Politics & Government
Township Eyes Limits on Ground-Mounted Solar Panels
Controversial projects lead township to act.
The Township Committee introduced an ordinance regulating the installation of ground-mounted solar arrays in Hillsborough.
One of the purposes of the ordinance, Township Committeewoman Gloria McCauley said at Tuesday’s Committee meeting, is the regulation of solar panels in agricultural areas so they will not deter from the character of the township’s open space.
The ordinance follows guidelines recently established by the State Agricultural Development Committee.
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The ordinance says that no more than 10 acres of a farm property should be covered by a solar installation. In addition, for every acre of solar installation, five acres must be in agriculture, according to the ordinance which also sets a two-megawatt limit for power produced from the solar installation or 100 percent of the farm’s power usage in the previous year.
All solar installations must be 100 feet from a property line and should be buffered by a 10-foot landscaped area or a three-foot landscaped berm.
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The ordinance also regulates the construction of ground-mounted solar arrays in other township zones, including setbacks and buffering. The ordinance also calls for site plan review for any ground-mounted solar facility on a commercial or industrial site.
The limits in the rural areas, Township Planner Robert Ringelheim said, were drafted to prohibit the the construction of solar farms, which have generated controversy in other municipalities, on open space and farmlands.
In Bedminster, a citizens group is fiercely opposing construction of 55-acre, 49,000-panel industrial-scale solar power plant that would power only Sanofi-Aventis on Route 202/206 in Bridgewater.
In 2012, a plan to chop down more than 2,000 trees on Sourland Mountain to construct a solar array to power operations at the Gibralter Quarry came before the Hillsborough Planning Board. Though the entrance to the 750-acre quarry is on Belle Mead-Blawenberg Road in Montgomery, the 9,996-panel solar array would have been be located on the mountain in Hillsborough off Dutchtown-Zion Road.
That plan was later withdrawn.
Both the Bedminster and Hillsborough plans were proposed by KDC Solar, a Bedminster firm. The Bedminster Township Committee is scheduled to continue work on its solar ordinance on Monday.
A public hearing on Hillsborough's ordinance will be held May 14.
