For the past several months, the Manlius Town Board has been looking into regulating residential and industrial solar panel use on properties within the town, and next week it will discuss the matter at a public hearing.
The board started to consider these regulations in October 2015 following an interest by the SunEdison group to build two 12-acre, 2-megawatt solar array farms on privately owned land along Route 290 (Green Lakes Road), although no applications to the town have been formally submitted.
The board held a public hearing on Jan. 13 for the originally drafted resolution with details on industrial solar panel arrays in the town code. The board then decided to spend more time consulting with the Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board (CNY RPDB) to also include residential regulations for solar energy systems.
A second public hearing is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. on Wednesday, May 25, at the town office.
Some main points from the drafted resolution relating to commercial/industrial solar energy systems include:
•A solar array farm must be located in a Residential-Agriculture (RA) parcel of land exceeding 20 acres and no more than one solar energy conversion system per five acres.
•Any such solar farm must gain a special permit approval from the town board and is subject to site plan approval by the planning board.
•The solar panel arrays should not exceed a height of 20 feet and must be completely enclosed by a security fence no less than eight feet.
•The applicant for the solar farm must submit a letter of intent to the town committing the owner to notify the building inspector 30 days before the discontinuance of the solar farm in the case of decommissioning.
•No solar farm may be built within three miles of an existing solar farm.
•Monitoring and maintenance for the solar farm is the responsibility of the owner/operator.
Some main points from the drafter resolution relating to residential use of solar energy systems include:
•Roof-mounted and ground-mounted small solar panels and roof mounted medium solar panels are permitted on parcels larger than 40,000 square feet in all zoning districts as an accessory structure.
•A solar energy system must be constructed to comply with the New York State Building and Electrical Code.
•No signage or graphic content may be displayed on the solar panels except the manufacturer’s badge, the installer’s name, safety information and equipment specification information.
A copy of the proposed solar energy system regulations is available at townofmanlius.org or by calling the town clerk’s office at 637-3521.
