Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-01-30 Hearing & SecialTOWN OF GROTON MINUTES OF PUBLIC HEARING & SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2019 AT 7:30 PM THE TOWN HALL, 101 CONGER BOULEVARD Those present: Donald F. Scheffler, Supervisor Richard Gamel, Councilperson Crystal Young, Councilperson Sheldon C. Clark, Councilperson April L. Scheffler, Town Clerk Francis Casullo, Attorney for the Town W. Rick Fritz, Code Official Also present: Barry Siebe, Lisa Maloney Hahn, Ed Neuhauser, Thomas Mayo, Kellie Lamereau MOVED by Councilperson Young to open the Public Hearing, seconded by Councilperson Gamel, at 7:30 pm. Ayes - Gamel, Young, Clark, Scheffler The Town Clerk read the Public Notice which was duly printed in the Town's legal paper, the Groton Independent, on January 23, 2019. Supervisor Scheffler read the Proposed Local Law #I for the Year 2019 entitled "A Local Law to Opt - Out of Section 487 of the New York State Real Property Tax Law" as follows: Section 1. Legislative Intent It is the intent of this Local Law to provide no exemption from taxation as authorized in Real Property Tax Law, Section 487. Section 2. Exemption From Taxation No exemption from taxation shall be applicable with respect to any solar or wind energy system or farm waste energy system. Section 3. Effective Date This Local Law shall take effect immediately upon filing with the Secretary of State. Supervisor Scheffler - Real Property Tax Law provides for an exemption from property taxes on wind, solar, and farm energy systems. For a municipality to levy taxes on these systems, they must opt -out of the State Tax Law. There is no distinction between residential and commercial, therefore all systems would be subject to the opt -out. Currently there is no difference in assessment values between residential solar and non -solar properties. This law will not currently change residential values. Passage of this law puts the Town in charge of whether large scale solar installations are taxed or if a PILOT is negotiated. Who would like to speak first? Thomas Mayo - I've worked in the solar industry for almost 7 years now. I've worked on large scale projects. PILOTs are pretty much the common resolution when dealing with larger scale projects. The other consideration is that this tax exemption expires after 15 years and the systems tend to have a warranty life of 25 years, so there's still the opportunity to gain some value after that point. Supervisor Scheffler - But for 15 years we wouldn't get anything. Mr. Mayo - Correct. But you would also discourage development or be taking on people investing in their properties. The County hasn't even come up with a way to assess these. So, how do you assess them? In a commercial setting it's easier to understand the value of that energy but to try to value it on Town Board Minutes Page 2 January 30, 2019 the residential side, it's pretty tricky. The Tompkins County Assessment Department is not actually assessing it at this point. I had a meeting with them four years ago and tried to discuss some models that were being used to value the energy and there's so little solar, especially here in Groton because of the municipal energy. The only thing that this would effectively do is discourage people from making that move or they will buy the energy from a town, like Enfield, for those who are not on municipal. So, you're pushing away potential tax revenue in PILOT form and potential future revenues after the 15 -year expiration. Supervisor Scheffler - Tompkins County Assessment has said they see no value change in property value in houses, up or down, for houses with residential solar on it. Mr. Mayo - Right, and largely that's because they don't have a model to figure out what that value is. So, what would this effectively do by opting out of this? Supervisor Scheffler - Anyone who has a residential solar would be grandfathered. Mr. Mayo - For existing systems. But we're talking about future development, for people to make that investment in their homes. And it would stimulate local businesses. I own part of a small business in Cortland that does solar. It's not my main bread and butter, but something that I do on the side. So, you'd kind of be rolling back my business a little bit too. It does give people a second thought of what is coming next, why am I getting hit. Clean energy is really the future and if you try to put up roadblocks it doesn't make any sense. And there's the distribution of folks having their own energy, owning their energy, instead of sourcing it from investors. You own your energy, that's independence. Ed Neuhauser - Handed out information from NYSERDA. Basically, what I printed out was the PILOT tool fact sheet, the model PILOT law, the model PILOT agreement for a single jurisdiction, and I didn't print out the PILOT calculator and the property tax calculator. What NYSERDA is saying in this is that if you want to protect residential, but you want to potentially do some taxing on a bigger project, you should go with a PILOT. They give all the tools in there on how to do it. They are contending that if you go with an opt -out, you will potentially depress the residential. They also say that you may not want to do the full tax rate because you want to encourage solar. So that's why you do a PILOT. It's a great website, and they will talk and work with you. Lisa Maloney Hahn - I'm a residential solar owner, but I'm more concerned about not encouraging solar farms or larger solar facilities in our town. She read from the NYSERDA publication: Property taxes can have a significant impact on the financial viability of solar electric projects, sometimes impacting project economics in a way that unintentionally prohibits solar electric development. Jurisdictions that opt -out of RPL487 may unintentionally prevent solar electric development at the local level. Activity in other states suggests there is less solar development in jurisdictions that opt -out of the property tax exemption with little to no additional tax revenue collected. So I think that a PILOT would leave more possibility of revenue for the Town and therefore spread out to the Town members than doing a complete opt -out where you're not encouraging that kind of venture. Supervisor Scheffler - If it's not a viable business, if they can't do it, is that something that we want to encourage, a business that can't pay taxes? If they can't function by paying taxes. I understand that you're talking about two different things. One is green energy, which we all encourage, but there's the economic side of it. To have a however million of dollar business in Town and the townspeople are subsidizing the taxes for it. If you do a PILOT, will you get enough? Ms. Maloney -Hahn - Well, you'd negotiate that, and you'd probably get more than if you don't have them here at all. The NYSERDA research has shown that if you opt -out and don't offer any incentives, then they're not going to come. It depends on what you want Groton to look like. They would pay taxes, but