Mount Kisco residents speak out about proposed solar farm

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Residents concerned about a proposed solar farm appeared before the Mount Kisco Planning Board recently hoping to shed some light on its potential impact.

Under scrutiny at the board’s July 22 meeting was a draft “scoping” document prepared by the applicants, SCS Sarles St. LLC – Mt. Kisco Community Solar LLC with input from Planning Board staff, and intended to cover what’s to be included in the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).

The board, acting as lead agency under SEQRA (State Environmental Quality Review Act), had issued a “positive declaration” in 2022 on the project because of its potential for “significant adverse” effects.

The scoping process will lead to a review of -- and public hearings on -- a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) before a site plan and special use permit can be approved.

The proposed 2.6-Megawatt Tier 3 Community Solar Farm would consist of 5,400 panels mounted on 246 eight-foot-high “tables,” or steel frames.

(A megawatt is one million watts of electricity.)

It would disturb about 6.7 acres of a forested 25-acre site at the corner of South Bedford Road and Sarles Street on a portion of the same property where the village approved a cell tower in 2023 despite objections raised by neighbors in Mount Kisco and Bedford and by Marsh Sanctuary, a neighboring 156-acre nature preserve.

The property’s located within the village’s Conservation Development (CD) zone.

Ground Rules

Chairman Michael McGuirk opened the July 22 meeting by explaining that the Planning Board was going to conduct “something basically simple, but important” -- a draft scoping session.

The board is weighing the “scope,” or outline, of what’s to be discussed in the DEIS. According to state law time restrictions, it has to provide its comments to the applicant no later than Aug. 15.

The board next meets on Aug. 12.

Written comments on the draft scoping document, which is in the July 22 meeting packet on the village’s website, needed to be received by Friday, Aug. 1 in order to be made part of the initial record.

The board itself will decide which comments are “relevant” enough to include.

However, there will be additional opportunities for public input down the road.

Speaking Up

According to the developer’s attorney, William Null of Cuddy & Feder, the application was made as a “public utility facility,” which gives boards greater flexibility when weighing possible variances or waivers.

One of those waivers sought includes the village’s required 200-foot buffer from the recently built Homeland Towers’ 140-foot-tall cell tower.

Rex Pietrobono, a resident of Sarles Street, protested what he called the applicant’s attempts to “squeeze in encroachments” on the buffer such as a gravel parking area, which could be used as a “cover” for a drainage system.

That’s a “structure” and isn’t allowed, he asserted.

Piertrobono worried that it could harm trees that are currently shielding his property from the cell tower.

A former chair of the Conservation Advisory Council, John Rhodes told the board that there were a dozen “critical issues” he’d like added to the scope.

In a written statement he submitted for the record, Rhodes noted that “our local, living environment is a dynamic, complex system that changes over time and in the three plus years since the pos dec was issued, conditions may have changed.”

He cited as an example the arrival of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive species that kills ash trees by feeding on their inner bark and disrupting the flow of water and nutrients.

According to Rhodes, more than 90 percent of the ash trees on the site have already succumbed to the critter and the removal of hundreds more “constitutes a significant or severe negative impact.”

That loss equates to between 10 and 20 percent of the total number of trees, he said, adding that there should be a new tree survey conducted.

There are also “new, man-made factors” that potentially create “cumulative impacts” on the environment and community character, Rhodes said, pointing out that the cell tower didn’t exist at the time the “pos “ was declared.

He thought the “scope” should include updated “qualitative and quantitative” reports on the possible impacts on groundwater, aquifers and wells, the Kisco River, and the Marsh Sanctuary’s pond.

The zoning for the CD requires the preservation of 35 percent of the property as “open space,” Rhodes said, calling on the board to make the applicant “present an enforceable, viable plan” for that.

Pointing out that since the cell tower has been built, Rhodes claimed that the solar farm would violate the “single principal use” rule under CD zoning.

The project shouldn’t be approved “without a thorough study of the legal implications of such an action,” he urged.

Also submitted for the record was a letter from resident Dr. Nigel Sizer, an “internationally respected forest ecologist,” and member of Marsh Sanctuary’s board.

Sizer was concerned about the long-term impacts on flora and fauna that the removal of trees and vegetation would have.

The site, which was partially cleared for a private residence many years ago, is starting to regenerate itself, he wrote.

Even if the solar farm operates for “only 25 years and is then decommissioned,” these impacts “will persist for many decades after,” Sizer said.

He argued that the village would be missing an opportunity for turning the property --- which could act as a bridge between Marsh Sanctuary and Leonard Park -- into a “public access green space.”

Sizer suggested that could be accomplished through a “bold partnership between the owner, local government, and generous local citizens.”

John Stockbridge, a member of Marsh Sanctuary’s board of directors and Bedford’s town historian, brought up historic preservation issues.

Marsh Sanctuary contains two historically significant structures: Brookside Cottage and an amphitheater.

In light of that, the village should consider getting input from the State Historic Preservation Office before it okays anything, he suggested.

“Preservation of it for the village I think is a good thing,” Stockbridge said. “There aren’t that many historic spots here; this is one of them.”

Maryann Tarnok, who lives in The Chase, an adjacent housing development, pointed out that, if approved, the project would be the third solar installation in the 3.2-square-mile, “densely populated” village.

“We’ve done our share. Let some of our neighboring towns with far more land step up to meet New York state’s goal of 70 percent renewable electricity by 2030,” she said, asking the board to “do the right thing and deny this application.”

Tarnok also urged that it not “dismiss” her “concerns as a Mount Kisco Chase resident who doesn’t want this in her backyard.”

She felt that solar farms shouldn’t be located in ANY wooded areas in town.

“The fact that it borders a residential neighborhood and a nature sanctuary makes it even more alarming,” Tarnok said.

DEP Weighs In

Cynthia Garcia, supervisor of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection SEQRA coordination section, weighed in in a July 17 letter to the Planning Board.

Among its concerns were the “ecological impact” of tree removal at the site, which, it said, “decreases carbon sequestration and biological diversity, may leave soil susceptible to erosion, increases the volume and rate of stormwater runoff, and potentially increases nutrient transport to streams.”

It suggested that the DEIS address ways to offset that, such as the planting of pollinator/meadow habitats – with native species -- between the arrays.

The village might also consider requiring a plan for “decommissioning” if or when the solar farm “is abandoned.”

If the facility employs a battery energy storage system, aka BESS, then the DEIS should address the type of battery to be used, reference standard industry design features that will reduce the potential for a spill or leak, and include an emergency response plan, Garcia advised.

(The village’s notice of the scoping session emphasized that “the project does not involve any battery energy storage.”)

Furthermore, Garcia said, any Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan included in the DEIS should note that the project site is located in the drainage basin of the New Croton Reservoir, which is part of New York City’s water supply system, and also where the boundaries of any adjacent 100-year flood plains are located.