Mount Kisco Planning Board Reviewing Solar Power Project
The Mount Kisco Planning Board is reviewing a proposal for a community solar power area that would be located on a portion of the Oakwood Cemetery at 304 Lexington Ave.
The project is proposed by Sunrise Solar Solutions, LLC of Briarcliff Manor on about 4.2 acres of the northern portion of the cemetery’s property. Sunrise Solar Solutions President Doug Hertz, who is the Planning Board chairman, addressed his board. He is recusing himself from the project review. The solar power area is being sought for ‘the very rear of Oakwood Cemetery,” Hertz said.
Community solar is a system where mounted solar panels are installed at a specific location and power is generated into the grid. Energy subscribers within the utility territory can have the solar power credited to their accounts.
Hertz said aside from seeking site plan approval and special use and wetland permits from the Planning Board his company is asking the Village Board of Trustees to consider a solar farm overlay district to allow community solar use. Village Attorney Whitney Singleton said the trustees could review the overlay district proposal in August and approve it in September or October.
Hertz said if the project was approved there would be “very little disturbance related to it.”
His company is seeking to place about 150 solar panels in the area, Hertz said.
The project calls for the removal of 125 trees because they would cause shade in the area of the solar panels, Hertz said. But other trees elsewhere on the property would be planted, Hertz added. Shrubs would also be planted, he said. The project also includes a plan to create a garden on the site which would reduce pollution.
Hertz said his company would enter into a 30-year lease with the cemetery, which could use the land for its purposes once the lease ended and they need additional space for burials.
No date for when the project would be back on a Planning Board agenda was announced at the meeting.
