By Ashley M. Casey

Associate Editor

The town of Van Buren is still in the process of tweaking the portion of the town’s code that deals with solar installations. The Van Buren Town Board enacted a six-month moratorium on solar installations back in May, but the town must wait for the Onondaga County Planning Board to comment on its proposed changes. The town board voted to extend the moratorium three more months past the original end date of Nov. 7.

“We found we needed a little more time, so we’re requesting an extension on that moratorium,” Supervisor Claude Sykes said at a public hearing held at the Oct. 15 town board meeting.

Resident Peter Wilder spoke at the hearing to express his support for solar installations “both for commercial uses in appropriate places and residential” use.

“Some towns have implemented large solar farms and they say, ‘OK, that’s enough solar,’ and they don’t allow residential. I would not like to see us go in that direction,” Wilder said. “I would like to see the language become even more favorable, that the town would be proactively seeking to support solar. That should be the default position of the town, to try to work with homeowners wherever possible.”

Wilder said the town should keep in mind that green energy technology changes rapidly, so the changes to the code could become obsolete in just a year or two. He suggested the town work with a consultant to make sure the code allows for new developments in solar technology.

Town approves 5G guidelines

Also at the Oct. 15 meeting, the town board held a hearing on small cell wireless deployment requirements, ushering in the age of 5G cellular infrastructure.

Town Attorney Kevin Gilligan explained that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has limited what restrictions municipalities can place on 5G installations.

Last year, the FCC ruled that state and local governments may only charge 5G providers “fees that are no greater than a reasonable approximation of objectively reasonable costs for processing applications and for managing deployments in the rights-of-way” and have a limited amount of time to approve small cell wireless applications. Aesthetic and undergrounding requirements are now under tighter scrutiny, and certain environmental assessments have been lifted for 5G applicants.

“The federal government is very much in favor of this and they’re trying to beat the Chinese. Virtually anyone against it will get stomped on,” Gilligan said, adding that an attempt on the West Coast to fight the feds’ 5G rules was quashed in court.

Gilligan said 5G units usually are installed on existing utility poles and providers — such as T-Mobile or Verizon — can sign agreements with property owners to locate the utilities on their properties. 5G infrastructure has a shorter range than older cellular technology and units must be placed closer together.

“The cabinet’s the size of a dorm refrigerator,” Sykes said of the units.

The board voted unanimously to approve the design standards and general guidelines for small cell installations. The full local law can be found at townofvanburen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/October-15-2019-Minutes.pdf.