Brooks on this project. They have done projects in Webster, MA and Tiverton RI. They are now looking at a potential project at Mass Maritime. They have developed in-house software of what makes sense for projects. First they need to upgrade the interconnect with PSNH which should be completed shortly and ultimately want to get it to 18MW of power.
He reviewed plans of the property. The plans showed areas of 5 and 3 turbine towers and a few other smaller ones. Each of the larger ones on top is 600KW units.
The smaller ones are 110' blade diameter. The higher ones are 275' and are on 60 meter towers. In Newburyport they put a bunch of these up in three days. The geology work is not done at this point.
Mr. Langlois said that Mr. Loranger did not resolve the issues he was supposed to have taken care of so, Mr. Brooks should meet with the Berlin Water Works. When Mr. Loranger fired up his turbines, they spiked the water plant. Mr. Brooks said PSNH should be handling all of that. Mr. Langlois said there may be an issue of tying into the BWW line. Mr. Brooks said this would be a PSNH issue but they would take care of it. They will contact Roland Viens and Ms. Laflamme will email them his contact information.
Mr. Brooks addressed some questions about shadow flicker, which are shadows from the blades, which can extend out about 3100 feet. The shadow would be contained within the property. Noise rings were also shown on their plans. This shouldn't be a problem because there are no residences in the area.
Mr. Langlois asked what would happen if housing developed in the area. Mr. Brooks responded that he didn't believe they would be able to see the turbines. The Engineer said they can generate pictures of what the turbines would like from any vantage point. They are planning a security detail on the mountain for later on.
These turbines won't have guy wires.
The Developer asked for input from the Board members. Chair Cusson asked about what would happen if they fell. Mr. Thomas responded that they are designed to fall on themselves. He said in Massachusetts they have by-laws which are designed to encourage, to discourage and in between. The City of Gloucester has a good by-law they feel. Most projects try to do too much. They feel they can reduce the wind loss to under 5% which makes the project work. The higher you go the better the wind is. The blade diameter determines how far apart the towers have to be. Higher is exponentially better in terms of efficiency, and they would ultimately like 500' turbines but further down the mountain.
But the first phase will be 275' turbines. They would go to the 500' in a second phase which would be higher. Right now they want to take care of the first phase before anything happens with a second phase.
They expect to pay property taxes and have talked with Gary Roberge from AVITAR, the City's contracted assessor who indicated that a PILT with a set payment might be the best way to do that.
Mr. Morin said that the Board used the telecommunications ordinance as a template in the past for this type of project, and the tower must be set at least the height of the tower from the property line. If not, he thought there should be some agreement with the abutters over the liability which may accrue. The abutter is the State of NH, who Mr. Brooks said he has talked to and they are very supportive.
First they have to get permitted, then do the interconnect, and finally to get the meteorological data to confirm that the wind is there in order to get financing. Turbine construction could be as early spring but it also may take to the end of the year. The time frame on the equipment is pretty quick. They would like to get up one or two this calendar year which is an ambitious schedule.
Mr. Brooks said that the industry is in flux with developing technology, and this is a good site for testing these types of machines. Competitively Berlin can compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing wind equipment here to go with the testing. Loomis will be doing the installing.
They say Allercon is the equipment manufacturer of the turbines they will be purchasing which the developers referred to as the "Cadillac" of the turbines.
Mr. Langlois asked if they are all 'soft start' to which Mr. Brooks said he thought they were but needed to confirm that. Mr. Brooks said that Mr. Loranger did not know the spiking was happening until PSNH told him that which is why they shut it down. Instead of fixing it, he sold the turbines. He had what he wanted and it wasn't a bad business decision at all.
Tom McCue said he was on the PB as a City Councilor. He advised that they not leave the Council until the tail end of the process.
Ms. Laflamme confirmed that all they are looking for is these seven towers. Phase II will not happen until Phase I is done. They definitely need to check with BWW for access and everything else they have to do with such as electrical. Ms. Laflamme said they will need a Special Exception for towers. They also need an approval from the ZBA for energy production. They will have to be able to show that they have an adequate supply of wind and that it is appropriate to its surroundings.
Mr. Brooks said that they have done the FAA on-line check list. They wanted to wait until this meeting before filing with the FAA.
Ms. Laflamme said they should contact NHDES to figure out what type of permits may be needed from them, such as an alteration of terrain permit.
Bonding is another requirement which they need to look into for decommissioning. This will have to be worked out. They will have to show that they have an agreement with PSNH to take power. Ms. Laflamme advised that the ZBA process will need to be accomplished first.
Mr. Brooks said they are not planning fencing around the site. The modern turbine is completely self-contained. Everything is up on top. The monopole is about 9' in diameter at the bottom.
Mr. Brooks said there is a lot of logging going on up there which is great for their wind farm. He said the blades feather if the wind gets too great and then there is a shut down speed where the spinning stops.
Ms. Laflamme said after they get their approvals from the ZBA they can come back to the Planning Board to formally start the site plan approval.
OTHER
None
PUBLIC COMMENTS
None
MEMBER COMMENTS
Mr. Langlois expressed some BWW concerns about the wind project in relation to BWW properties. He also asked Councilor McCue about whether he had brought the overlay zone issue to the whole council. Councilor McCue said he had not yet.
PLANNER'S COMMENTS
Ms. Laflamme said that the Master Plan session is scheduled for Wednesday February 11, 2009 which will focus on the economic development chapter.
Thurs Feb 19th is the Route 110 public hearing. They will talk about the historic resources portion and the review of the plan. Ms. Laflamme said that Historic Resources is hopefully coming around to 4E. They want to retain Third Avenue. This will be just an evening session and the letter from NHDOT about the meeting will be coming out soon. Hopefully, we will get a similar turnout again. Historic Resources is now considering documentation as a way to mitigate. They also have the option of providing tax incentives if the people who own them do something architecturally historically correct. Most probably won't take advantage of this because it is likely to cost them more money.
The solution Historic Resources likes the most is that the Charitable Foundation maybe be involved in working with the City on the neighborhood core and provide funds to the owners to rehab the front porches. Hopefully all of this will contribute to keeping the neighborhood that it should be.
ADJOURNMENT
At 7:50pm Mr. Morin moved and Councilor McCue seconded a motion to adjourn. The motion passed unanimously.
| 
