Yorktown Outlines Potential Changes to Solar Law | Yorktown, NY News TAPinto - TAPinto.net
YORKTOWN, N.Y. - Following the discussion of a potential moratorium on new solar project proposals at its Nov. 9 meeting, the Yorktown Town Board presented its first slate of potential amendments to the town’s solar law.
While no amendments were formally proposed at the Nov. 23 work session meeting, Town Supervisor Matt Slater said the potential revisions to the solar law came after discussions with Yorktown’s department heads and gave the town’s officials a sense of direction in what they would like to see changed.
The amendment ideas presented by Slater were:
1) Increasing the minimum size of a residential lot from two acres to five acres for large-scale ground-mounted solar arrays (greater than 25 kilowatts).
2) Increasing the minimum size of a lot in a residential zone from one acre to two acres for an accessory ground-mounted solar array (less than 25 kilowatts).
3) Increase the setbacks in residential zones from 50 feet to 100 feet for large-scale ground-mounted solar arrays.
4) Decrease the allowed maximum height of residential accessory ground-mounted solar arrays from 15 feet to 10 feet.
5) Codify the requirement for a PILOT (payment-in-lieu-of-taxes) on all solar systems.
6) Codify the requirement of annual inspections on all screenings by the property owner and reports to be submitted to the town.
7) For large-scale systems (greater than 25 kilowatts), reports would be submitted to the Planning Board and the Engineering Department; residential accessory ground-mounted array (less than 25 kW) reports would be submitted to the building department.
“I thought it was important for us to get more focused on specifics in the law that we wanted to see,” said Slater. “If we want to look at amendments, they should be concrete and specific.”
Councilman Tom Diana, who brought the idea of a moratorium on solar projects to the table at the board’s Nov. 9 meeting, wanted to increase the minimum property size for residential solar array usage—the second proposed amendment—from two acres to three acres, but Slater and Planning Director John Tegeder disagreed, saying it would further limit the number of residents who would be eligible to bring solar to their homes.
“At some point, you’re limiting the average homeowner’s ability to save some money on their own electric bills,” said Tegeder. “If you’re going to go up past two acres to three you’re really taking a lot of the homeowner’s ability to do that out of the situation.”
Slater said that the two solar projects approved by the Planning Board, the IBM solar carport and the Hemlock Hills solar farm, have the proposed solar law changes worked into their approvals. Slater also clarified that by codifying a requirement for a PILOT on solar systems, property owners that implement solar on their land will still be required to pay property taxes.
“This is simply a PILOT on the equipment on top of the property. I don’t want anyone to think that the property owner is getting a tax break. They are still required to pay their taxes,” Slater said.
Refinements to the proposed amendments need to be finalized, but the next steps for the board will be to produce a formal draft for the amendments and begin the legislative process.
source: https://www.tapinto.net/towns/yorktown/sections/government/articles/yorktown-outlines-potential-changes-to-solar-law
Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.