Joint Planning Board Approves Sharon Solar Facility

Sharon Solar Vista owner Chad Dickason speaks at the April 15 Sharon Springs Joint Planning Board meeting where his five megawatt AC solar energy facility was approved. Photo by Chris English.

SHARON — After frequent reviews and discussions over the last year or so, the Sharon Springs Joint Planning Board has approved the Sharon Solar Vista solar energy facility in the Town of Sharon.

The five megawatt AC project is scheduled to be constructed on a roughly 9.7-acre slice of the 93-acre Helen Roberts Farm at 1073 Slate Hill Road, near Route 20. The Sharon Springs JPB voted unanimously to grant site plan and special use permit approval after a fairly short public hearing at its Wednesday, April 15 meeting.

"The Planning Board seems to have been very thorough and consistent," said Sharon Solar Vista owner Chad Dickason after the meeting. "It's been a thorough and good process."

He said there are still issues to be worked out and estimated that construction would not start until the second quarter of 2027, with the facility coming online sometime that year.

"The current biggest issue is interconnection with the utility (National Grid)," Dickason said during the meeting.

He added after the meeting that he would prefer working out a PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) Agreement but would just pay property taxes on the facility if it's assessed at a number where paying taxes would be less costly to him than a PILOT.

"I would prefer a PILOT but it needs to be in line with the assessment," Dickason said.

During the public hearing, a couple who lives very close to the project voiced a series of objections that Joint Planning Board Chairman Ray Parsons felt were not based in fact.

"I think you should throw it out the window, get rid of it. It's garbage," said the man. The couple went on to say the project would cause cancer and contaminate drinking water, among other objections.

"We're not here for he said, she said, they said, I hear," Parsons responded. "If you have concerns, you have to have good reasons, convince us and show some proof."

Joint Planning Board member Rob Keller added "You may not like it. I don't like it, but there are codes and rules we have to follow and they're entitled to do it under the law."

The couple also said they had not known about the proposed solar energy facility until very recently.

"I do think it's been quite public, it's been in the newspapers," Joint Planning Board Secretary Ron Ketelsen responded.

As he was leaving the room after the vote to approve, the man said "I hope it goes to the dirt buddy."

Parsons reiterated he felt the board's review had been thorough and fair.

"You've been very easy to work with," he told Dickason and his representatives. "You've supplied everything we've asked for. They've dotted the i's and crossed the t's."

Dylan Harris, an attorney advising the Joint Planning Board on the project, said his review revealed no valid legal reason to deny the project.

Another couple living very close to  the project, Todd and Patti Countryman, have attended every JPB meeting where the project has been discussed and worked closely with Dickason on mitigation measures to reduce negative impacts on neighbors and others. After the vote to approve, Patti Countryman expressed reluctant acceptance.

"I don't like it and still don't, but they did work with us," she said.

In another matter from the April 15 JPB meeting, there was brief discussion of a proposed subdivision of the long-closed Columbia Hotel property on South Street in the Village of Sharon Springs. Joanne Darcy Crum, an attorney representing the property's owner Taylor Bates on the project, said items on an Environmental Assessment Form had been checked as having little or no impact on the environment.

Ketelsen said that because of timing requirements involved in the process, the Joint Planning Board could not yet formally approve the Environmental Assessment Form and issue a negative declaration. The matter will likely be referred to the Schoharie County Planning Commission for review at that body's next meeting on Monday, May 4.

Bates is planning a phased renovation over the next several years to demolish part of the current building and renovate the remainder into a structure with a lobby on the first floor and two apartments of two bedrooms and four apartments of one bedroom on the second and third floors.