AMHERST — Regulating large-scale solar projects proposed for land that is actively being farmed or is significantly wooded remains a sticking point for an Amherst committee attempting to write a solar bylaw to be adopted by the Town Council.

“It’s going to take a lot of discussion to get to a final draft, I would say,” Planning Director Christine Brestrup told the Planning Board on Aug. 2.

Brestrup provided an update to the board on the work done so far by the Solar Bylaw Working Group, formed in March 2022 by Town Manager Paul Bockelman after the Town Council rejected a temporary moratorium on large-scale solar projects.

Brestrup said the goal is to have the draft bylaw completed by the end of August, though she said it may take longer. “We’re currently wrestling with issues with regulating solar on farmland and forest,” Brestrup said.

The 18-page draft starts with the purpose of “providing standards for the placement, design, construction, operation, monitoring, modification, and removal of such installations.”

While members of the group have different viewpoints on how solar should be regulated, the most contentious issue is how to deal with solar on natural landscapes and working lands.

For agricultural sites, for example, options that could be in the bylaw range from prohibiting solar projects entirely on land that is categorized as “Prime Farmland” or “Farmland of State Importance” as described by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, limiting their size, allowing them only if agrivoltaics, in which farm activities can continue below the panels, are used, or to demand set asides of an equal amount of farmland, either in town or elsewhere.

As controversial in the discussion has been the idea of seeking a replacement or protection of open space. Currently, language in the draft bylaw states that “for all projects where there is clearing of forest land over one acre in size, a minimum area equal to the total area of forest land that is cleared must remain as natural forested open space for the life of the project.”

But the draft also notes that similar demands are not made for those pursuing commercial or housing developments.

Still, Brestrup said that Belchertown’s solar bylaw limits projects to 10 acres of wooded land that can be cut, while Shutesbury’s bylaw calls for four times as much woods to be preserved permanently as trees that are removed.

The town has been working with GZA GeoEnvironmental of Springfield, which commissioned a study that revealed most people want solar to be on the built environment, rooftops and parking lots, and brownfields. The problem, Brestrip said, is not many of these exist in town.

GZA also did a map showing suitable and feasible locations, eliminating lands owned by colleges and universities, wetlands and areas designated as conservation areas, and Agriculutral Preservation Restriction sites, roads and railroads. About one-third of town was left behind for solar, but significantly less is suitable when factors such as as slope and distance to so-called Phase 3 transmission lines, are considered.

The work on the bylaw also has involved the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, the state’s Department of Energy Resources and bylaws from other communities, with consultation with KP Law.

The easy parts are to provide standards for visual impact, fences to keep the public safe and maximizing ecosystems services, an overarching way of protecting land and allowing animals and plants to survive and thrive.

Martha Hanner, a member of the working group, said planners should see the current bylaw as a “very drafty draft.”

Brestrup said she will come back to the Planning Board before presenting the bylaw to Bockelman, who will then deliver it to the Town Council for discussion, where it could refer the bylaw to the Planning Board and Community Resources Committee for public hearings.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>