KNOX — A public hearing for a 1.7-megawatt solar array on the border of Guilderland and Knox was impeded by a lack of returned signed notices from those who live within the vicinity, including some living right across from or at the very edge of the land off of Route 156.

At the Knox Planning Board meeting last Thursday, Chairman Robert Price explained that the engineering firm contracted to construct the arrays and access road for US Solutions Inc. (doing business as Community 2.0) had failed to reach 40 percent of the of residents within a half-mile of the site.

Price later told The Enterprise that there is no required amount of notices signed by residents, but that the board had decided to hold another public hearing once residents who reported they had not received a notice had been contacted.

Price said at the meeting that the firm had gotten the names and addresses from the county tax maps found online, which were last updated in May of 2016 and may not have accounted for those who moved to the area after that date. But Knox residents Kevin and Suzanne Hale said at the meeting that they have been at their home across Route 156 from the property for the last three years. Guilderland resident Joseph Breitenbach said he has lived on his property bordering the area for the last 40 years.

At its meeting in March, the Knox Town Board had discussed having the town’s zoning board or planning board, rather than applicants, responsible for mailing notices to neighbors.

Planning board members attempted to determine how to conduct a public hearing without having properly notified the public, eventually deciding to allow Justin Beiter — the vice president of Engineering and Construction at Community 2.0 — and Jared Pantella — a civil engineer at LaBella Associates, the engineering firm contracted by Community 2.0 — to present the project.

According to Pantella, one-and-a-half acres of meadow would be cleared, and one-and-a-third-acres of scrub at the entryway would be cleared; eight acres of woods would be cleared for the array. Wetlands would go untouched, said Pantella.

The land is being sold to Community 2.0 by the Peter Young Center in Altamont through the company Vesta. Community 2.0 has submitted a letter of intent to the planning board stating it will be selling one-and-a-half megawatts to a golf course in Saratoga Springs.

The golf course is essentially paying to be reimbursed for whatever electricity the solar panels are providing to National Grid on its own meter.

Beiter told The Enterprise a change in the way energy distributors are compensated could affect the potential deal with the golf course, but he said the company would move ahead with the deal.

Array plan

The nearly two-megawatt array will consist of 344 “tables” with 18 solar panels on each. Each table is 30 feet long and 12 feet wide, and — due to the tilt of the panels — the height ranges from one-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half feet. Knox Supervisor Vasilios Lefkaditis from the gallery estimated that a solar table would encompass the main room in the town hall where the meeting was taking place. The tables would stand eight inches apart from one another.

An access road would be built from an entry point at Route 156 through a valley to the arrays, where there would be an emergency turn-around point.

The access road may be the biggest source of construction. Around 300 feet in length, the road would go 30 or 40 feet uphill, said Price. Pantella said large amounts of fill would need to be brought in to level the road up to the arrays.

Lines would run underground from transformers on the arrays, along the access road, and up to two holes out of which they would connect to transformers near the power lines at Route 156. The tables themselves would be pile-driven or screw-posted, so no groundwork would be needed, said Pantella.

A chain-link fence — covered in black vinyl per a neighbor’s request — would surround the property about 400 to 500 feet back from the property line, coming up to 150 feet at the closest point. Barbed wire would top the fence. There would be no lighting on the access road.

Two structures other than the arrays will be built, a transformer to convert the power and a structure to house a control panel.

Surrounding the arrays, pine trees would be planted every six feet, except in the wetlands.

According to Price, most arrays built today are relatively silent, unlike earlier models that made a humming noise when running. The panels would also be entirely silent at night, since there would be no sunlight to collect.

A bond would be put up by Community 2.0 to the town in the case that the panels do not produce enough energy and have to be decommissioned. Should this happen, the company would remove the structures and replace them with native trees.

Construction would last three to six months, but could not begin until November and would have to stop in April, due to the possibility of the Indiana bat roosting in trees that would be cut down. The bat is listed as an endangered species both in New York State and federally.

Neighbors respond

“This [construction] is going to make my life hell,” said Carly Digeser, who explained that she has two infants at her home, which sits near the prospective construction.

Beiter and Pantella also presented images of prospective views of the arrays from the surrounding property, indicating that the trees and distance would hide the arrays. But the Hales, Digeser, and another neighbor — Lisa Cowan — said that, because their properties also go uphill, their view would be looking down at the arrays. They asked the company to find out what such a view would look like from above.

William Johnson, another neighbor of the property, said he was not opposed to using solar power, but was opposed to setting up this array, citing the project’s rejection by Guilderland, the difficulties in construction, and the building on the historic Schoharie-Plank Road. Actually, Beiter’s Guilderland proposal was not rejected; he withdrew the application after the village of Altamont recommended against it.

Price said that the road on the property is not the Schoharie-Plank Road, but another historic road called Palatine Road. The origin of the road, said Price, is from when German refugees known as Palatines came up the Hudson in the 18th Century and then trekked to the Schoharie Valley by going up a steep path that came to be the known as Palatine Road. Plank Road, said Price, was used between 1848 and 1856. Price noted that Palatine Road would not be disturbed by the construction.

The next public hearing on the Community 2.0 solar array will be held on May 11 at 7:30 p.m. during Knox’s next planning board meeting at the Knox Town Hall.