In a public hearing discussing the extension of a Solar Farm moratorium held on Monday night, Town Board members and residents learned quite a bit about Cypress Creek Renewables’ plan in the Town of Stafford.
The Stafford Town Board voted 4-0 to extend a solar farm moratorium at it’s regular Town Board meeting on December 11, 2017.
The moratorium will continue prohibit solar farms and solar power plants from being constructed in the Town of Stafford while the subject is studied and looked into by a Solar Committee.
The five page moratorium will prevent solar companies from submitting applications for a permit to construct, establish use or operation of any land, body of water, building or other structure within the Town of Stafford for a solar farm or solar power plant.
The Board was going to extend the moratorium for three months, but the head of the Solar Study Committee, Sandra Swanson, requested another month as there will be several more open meetings on the topic and then the committee will move on to actually studying which is the hardest part, says Swanson.
Councilman Robert Mattice then requested the moratorium be extended by 6 months instead of 3.
Dan Compitello, Zoning Outreach Manager for Cypress Creek, was glad to hear the Town of Stafford Solar Code Committee was extending the moratorium for more study and presentations.
After learning the committee had not developed a draft code yet, he offered assistance in the area of drafting code.
Donald Young, an Attorney for Boylan Code, who practices primarily in land use and represents at least five towns in the area of planning and zoning, addressed the board offering his assistance with the approval process for code in the solar farm area.
“I am extending the offer to help in assisting in writing codes, I can be a great resource and can offer insight and have experience representing towns,” says Young.
Councilman Ron Panek cut to the chase and asked if they would be asking for a pilot for the project.
“Yes, that is commonly done for projects like this across the state, and for the two projects in the Town of Batavia, we are addressing it through a pilot there,” says Compitello.
(Town of Batavia project on State street road)
“Right now there is a property tax exemption in NYS that towns have to opt out of, if they do stay within the exemption, they can still seek a pilot which is payment in lieu of taxes, so even that exemption would still be there for a 20 year period, any town can pursue a pilot for 15-20 years in the course of that exemption. That is the approach that is being taken right now.”
Panek responded “Normally you do a pilot to attract jobs, to attract something, what are we attracting here?”
Compitello says the purpose of the pilot is to make a special assessment on the solar system itself.
“The benefits are that each solar system can power about 3-600 homes in the local area at a reduced discounted rate than current electricity charges. Rates would be at a fixed rate for the life cycle of that solar farm that would be up in 40 years.”
“That renewable energy is locally distributed here at a cost savings to local residents and businesses, the renewable energy stays here and it does not get transferred out to downstate.”
Panek agreed with most of what Compitello said.
“From the flip side, you are going to have a heck of a time in convincing me that we should have a pilot. What benefits do you bring that would intrigue us to offer a pilot?”
Young responded, “The intrigue for you is that you would get tax payments by way of a pilot as opposed to having a complete tax exempt property.”
So the solar project can be tax exempt, can be a pilot, or both, or it can just be taxed.
“I am sure there are some projects we would be wildly enthusiastic to make tax exempt, this isn’t one of them,” says Panek.
“We also may decide on a pilot, but its doubtful, and then the other option is just taxing it like you tax everybody else here.”
Compitello thought this was a discussion to have with the Town Board down the road.
“It does have implications on the feasibility of the project itself, It may or may not be possible without a pilot, you may be turning away solar in a sense.”
The question then came up if any towns have turned down solar projects.
“We have not come across any community that does not want to see this happen. What we do find is certain ways they want to see it happen and we can do it by writing the solar law which is what the town of Stafford is doing right now,” says Compitello.