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Date: 11/30/2017
AGAWAM – The City Council’s may soon be considering the parameters of a zoning overlay district where solar arrays would be permitted.
The proposal was brought forward by Councilors Christopher Johnson and Robert Rossi and was referred to the Legislative Committee at the council’s Nov. 20 meeting.
Photovoltaic systems and their placement has been a hot-button issue in Agawam and recent efforts to amend zoning regulations have failed, but Rossi stressed this was not retreading of old territory.
“This is a totally different ordinance. It’s not a variation of the same ordinance. It’s not an amendment of the ordinance that was before us before. It is a totally different ordinance,” he said.
Rossi added the ordinance would give much-needed clarity to the town’s bylaws regarding solar facilities.
“I think once it goes into effect, everything will be carved in stone, everything will be put into our master plan and there won’t be any questions as to where things can go and what restrictions and regulations will apply,” he said. “Each zone has its own regulations, site plan reviews and that sort of thing, so the town will be very well protected.”
Johnson said the document in its current form is incomplete as the actual properties that would make up the district have yet to be identified.
“The next step in the process would be to establish what the overlay district is … The next step that I think would be fruitful would be to ask the Assessor’s Office to generate us a list of parcels that are perhaps five acres or larger,” Johnson said. “That would be the start of the process to determine what the overlay district would look like.”
Once the list of parcels is generated, Johnson said the city’s Engineering Department could generate a map illustrating the district.
“That’s how you establish an overlay,” Johnson sad. “When we did the overlay for the telecommunications, that’s what we did. We looked at a list of parcels that were over a certain size and in that one we were looking for coverage across the town and here we would be looking for suitable parcels to comprise the solar overlay.”
Councilor Richard Theroux, chair of the Legislative Committee, who lost his bid for re-election and will relinquish his seat at the end of the year, also suggested running the proposal past the Law Department.
“I don’t want to debate this. I want to be cooperative with this. I have a short time left to try to get something done here, but I would ask the president of the council to do exactly which is outlined,” he said.
Theroux went on to say a review by the Law Department would protect the town.
“If we’re not on good footing, let’s be obvious, an Eversource comes in an says, ‘The council acted improperly,’ and takes us to court and we end up with nothing,” he said.
Johnson said the Legislative Committee was free to have the Law Department review the ordinance, but again cautioned that it was incomplete without a list of parcels that would make up the overlay district.
Rossi said the process in developing the overlay district would be transparent.
“Every step along the way will be public hearings,” he said. “Part of this process is public input. They [the public] will be informed every step of the way as this ordinance progresses through the government.”