Yorktown’s solar debate returns

As the saying goes: It’s déjà vu all over again.

After two solar moratoriums expired in 2024, and the Town Board failed to act on proposed amendments to the Solar Law after a May 2025 public hearing, the controversial Solar Law is back on the board’s agenda.

On Nov. 25, the Town Boad will be holding a public hearing on a new set of amendments to the law, first adopted in 2020 and amended in 2022.

Like the May 2025 amendments, the new amendments would ban large scale industrial solar farms in all residential zones. (They’re already prohibited in commercial zones as a main use.) But the two sets of amendments differ when it comes to grandfathering the two solar farm projects that were caught in the 2024 moratorium: Jacob Road and Dell Avenue. Whereas the May amendments would have banned those projects, the new amendments would allow the Planning Board to approve them.

As residents weigh the pros and cons of the proposed amendments, there are two basic questions to consider:

• Is a total ban the best way to regulate solar farms?

• If there is a total ban, should two projects be grandfathered?

Ban or regulate?

This isn’t an easy decision. What’s at stake is the need to balance two important but conflicting environmental goals: Put simply: Does it make sense to cut down 1,000 trees to create 3 megawatts of solar generated electricity?

The decision is further complicated by the desire to protect and preserve the character of our residential neighborhoods, a goal that is especially important as the proposed amendments only require that the solar panels be screened from adjacent houses “to the greatest extent reasonably practicable” whereas the current law requires the panels to be “fully screened.”

Perhaps the best way to consider whether solar farms should be banned or regulated is to look at the solar farms already in existence in Yorktown. Of the five already built, three are either on unused pasture land that required few trees to be cut down, or are not visible from local roads or adjacent houses. But two required considerable tree cutting and are visible: the one on East Main Street in Jefferson Valley that is visible from Route 6 and one on Foothill Street.

Questions: If one believes that solar facilities are needed and should be encouraged, why support a total ban? Why ban possible solar installations on sites that might be appropriate and wouldn’t negatively impact a residential neighborhood or require cutting down hundreds of trees? Would it make more sense to evaluate solar farm applications on a case -by-case basis and approve only those that are appropriate sites and meet stringent regulations? And, if the law bans all solar farms, why does it include provisions that regulate them? Which leads to the next issue: grandfathering.

Grandfathering?

Both the first and second moratorium laws, passed unanimously by the Town Board, included provisions that allowed applicants to continue to process their plans ─ at their own risk ─ and with the clear understanding that they would have to comply with the requirements of any new law that was adopted once the moratorium ended. While the Dell applicant did not pursue its application, the Jacob Road applicant continued to appear before the Planning Board, even after the May set of amendments would have banned solar farms from residential neighborhoods without any grandfathering

Then, without any explanation, something changed. And instead of reconvening the May hearing and voting on the proposed amendments, in September, the Town Board released a new set of proposed amendments. The new amendments retained the ban on solar farms in residential zones ─ but this time ─ grandfathered in the Jacob Road and Dell Avenue projects.

At the meeting, Councilwoman Haughwout spoke in favor of the grandfathering provision. Councilman Esposito and I opposed it. Supervisor Lachterman and Councilman Murphy were silent on the issue.

Questions: Why the change? Why, if Board members voted for two moratoriums without grandfathering, and now support banning solar farms in all residential neighborhoods, would they now give the green light to these two projects? Why, even before the Nov. 25 public hearing, and a Town Board vote on the amendments, was the Jacob Road applicant at the Nov. 10 Planning Board meeting with a revised site plan that meets the requirement in the proposed new law?

What’s your opinion?

This is your community. What’s your opinion? Should Yorktown ban ALL solar farms ─ or ─ allow them on appropriate sites? And, if solar farms are banned, should the Jacob Road and Dell Avenue projects be grandfathered?

In emails, phone calls or at the public hearing, share your opinion with board members. Make our voice heard.

Susan Siegel is a member of the Yorktown Town Board. She invites readers to check out the “Issues” link on her web site, susansiegel4yorktown.com, to see her insights into the board's previous solar discussions.