CATSKILL — The Greene County Legislature is considering a local law that would establish a set fee rate for developers who want to build solar projects in the county.
During the Legislature’s regular meeting Wednesday, lawmakers unanimously approved a resolution to set a public hearing for a proposed solar energy system law on May 4.
At the legislature’s Government Operations Committee meeting April 18, Greene County Director of Real Property Tax Services Ray Ward said he had been working on crafting a local law with Greene County Attorney Edward Kaplan pertaining to solar energy payment-in-lieu-of-taxes programs in the county.
“We started negotiating PILOTs back in 2017,” Ward told the Legislature. “At that time, NYSERDA’s (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority) recommendation was to negotiate PILOTs at roughly 3% of the revenue generated by the energy created by the facility. We were able to negotiate PILOT payments upwards of 3.5%, and in addition to that a community host agreement that escalated it even further above 3.5%. Since 2017, we’ve been noticed on 20 projects and currently we’re aware of approximately 26 projects going on around the county.”
Ward said negotiations have been completed for four of the projects, while four additional projects are in negotiations with the Greene County Industrial Development Agency and another seven are in various schedules of negotiation.
“What we’re finding is that there’s been a change in the landscape with solar and renewables as a whole in the last two years, and really going back four years,” Ward said.
According to the state Department of Taxation and Finance, the 2021-22 state budget established a process for the agency to craft a standard appraisal model for solar and wind energy systems with a capacity equal to or greater than one megawatt.
Ward said the state model has lowered the valuation of solar projects by approximately 33% to 50% what the county believed the parcels were worth.
Ward said that as a result, the seven new solar projects that are negotiating with the county are arriving with low PILOT terms, with the developers looking to pay between $3,000 and $5,000 to the county per megawatt.
Ward informed the legislature that during negotiations with a company that is building four solar projects in New Baltimore that it took six weeks of negotiations to secure a rate of $8,000 per megawatt for the county
“I think they only did it because they wanted to get to construction,” Ward said.
The local law would put the county’s proposed solar fee of $8,750 per megawatt of capacity on the record for any developers interested in establishing a PILOT project in Greene.
“It’s about the consistency so that we don’t have different rates for different projects,” Greene County Administrator Shaun Groden said Thursday. “These things aren’t taxed like a commercial property is, but they have a requirement to pay taxes. There’s many of these things springing up because of the type of major power lines that run through the county. Part of the decision-making to place a (solar) field is the proximity to a major distribution line. Because the farther you get away from the main lines, there is a loss of the power as it transmits. So you want to be as close as possible to major lines. Greene has got major lines, which is why we have so many of them.”
Groden said the county has become an attractive destination for developers looking to build large-scale solar energy systems.
“There’s a lot of big ones,” Groden said of the county’s solar fields. “The two in Athens-Coxsackie, these things are hundreds of acres large. The state is continuing to relax requirements on taking decision-making away from us and local zoning applications because the state has a push for this type of (solar) power. There’s always concerns about functional obsolescence with these fields. What happens with these fields when they’re 20 years old? Who’s responsible for decommissioning them? What do you do with the panels? I don’t think a landfill is where they should go. So there’s a lot of issues here other than just taxes.”
During Monday’s meeting, Greene County Legislator Thomas Hobart, R-Coxsackie, asked Ward if there was a downside in the county setting a solar fee.
“What if they come up with a different rate and ours is lower?” Hobart said. “If the state finally wakes up and wants to share some information, they’re telling you where to go but they’re not giving you any guidance or giving you any information to help the counties.”
“I’m going with it based on my experience over the past five to six years in doing this,” Ward replied.
Ward said during Monday’s meeting that the only caveat for the proposed law is that it is limited to the county. Greene school districts would have to pass their own resolutions and towns would need to pass local laws to reap the benefits of the program.
“If they don’t, they’ll be off on their own,” Ward said. “The way Ed (Kaplan) and I have changed some language, we would only be getting our share of that $8,750. It’s not the county getting $8,750, that’s the pot of money for the county, town and school.”
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