DUANESBURG – The Duanesburg City Board will maintain a public listening to on a proposed ordinance that may regulate extra photo voltaic arrays, together with the place energy era methods might be situated within the city.
The Jan. 26 listening to, required underneath state regulation, comes a month after the town unveiled a 22-page proposal made throughout a monthlong moratorium on photo voltaic arrays that lawmakers adopted to alter the ordinance. which was first adopted in 2016 and final up to date in 2021. .
The brand new regulation is extra in-depth than earlier variations, and features a complete part regulating battery power storage methods and small power methods. It additionally consists of provisions addressing deforestation, failures and limitations of photo voltaic panels on farms.
A particular committee tasked with updating the regulation is reviewing greater than two dozen photo voltaic ordinances already in place elsewhere. Neighborhood members additionally weighed in on a sequence of public conferences that occurred over a number of months.
Underneath the proposed regulation, utility photo voltaic arrays can be restricted to the town’s R-2 Residential/Agricultural zoning district in addition to the C-1 Business and C-2 Manufacturing and Mild Industrial zones with particular permits issued by tows Planning Board.
Candidates should additionally create an escrow account to cowl engineering, authorized, environmental or planning prices in an quantity decided by the Planning Board, and enter right into a “neighborhood host settlement” – or fee that helps cowl municipal prices associated to the event of a giant photo voltaic array.
A decommissioning plan can also be required underneath the proposal, requiring candidates to acquire a bond or safety to cowl 125% of the estimated value of eradicating the photo voltaic panels and restoring the property. The bond should embody a 2% escalator or regardless of the Shopper Value Index is, for the lifetime of the photo voltaic power system.
Duanesburg is in search of to undertake a brand new photo voltaic regulation at a time when municipalities throughout the area are adopting moratoriums on power manufacturing methods to replace and undertake legal guidelines designed to regulating panels.
All of it comes because the state seeks to extend clear power manufacturing within the wake of the Local weather Management and Neighborhood Safety Act, a 2019 regulation accepted by state lawmakers that goals to curb the state’s greenhouse gasoline emissions. to 85% of 1990 ranges by 2050.
As well as, the regulation additionally requires that 70% of the state’s electrical energy come from renewable sources by 2030.
Rotterdam, final month, adopted a 12-month moratorium on hopes of updating its photo voltaic regulation that dates again to 2017. The cities of Canajoharie and Root have additionally adopted related replace measures. of the laws there.
A public listening to on Duanesburg’s up to date photo voltaic regulation can be held at 7 p.m. Jan. 26 at Duanesburg City Corridor, 5853 Western Turnpike.
Contact reporter Chad Arnold at: [email protected] or by calling 518-395-3120.
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Classes: Information, Schenectady County
