Letter: Westport planners’ solar deliberations have been open, thoughtful

Posted 8/15/18

To the editor,

The Westport Planning Board had scheduled a public meeting for July 24 to consider various matters including solar farms. Because there was not a quorum of board members present …

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Letter: Westport planners’ solar deliberations have been open, thoughtful

Posted

To the editor,

The Westport Planning Board had scheduled a public meeting for July 24 to consider various matters including solar farms. Because there was not a quorum of board members present that evening, the chair decided to hold an informal discussion on solar arrays in general in lieu of the scheduled Planning Board meeting. 

The fact that it was not a public meeting meant, however, that there were no minutes taken and no video recording, so we are left with the impressions of those who were there as to what transpired.

Ms. Sky Wild, in a lengthy letter to the editor in the August 9 Shorelines, gave her interpretation of what transpired at that meeting. If one only reads her letter, one would be left with the impression that the Planning Board is committed to accepting all proposals for large scale solar farms wherever they are located and whatever their impact on the town and its residents, and to impose no requirements for removing the solar arrays when they are no longer useful.

She goes so far as to suggest that the town planner, in reading sections of the Massachusetts Solar Zoning Bylaw, “surreptitiously omitted an important segment of the law which refers to protecting public health, safety and welfare.” She, however, failed to mention that the Westport Solar Energy System Bylaw reinforces the State law and explicitly provides for the Planning Board to apply standards that “address public safety, minimize impacts on environmental, scenic, natural and historic resources and provide adequate financial assurance for the eventual decommissioning of such installations.” All contracts executed so far have contained provisions requiring the installer/owner to take responsibility for removing their equipment and restoring the property when the farm is no longer in use.

I take great offense at her use of the term “surreptitiously” in this instance. If there is one thing that the own planner is not, it is surreptitious, which has such synonyms as deceitful, conniving or deceptive. He has worked conscientiously and thoughtfully with the members of the board and with those appearing before the board to see that we are aware of, and making decisions that are consistent with, the provisions of Westport’s Solar Bylaw and the State Law.

The Planning Board has so far approved six large-scale solar farms, the latest being on August 7, to be installed at the town landfill. All of these farms were discussed at length in open public meetings and then approved because the Planning Board concluded that they were consistent with the provisions of our bylaw and the state law. When I posed the question to those present at the informal discussion as to whether any of them had any problems with the five systems already approved and installed, no one indicated that they did.

Other pending applications for such installations, about which much concern has been expressed, have so far not been approved. But the Planning Board deliberations on these other applications have been open and lengthy. Since Planning Board members are prohibited by the Open Meeting Law from discussing applications currently before the board outside of the public hearings, the chair advised those at the informal discussion that we could not discuss those cases in that forum.

Ms. Wild also claims that the Payment in Lieu of Taxes of PILOT agreements that were negotiated with the existing large-scale solar farms are too low and less than those of neighboring communities. When the first PILOT agreement was being negotiated by the town administrator in 2016, members of the Planning Board met with him and urged that the PILOT fee he was considering be increased substantially and that the agreement include a 2.5% annual increase to make it comparable with other nearby towns, which he did with significant benefit to the town. It may well be appropriate to increase the PILOT fee on future contracts, but the earlier ones were consistent with then-prevailing levels.

The Planning Board will be holding public hearings on possible changes in the Solar Energy Systems Bylaw in the near future to take account of lessons learned so far and changing conditions in the industry. Interested parties are encouraged to attend.

David C. Cole

Westport

Mr. Cole is a member of the Westport Planning Board.

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