City lawyer and town planner respond to criticism from former city councilor over review of large solar project

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City of Riverhead officials responded to criticism of their participation in the application process for the Solar 2 project in Calverton during yesterday’s working session.

The city was criticized at last Wednesday’s city council meeting by former city councilor Barbara Blass, who spoke out about the city’s lack of comment on the 36-megawatt solar power installation project. of 275 acres off Edwards Avenue in Calverton. (See the previous article.) Blass took issue with the city’s lack of written comments, the lack of active participation in the hearing, and the lack of public discussion within city council on the draft project permit, issued for public comment in early March.

The State Renewable Energy Board approved a final permit for the Solar 2 installation on June 25. (See previous article.) The office was created by a new law enacted last March (section 94-C), to speed up the approval of large renewable energy projects that generate more than 25 megawatts of electricity. Previously, large energy projects were reviewed by another state agency under Article 10 of the Civil Service Act, which involved a thorough and lengthy review process.

Riverhead Solar 2 began a Section 10 pre-application process in 2017. Upon the creation of ORES, the applicant decided to transfer their application to ORES for consideration under 94-C.

Addressing residents at the working session yesterday, city attorney Robert Kozakiewicz said he felt deeply offended and that his professionalism and integrity were under attack by Blass’s comments last week.

In my opinion, as a general comment, much of what has been said has been said to create the idea that they have been stated as fact, when in fact there is a lot of opinions, said Kozakiewicz.

Kozakiewicz said Blass’s comments overlooked city participation in the Section 10 process. Building and Planning Administrator Jefferson Murphree submitted numerous comments during the scoping process. Article 10, which established the scope of the issues to be addressed in the project request. The requester responded to comments from cities and comments from other agencies in November 2018. Murphree was not available today to discuss whether comments from cities during the article framing process 10 were taken into account by the permit approved by ORES last month.

What I wanted to show is that just to ignore this Article 10 process and say that we have been badly abused or misrepresented is, I think, a mistake, Kozakiewicz said yesterday, citing conversations he has had with the developers previously.

He read ORES’s final permit, which states that the permit is “supported by the complete dossier compiled in Article 10 of the Civil Service Act”.

He said there had been a lot of “doom and gloom” and “Chicken Little-type comments”. Riverhead Planning and Building Administrator Jefferson Murphree at a public hearing in November 2018. File photo: Denise Civiletti

Murphree presented a summary of the candidacy yesterday, in which he said the candidacy was the most comprehensive and comprehensive candidacy he has seen in his career. He said there was no negative impact on the surrounding area, including the environment, wetlands and water quality.

The public hearing was not the final chapter in the city’s consideration of the pending application, Murphree said. The planning department, the city attorney’s office and the assessor’s office are constantly working with them and the community and will continue to do so with this app. We take the issues and concerns raised by the community very seriously.

If a critical issue had been identified during my review, throughout reviewing this application, I would have identified it a long time ago, Murphree said.

After Murphee finished her summary, City Councilor Catherine Kent said it was necessary to move forward, but called Kozakiewicz and Murphree’s presentation a tap and spin. She said the city should have weighed in as a host community.

The people of our town [government] should have weighed in for the sake of the residents, Kent said. We had to make a declaration to protect our community, to protect the people of Calverton. It is the biggest solar project to come. We did not weigh and today people tell me how are you? It’s not good.

City Councilor Ken Rothwell said Kent could have talked about the project and talked about it in a meeting. I just don’t think it’s fair to say we missed it or blame it on the attorneys department or the construction department when one of us could use one of these sessions meetings or meetings in town to reach out and express concerns. Rothwell said.

I’ve actually talked about solar a lot, but we couldn’t step in when it wasn’t brought up to a work session, Kent said. This is exactly why things should be discussed in working sessions.

Also at the meeting was Mike Farrell, Director of Development for AES, the developer of the solar projects. He said he echoed Murphree and Kozakiewicz’s comments.

Although Blass, who did not attend yesterday’s working session, was not present at the meeting, she said in an interview today that she is upholding her July 7 statement to the council of administration and that the facts speak for themselves concerning the absence of the city from the 94- C process.

Responding to Kozakiewicz’s comments on cities’ participation in Article 10, Blass said the comments were old and part of a process that the request went through well.

I would have liked to have had a document from the city that says they reviewed [potential concerns] and it was their determination on behalf of the residents of the Town of Riverhead that it was all taken care of, Blass said.

Supervisor Yvette Aguiar said the next step for the Solar 2 project is to adopt a Community Benefits Agreement and Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement. She said that a draft agreement would be presented during the working sessions in the near future.

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