AMHERST — A prohibition on development of large-scale solar farms for up to 18 months is being recommended for adoption by a subcommittee of the Town Council.
The Community Resources Committee recently voted unanimously that the council should move forward with a moratorium to allow municipal planners can develop a bylaw that will guide how and where solar projects are built.
The moratorium, which would need a two-thirds majority of the council to go into effect, comes in response to a since-withdrawn proposal that would have sited an 11-megawatt solar project on about 100 acres of woods off Shutesbury Road near the Shutesbury and Pelham town lines.
District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, one of three councilors co-sponsoring the moratorium, said the new bylaw is not intended to be anti-solar, but to strengthen regulations on the books.
“What’s really important is that we’re thinking about this in the large context,” Devlin Gauthier said, adding that it is also not a response to the Shutesbury Road project in the Cushman section of town, which would have involved clear-cutting trees and might have impacted wetlands.
As written, the bylaw exempts projects proposed on impervious surfaces, but otherwise doesn’t allow any application for a large-scale ground-mounted solar energy system with a rated capacity of 250 kilowatts or greater that would disturb large swaths of undeveloped land.
While all committee members supported the bylaw, District 5 Councilor Shalini Bahl-Milne said she is concerned about making it more difficult to meet the aggressive climate action goals that have been adopted by the town, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2025 and by 50% by 2030, and getting to carbon neutrality by 2050.
To meet those goals, Amherst will need to have between 270 and 330 acres of ground-mounted solar, in addition to solar on rooftops and over parking lots, she said.
Bahl-Milne also cited studies about actions that humans have taken since civilization began, including impacts on other species and the possibility of increasing global temperatures.
“We have destroyed 83% of all wild mammals and half of all plants,” Bahl-Milne said.
District 3 Councilor Jennifer Taub said she sees only positives because the Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals will have better guidance when considering solar project proposals. “What we have to gain by the pause and developing a bylaw, to me, outweighs what we might lose,” Taub said.
While At-Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke, the chairwoman of the committee, wasn’t sure about her support, she voted in favor after a series of amendments.
The subcommittee also received input from the Energy and Climate Action Committee, which wrote that the town should embark on a solar resource assessment and a solar planning strategy so that the solar zoning bylaw developed will ensure the protection of “highest and best use” values of natural lands.
“Some of the ecosystem service values that a well-crafted solar zoning bylaw can protect include drought resilience, wildlife habitat, agricultural productivity, flood storage capacity and carbon sequestration,” the energy committee, chaired by Laura Draucker, wrote.
“Developing a solar project can take years from concept to operation, and a well-crafted Amherst solar bylaw can help to expedite this process by streamlining permitting, encouraging responsible siting, and incentivizing best practices,” the committee wrote.
The full council next meets Monday.
