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Tinmouth planning commission narrows energy-plan actions, keeps policies
Summary
The Tinmouth Planning Commission pared down the proposed enhanced energy plan on Dec. 19, removing ambitious outreach and survey actions and shifting toward pragmatic steps such as linking to state resources, maintaining municipal efficiency, and promoting simple resident measures like weatherization and shade trees.
The Tinmouth Planning Commission spent the Dec. 19 meeting revising the town's draft enhanced energy plan, agreeing to narrow several proposed actions while retaining the high-level policies. Chair (speaker 3) said the commission would ‘‘strike actions 2 and 3’’ and instead focus on attainable steps such as helping residents weatherize homes and maintaining current efficiencies in town-owned buildings.
Commissioners discussed an outreach action that had called for an annual training and educational mailing; several members said a full training program was unlikely for the town and recommended a minimum of a once-a-year mailing or abbreviated reminders. As Chair put it, ‘‘We're not gonna do that’’ (speaker 3), meaning the commission preferred small, repeatable touches (e.g., a mailed tip sheet and links to state resources) rather than resource-heavy programs the town could not staff.
Several members raised feasibility concerns about survey-based actions intended to determine existing weatherization in town. The group agreed it was impractical to canvas every residence; instead they favored collecting data going forward by asking new-build permit applicants about construction techniques and recommending a task of ‘‘thinking about how to determine current weatherization levels’’ rather than committing to an immediate town-wide survey.
The commission also proposed modest local actions such as encouraging planting of fast-growing shade trees to reduce cooling demand and keeping a simple link to the state's energy-efficiency resources attached to building-permit materials. The meeting closed with a plan to return to the final section of the plan in January with regional planner Jeremy expected to attend.
