COPAKE — State Office of Renewable Energy Siting Executive Director Houtan Moaveni pushed pause on the Shepherd’s Run Solar Farm project.
In-person public hearings scheduled for Jan. 9 and Jan. 10 at Copake Town Hall and two virtual comment sessions scheduled for Jan. 11 were postponed by the ruling based on the sale of 60 acres of Hecate Energy’s footprint, making the parcel unavailable for inclusion in the project. The parcel would have contained about 20% of the completed project.
Moaveni granted the town’s motion for an expedited appeal to stop the hearings on the grounds that without the 60 acres, Hecate would be required to do a significant redesign of the project, and that the project could not move forward before the complete redesign is made public.
Craryville Farms LLC purchased the 60 acres at the corner of Cambridge Road and county Route 7, according to a statement from Sensible Solar for Rural New York. The new owner will not lease the land back to Hecate Energy, the company planning to build Shepherd’s Run, for inclusion in the project.
Copake Town Supervisor Richard Wolf said the acquisition of the parcel by the local agribusiness would force Hecate to change its plans.
“Sixty acres of land are no longer available, and Hecate planned to use the acreage to increase the length of the access road, host about one-fifth of its solar panels and serve as a place to keep the company’s equipment,” Wolf said Friday. “Now, with so much land gone, they’ll have to redesign the whole project. The ruling was made less than four hours before the hearings were set to begin.”
Hecate has not addressed how it intends to proceed now that the appeal has been upheld or indicated whether extensive modifications to the project would be required, according to Moaveni’s ruling.
Dismissal motion denied
Along with the appeal motion, the town filed a motion with the Siting Board to dismiss Hecate’s application, a move which, if granted, would in effect completely scrap the entire Shepherd’s Run project. But during a pre-public comment hearing conference, an administrative law judge denied the town’s motion to dismiss.
The judge ruled the issues raised in the town’s motion would be considered as part of the town’s issues statement. Although the judge encouraged Hecate to inform all parties “earlier rather than later” how it intends to proceed on its application in light of the ruling, the judge did not set a new deadline earlier than the Feb. 15 deadline for Hecate’s response.
Moaveni set the briefing schedule on the town’s appeal to overturn the administrative law judge’s ruling that denied the motion to dismiss Hecate’s application. The town has until the close of business Tuesday to serve and file its brief on the dismissal motion. The town is authorized to supplement the record with any additional facts it deems to support the motion to dismiss the application.
“The public comment hearings and issues determination procedure are adjourned pending a decision on the appeal,” Moaveni ruled.
All parties including Hecate have until the close of business Jan. 22 to serve and file a response to the town’s appeal motion. Hecate is authorized to supplement the record with any facts it deems appropriate to support its opposition to the town’s motion to dismiss the company’s application.