The Board of Selectmen Tuesday night agreed they would call for a Special Town Meeting this summer if the Planning Board wants to extend the solar overlay district to cover part or all of the town’s commercial district along Ayer Road. Such a zoning amendment would allow the Harvard Community Solar Garden project to construct a 500 kilowatt solar array on private land it would lease behind Sorrento’s Plaza at 285 Ayer Road.
Selectmen also said Tuesday they would look into the feasibility of leasing four acres of town land in the current overlay district—which covers a portion of the Department of Public Works land around the transfer station—to the solar garden project. Before a lease agreement can be made, the town is required to issue a request for proposals. It would also be contingent on approval by Town Meeting.
The two options are mutually exclusive to the solar garden investors.
Harvard Community Solar Garden applied for a building permit for the Ayer Road site on Monday, and, as of press time, had yet to receive a ruling from building commissioner Gabe Vellante. Vellante had previously denied a solar garden application for a 249.9 kilowatt site in the agricultural/residential district on Woodchuck Hill Road, a decision that was upheld on appeal last week by the Zoning Board of Appeals.
If Vellante approves this latest application, a zoning amendment or lease agreement for the transfer station property will not be necessary, at last for the purposes of the Community Solar Garden.
The solar garden project was spun off of the Solarize Harvard project last year to provide an opportunity for those whose homes are unsuitable for photovoltaic solar systems to benefit from governmental grants and the net metering credits offered by National Grid.
Worth Robbins, manager of Harvard Community Solar Garden, LLC, cited on Tuesday Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40A, which says, “No zoning ordinance or bylaw shall prohibit or unreasonably regulate the installation of solar energy systems.”
If the project’s application for a permit in the commercial district is denied, Robbins said, and the town is unable or unwilling to lease the property in the solar overlay district, “I think we would go back to the Mass General Law that says you can’t prohibit this,” and take the case to court.
A bylaw change, Robbins said, would be “a better alternative, certainly faster, and probably cheaper for all concerned.”
The solar garden investors are working against the clock. To qualify for an extension on the state grants it has received, Robbins said, the project must show it has made some progress.
“I feel we have to have a valid building permit in hand that we can execute, I’d say, by August 1,” Robbins said.
The Board of Selectmen may call for a Special Town Meeting with a minimum of 14 days’ notice. A request for proposals to lease town property must also be posted for two weeks. Before bringing a bylaw amendment to Town Meeting, the Planning Board must also hold a public hearing.
Tuesday, Selectmen Chair Lucy Wallace and Selectman Tim Clark said they would seek a spot on the agenda of the next Planning Board meeting to find out how soon the Planning Board could prepare the amendment, if it wishes to do so.
“We would be willing to call a Special Town Meeting for the earliest time they [the Planning Board] would be ready,” said Selectman Ron Ricci.
Concurrently, Selectmen said they would contact Department of Public Works Director Richard Nota to ask if his department could function without four of its 10 acres around the transfer station. The Harvard Energy Advisory Committee will also be asked to consider whether the town should give up any future municipal use for solar energy..
“We have to get yeses to both of those questions…before, I think, we would be prepared to say, ‘Let’s issue an RFP,’ I would suspect,” said Selectman Bill Johnson.
The solar overlay district was created in November of 2010 as part of Harvard’s successful effort to qualify as a Green Community. It has never been used as a site for a solar installation.
Eric Broadbent, a lender to Harvard Community Solar Garden II and a member of the Harvard Energy Advisory Committee, told Selectmen he recently walked the transfer station site with Nota. The four-acre area the solar garden group is interested in is currently being used for piles of stumps, clean fill, asphalt, and other material Broadbent said.
“I still feel it’s a possibility to rearrange the site and allow this,” Broadbent said. “…It would require some commitment from the town.”
