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 techniques may be positioned within the city.
The Jan. 26 listening to, required underneath state legislation, comes a month after town unveiled a 22-page proposal made throughout a monthlong moratorium on photo voltaic arrays that lawmakers adopted to vary the ordinance. which was first adopted in 2016 and final up to date in 2021. .
The brand new legislation is extra in-depth than earlier variations, and features a complete part regulating battery vitality storage techniques and small vitality techniques. It additionally consists of provisions addressing deforestation, failures and limitations of photo voltaic panels on farms.
A particular committee tasked with updating the legislation is reviewing greater than two dozen photo voltaic ordinances already in place elsewhere. Group members additionally weighed in by means of a collection of public conferences that passed off over a number of months.
Below the proposed legislation, utility photo voltaic arrays are restricted to town’s R-2 Residential/Agricultural zoning district in addition to the C-1 Industrial and C-2 Manufacturing and Gentle Industrial zones with a particular allow 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 “group host settlement” – or cost that helps cowl municipal prices associated to the event of a big 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 vitality system.
Duanesburg is looking for to undertake a brand new photo voltaic legislation at a time when municipalities throughout the area are adopting moratoriums on vitality manufacturing techniques to replace and undertake legal guidelines designed to control the panels.
All of it comes because the state seeks to extend clear vitality manufacturing within the wake of the Local weather Management and Group Safety Act, a 2019 legislation authorized by state lawmakers that goals to curb the state’s greenhouse fuel emissions. to 85% of 1990 ranges by 2050.
As well as, the legislation 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 legislation that dates again to 2017. The cities of Canajoharie and Root have additionally adopted comparable replace measures. of the laws there.
A public listening to on Duanesburg’s up to date photo voltaic legislation might 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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