Hearing on solar moratorium Wednesday

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By Dan King

A public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. in the Whitehall Municipal Building for the purpose of discussing a proposed six-month moratorium on solar farms in the town of Whitehall.

The town board voted 4-1 last month to propose the land-use solar moratorium and set a public hearing for Wednesday. Only Councilman David Hollister opposed proposing the moratorium.

Hollister said at the time, “If anyone in this crowd wants to put one up, I think they should be able to. There’s still this thing called freedom in this country – freedom to do what you want with your own land.”

Proponents of the moratorium, such as Supervisor George Armstrong said the goal of the proposed moratorium is to allow the town to come up with rules and regulations regarding solar farms before more come to town.

The goal, Armstrong said, is to establish a committee that would come up with land-use rules for solar farms.

If the board votes to implement the moratorium, it would not impact the three projects that have already come before the planning board. Those projects are being done on the properties of John Millett, Jr., Joe Terry and Levi Cahan. The moratorium also would not impact someone who wanted to put solar panels on their roof for the purpose of lowering their own electric bill.

Erika Sellar-Ryan, the town’s attorney stressed that this is strictly a land-use moratorium, and that even if it were put in place, it doesn’t mean solar farms couldn’t eventually be allowed in the town.

When the town first suggested the moratorium, during the May meeting, it drew such a crowd that the meeting was moved to the town court.

Wednesday’s public hearing is set for 7 p.m. in the Whitehall Municipal Building. Town board members will hear the opinions of the public and then vote on whether or not to implement the six month land-use moratorium.