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Date: 2/12/2020
HAMPDEN – In recent years, Hampden has had its share of controversy surrounding large-scale ground-mounted solar arrays, otherwise known as solar farms. Thanks to a strengthened bylaw passed at the Special Town Meeting in October 2019, both residents and potential solar farm owners will have a much clearer set of rules moving forward.
The bylaw, which governs the installation, regulation, and removal of solar farms, is more expansive and less vague than the original rules. It determines design standards, such as screening and lighting, to obscure the view of farms and limit light pollution, respectively.
It also contains language regulating the lot size, height and noise of the farms, as well as environmental standards, such as land clearing, wetlands and hazardous materials.
Another important section of the bylaw protects the town against abandonment of solar arrays by requiring a bond be taken by the company and held by the town to fund removal of the equipment in such cases.
“The bylaw is not necessarily restrictive,” said John Matthews, a planning board member and former member of the committee that wrote the rules. Instead, it was designed to regulate the “influx” of solar arrays in town, which he said was because “the state of Massachusetts embraced this form of energy,” Matthews said, referring to solar energy.
The state approved the bylaw in a letter from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office, dated Jan. 31.
“Any new installations will have to abide by the new bylaw,” said Matthews. Solar installations that were approved before the new bylaw took effect are grandfathered into the original solar bylaw and are not subject to the new standards.
Passage of the bylaw followed a one-year moratorium on new solar farms inside town limits while the updated rules were crafted.
While no applications for new large-scale, ground-mounted solar arrays have been submitted since the passage of the new regulations, there are previously approved installations currently in development in the town, including on Mill Road, Thresher Road and Potash Hill Lane.