MEA "Net Zero 2050" Question Posed to 8 Medfield Candidates

MEA Question to Candidates on the 3/27 Annual Town Election Ballot

Medfield Environment Action (MEA) reached out to Patch and requested 8 candidates on the 3/27/23 ballot be asked the following question(s) as it pertains to the May 2021 Town Vote encouraging all boards and committees to support a Net Zero 2050 goal for Medfield.

The following 8 candidates (who will appear on the ballot) were contacted and asked to respond to the MEA question: (1) Selectman, Gus Murby, (2) School Committee members, William Horne and Kristin Simonini, (2) Library Trustees, Lauren Feeney and Jen Cronin and (1) Planning Board Member, Seth Meehan.

The question submitted by MEA is as follows:

"In May 2021 the town voted to encourage all boards and committees to support a net zero 2050 goal for Medfield. How do you envision you and the board you will serve on will support this town-wide goal? How will you help the town, residents and businesses implement the TOMCAP (Town of Medfield Climate Action Plan)? Please consider programming, policies, operations, facilities, etc. Please be as specific as possible, including timeframe." Click HERE to read the current TOMCAP Draft on the Town of Medfield website.

*This is PART 2 - Response from Planning Board Member For re-election

Seth Meehan- Planning Board Member's Response:

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on how I see the planning board continuing in its support of Medfield’s net zero 2050 goal. I was pleased last October to join my fellow board members in offering our full and unanimous endorsement of the drafted Town of Medfield Climate Action Plan. We noted then that land use regulations are effective ways to provide climate resilience and that our town has done well in adopting some key measures, through wetland restrictions and overlay districts for aquifer protection, floodplains, and watersheds. In addition, the 2021 town meeting approved our board’s warrant article that updated Medfield’s solar photovoltaics zoning bylaw, thereby facilitating the use of solar panels. The installation of rooftop units is now by-right. Solar canopies, previously not allowed, can be installed in certain areas and as a town we can explore installing panels on lands we own collectively, such as at our former landfill or at our schools – all following review by the planning board and public comment.

Developing regulatory measures through town meeting to achieve environmental goals, however, is a complicated, time-consuming process. Our board has spent the last two years developing a new Open Space and Natural Resource Protection bylaw. Further, our oversight is limited and, as with solar panels, the technology changes rapidly, making our bylaws out of date just as fast. Therefore, I see the best way for planning board members -now- to support the town-wide goal of net zero 2050 is with the integration of environment considerations to our evaluation of projects brought before us, not because of regulations in place but rather because we value those considerations. Planning board members did that in the fall of 2020 when we approved Medfield’s first publicly available EV charging stations. Since then, we have pushed for including these station’s inclusion in other projects in ways that will allow for the addition of new stations with limited impact. We are engaged in that effort now with our review of the proposed redevelopment of the state hospital. Outside the state hospital zoning district, requiring EV charging stations is not part of our town’s regulations (updates to the stretch code will expand the planning board’s purview), but planning board members have still shown a commitment to encourage the stations’ addition – as well as other environmentally conscious measures – in our site plan reviews, especially for multi-family projects or those used by the general public. We can also consider more formal ways, such as through the PACE program, that will encourage the inclusion of other clean energy technology in future projects before the planning board, but there is work we can accomplish, and -are- accomplishing, in the meantime.

In other words, while regulations are important, they can only take us so far in fulfilling the town’s goal of net zero 2050. That is why it matters the virtues that town residents (volunteers, officials, or otherwise) see in environmental considerations. As chair of the planning board last spring, I provided a statement on the draft TOMCAP, praising the plan’s initial efforts and focus. To borrow that statement’s language, we are in one of those historically fascinating moments of change … and hopefully not in one that will prove absent of change, no matter how necessary that it might be. I explore such episodes of constancy and change with my students, how a single action or decision, no matter how large or small, initiated a cascade of consequences. And we also consider why change might not have occurred in hindsight. I think a change is underway already in Medfield, and the drafted TOMCAP will help in the adoption of regulations that will promote general sustainability of resources and facilitate the healing of our environment.

But (again stealing from my earlier statement), I believe that the plan’s greatest possible contribution is in helping to raise the consciousness of individuals, families, and officials to the consequences of their actions so all of us make good decisions for good reasons. In that way, the TOMCAP can unite us as residents in a cause that is larger than ourselves, that galvanizes us, and that multiplies the impact of our own individual efforts to benefit generations to come. So, to the question posed by the Medfield Environmental Action members: The timeframe for action by the planning board to support the goal of net zero 2050 has already begun, and I have seen its effects already in my collaboration on the planning board and welcome the opportunity to benefit from a finalized TOMCAP to promote the long-term sustainability of our environment as well as the short-term needs of our community.