LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

News Watch Home

Shirley Planning Board begins draft of renewable-energy bylaw 

Credit:  By M.E. Jones, Correspondent | Sentinel & Enterprise | 07/29/2016 | www.sentinelandenterprise.com ~~

SHIRLEY – Cautioning that the project they were about to tackle – drafting a renewable-energy bylaw to present at the fall Town Meeting – would be a “marathon, not a sprint,” Planning Board Chairman Bill Oelfke told the board and an attendant group of enthusiastic co-creators Wednesday that the work would take some time.

“We don’t have to get everything done tonight,” he said.

But over the next couple of hours, the group made significant headway.

It established how to start, with a template taken from similarly-aimed bylaws other towns had adopted. For example, the western Mass. community of Buckland, whose solar bylaw it decided to use as a model.

Planning Board member Janet Tice and Barbara Yocum, one of the de-facto subcommittee members at the table, handed out a synopsis of the Buckland bylaw they had prepared, along with a list of goals they hoped to achieve with the nascent new bylaw.

The purpose of the bylaw should be to set “reasonable regulations” for “large-scale, ground-mounted solar renewable energy systems” that would:

* Protect public health, safety and welfare;

* Minimize impacts on residential properties and neighborhoods;

* Protect natural resources, including wildlife corridors and

* Preserve scenic, historical and cultural resources.

During discussion, the to-do list grew by consensus, adding protection of drinking water and trees to the list of items the bylaw might address.

But the group also narrowed its focus so that, even though the title covers a broad range of renewable-energy sources, such as wind and hydro power, the spotlight would be on solar facilities for now.

Still, they felt that the generic title was more future-oriented and that it should be written with “placeholders” to allow other kinds of power-generation projects to be regulated later. And the bylaw can be amended as technology changes, they agreed.

“It’s not that we don’t like solar energy,” Raejean Price said. But the sites chosen so far for solar projects on town land have raised concerns, mainly due to clear cutting trees, which alters the environment. A wind farm could pose the same risk, she pointed out.

“What I’m hearing” is that we want to minimize habitat damage, loss of green vegetation to clear-cutting and visual blight via landscape buffers, mitigation measures and follow-up checks, board member Sarah Widing said. She agreed to work on a section of the bylaw addressing those issues.

In addition to limiting the size and scope of solar projects by various means, Oelke suggested pinpointing zoning areas where solar facilities could be built, “by right,” albeit with the required permits and with conditions, if necessary.

Someone suggested inserting guidelines to reflect the board’s project preferences rather than rely solely on regulations.

But board member William Lampros, who is a contractor, said it would be a useless exercise. Better to barter, he said. For example, if a developer wants a special permit or a variance to build a solar facility that is outside permit parameters or fails a regulatory test that can safely be waived, the deal must include a tradeoff. He compared it to a builder agreeing to value-added subdivision perks in return for a concession from the town.

Tice liked that strategy. “Our goal should not be to promote or prohibit but to reasonably regulate,” she said.

The board agreed to double its meeting schedule, meeting every week instead of every other week and to use one of those sessions solely to work on the bylaw.

Source:  By M.E. Jones, Correspondent | Sentinel & Enterprise | 07/29/2016 | www.sentinelandenterprise.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon