Residents could see savings on their electric bills through a community solar program if the Yorktown Planning Board approves a project to install large-scale, ground-mounted solar panels on a 15-acre lot on Jacob Road.
The proposed solar farm would generate 3.125 MW of electricity per acre for the local Con Edison network and include a nature trail and 5-acre preserve area. The project is seeking site plan approval and a special-use permit.
Residents who live near the proposed project site at 1805 Jacob Rd., which currently has a single property and wooded land on it, are not convinced that the potential savings will outweigh other parts of the project, which they say will be detriments to the neighborhood.
“Replacing woods with a solar farm just doesn’t make sense,” said local resident Brian Mahoney in an email to Yorktown News.
Residents say the solar panels would be too close to nearby property lines, be an eyesore for the neighborhood and could allow toxic chemicals to seep into the ground. They are urging the planning and town boards not to approve the project, which has been debated for years before both the Planning and Town boards.
Randal Pratt lives on Nathalie Court near the site and owns Wilkens Fruit & Fir Farm with his wife. The farm is east of the proposed solar installation. He hired Link Surveyors to examine changes in elevation from his home’s property line. In a letter to the planning board dated May 15, Pratt said the surveyor found that the change in elevation from the rear of his property exceeds 50 feet from a 150-foot setback. He urged the board in the letter to adjourn the application.
“This adjournment is necessary, so everyone understands the impact of this finding,” Pratt wrote.
Pratt is concerned that visitors to the farm will see the panels and less of the woods. The farm draws about 50,000 people a year. He is also concerned that nearby residents will be able to see the solar panels because trees will not screen them year-round.
The Town Board updated its solar law earlier this year, barring large-scale installations in residential neighborhoods, but it grandfathered the Jacob Road solar project into the law because the application was already before the planning board.
A proposed solar site on Dell Avenue, which had originally been considered as a second potential grandfathered project, was removed from the grandfathering provision ahead of the March vote. The applicant for the Dell Avenue project withdrew the application before the vote took place.
The next step in the process is for the Jacob Road proposal is for the planning board to approve the project before construction can begin.
Town Supervisor Ed Lachterman told Yorktown News that the Town Board is done with the Jacob Road project.
The Town Board changed its law on solar panel construction to remove it from residential zones in response to residents’ concerns about putting solar panels in town, Lachterman added.
The issue of whether or not solar panels belong in residential zones has been an ongoing debate in town, Lachterman told Yorktown News.
“All of the activity to have stopped this project should have been before the Town Board,” Pratt told Yorktown News. “The Town Board is being hypocritical because we decided the project shouldn’t be in a residential zone but yet we approved the project anyway.”
But Lachterman pushed back on this response.
“For someone to say the law is hypocritical doesn’t make sense,” Lachterman said. “We didn’t say yay to one and nay to another. We changed the law and the one applicant said I don’t like that we’re not going to go into it. The other applicant said well we could live with it and we want to move forward.”
He added that “it was an equal change across the board on the law as was the result of the concern of the residents of the town.”
Lachterman said the only way the town’s law could change regarding solar construction in the future is if the board wants to open the law and has public hearings on it, like the board could with any of the town’s laws.
He said the town’s law right now “is as it is.”
Pratt’s concern was echoed at the time of the 3-2 vote in March, with Councilmembers Susan Siegel and Ilan Gilbert questioning the approach. Though Gilbert and Siegel said solar in residential districts should be restricted, both opposed a total ban. Gilbert said the Jacob Road project should have been approved on its merits.
“In a way I found the vote for the ban and the grandfathering to be somewhat inconsistent because by grandfathering, the majority is saying that it was a project that they could live with. To me that shows that a total ban is not the right solution,” Gilbert told Yorktown News at the time. “There will be instances where a solar project makes sense because it’s the right project in the right location.”
Unlike Gilbert, Siegel said Jacob Road is not a good site and opposed grandfathering. At the time of the vote, she cited two 2024 moratoriums that applied to the Jacob Road project.
If approved, the 15-acre lot would be leased to Freestone Renewables, the energy company spearheading the project. John Colangelo owns the property at 1805 Jacob Rd., which totals 52.23 acres.
The property is referred to as the Colangelo Subdivision and/or Featherbed Properties, Inc. in planning and legal documents. The Colangelo Subdivision is seeking to subdivide the remaining 37.23 acres in a separate project also before the planning board.
The investment to bring the solar project online is estimated at $8 to $10 million, David Cooper, attorney for the project, told Yorktown News in an email. Cooper said residents who enroll in the community solar program connected to the Jacob Road project would receive a reduction on their monthly electric bills of between 5 and 20 percent, depending on household income.
The Planning Board will next meet on Monday, June 8.
It was not immediately clear if the project will be on the agenda.
2 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
Brimahoney11
The law bans ground solar but allowed Jacob. How is that not hypocritical? The town said ground solar is bad but this one is fine. Give us a break. Also, all site lines and elevations have had to be resubmitted several times over the years and still aren't right. Lastly, this affects a lot of Cortlandt residents but that doesn't matter to Yorktown because we can't vote in YH.
Wednesday, June 3 Report this
JennM129
Additionally, over several meetings, an application that is being considered for years and "grandfathered" was incomplete after the new law was in place. Questions of safety were not considered and yet it was given "another meeting" to get this done. If they can't do the appropriate research when submitting an application, who is to say they won't be negligent in the upkeep and safety in the area to the residents bordering and around this area.
The number of chances to submit accurate paperwork (and who is to say it is now) is ridiculous. This project is completely hypocritical on the number of "chances" it has been given.
Wednesday, June 3 Report this