you negotiate that with them as opposed to saying we're just not offer any incentives whatsoever. I think it would be better to have a green energy production facility that we help rather than not have one at all. I don't think they're not going to pay any taxes. Supervisor Scheffler - We've seen other towns where they get very little and that bothers us. Mr. Mayo - You said there were towns that weren't making out so well? Town Board Minutes Page 3 January 30, 2019 Supervisor Scheffler - There are towns that are not happy with how it ended up. Mr. Mayo - Have you found any who are happy? Because I can bring those to you. I could easily deliver towns that I've worked with that are very happy. If you just take the lease that the landowner would get, it's four times what it would be for ag. So, there's a whole bunch of pieces here that bring revenue. In 15 years, if you model the PILOT correctly and you're satisfied with that, you're negotiating that. And there's a certain amount that the investors have to yield from this project, but certainly the Town should get something from it. The only thing that is happening is developers see towns who aren't friendly to solar and they just steer around them. They're just going to go somewhere else. They're going to take that business; they're going to take that work; and they're going to move away from this area. I could easily bring you some towns who would be happy to tell you how well it's worked for them. Councilperson Young - What is it that you do with solar? Mr. Mayo - I own part of a company in Cortland, Dryden Solar, that we install mostly residential and some small commercial. I've been in the industry for almost 7 years. I've worked from being an installer up to being a commercial project management. I managed the first community distribute generation project in New York. I know a lot of people in the industry and I could definitely put you in touch with people who would tell you this doesn't make sense. Especially in residential space because there's no way to work it out in residential space. You can work it out with a PILOT on the commercial side. But for residential, you're discouraging people from owning their own energy. Certainly not here in the Village but everybody else is buying it from Spain through the power grid. So, why not encourage people to own their own energy and spend money locally in the US? Councilperson Young - Is there a way, Don, that we can have someone help us with the negotiations? I don't know how that's done. Supervisor Scheffler - Yes, there's help out there to negotiate. Mr. Mayo - NYSERDA offers help with it. Barry Siebe - I have a couple of questions. When I bought my property, the assessment, as I understood it was based on the purchase price that I paid. Is the law saying that you don't get to collect any property tax on that property? Or is it that you can't assess the value of the improvement on the property? Supervisor Scheffler - Just the improvement. Barry Siebe - So, if I come in as a business or property owner and purchase property you're going to collect the property tax on that. You're just not going to collect on that big improvement. My concern is whether or not I put in solar and whether I get a tax break because it wouldn't be significant on residential. My concern would be the negative connotation for folks coming into the area. I think that's kind of been stated about the commercial side, but I'm speaking from the terms of the average person wanting to come in and purchase a piece of property and consider getting of the grid or becoming self- sufficient to a certain extend and putting in solar and spending 30 or 40 thousand dollars. It isn't whether or not I'm going to recognize a whole lot of money in a tax break but the negative connotation from the outside looking in is well, if I can go to some other area and get a tax break, I might consider that versus coming to Groton. How much is it really impacting you negatively if I'm buying a piece of property as commercial energy to do a solar farm? How much is the difference between the tax break I'm going to get on my improvements as opposed to the tax you're going to get from the purchase? Or, if somebody wants to come in and you sit down and negotiate with them and work it out, you're actually going to recognize more than you might otherwise. So, just to do a little more research on this and investigate from the perspective of not putting out that negative vibe to the outside world. Consider the options versus saying just absolutely no. Councilperson Gamel - I think that's an unknown. If somebody buys a 700, 800, or 900 acre farm and turns that into a solar array, I think there's a huge tax revenue loss there, if that's all turned into a solar farm. I certainly don't agree with the residential portion of it, but again, I think that's a very minimal thing. But we're looking at the commercial aspect of someone coming in and getting a tax break for 15 years and then walking. We've seen it with Rubbermaid in Cortland, we've seen it various industries where they come in, they get their tax break, and then they move out of state or they walk away. As a Town Board Minutes Page 4 January 30, 2019 town, and I'm all about green energy, I just think we need to protect ourselves in some way that 15 years from now they don't wash their hands and say I'm letting the acreage go back to the Town or whatever, and we have acres of solar panels, concrete and metal posts that we don't know what to do with. That's an issue that we're concerned with. Mr. Mayo - Typically there's a bond for the removal of the system. The systems last. They're warranted for power production for 25 years, so that's well beyond. I have a friend who works at ETL in Cortland. He tests for that lab to ensure that these systems are working the way they're supposed to so these agreements can be held to. There's typically no concrete. It's driven posts. They can all be pulled and recycled. Almost every bit of these fields can be recycled. It's not the same model as Rubbermaid; they made toxic stuff. Councilman Gamel - It's still, who's going to do the labor, pull the posts, take care scrap, there's a lot of questions. Mr. Mayo - You have to think, all of these other towns are doing this and they have these protections against this, which are valid concerns. Typically, there is a decommissioning plan inside of these projects and a bond to ensure that decommissioning. And if they walk in 15 years, the town ends up with a free power plant that already has the interconnection agreement with the grid, already has it's place that can't be bumped. You secure that tranche of the grid back to you. That's a very valuable recourse and that's what the speculators would like to come in. It's not typically farm fields. They will clear off some land, or in the projects that I worked on, it was property that was no longer viable, used to be farm land, basically useless, now there's a solar field that's pumping out money. People are buying there power locally, instead of wherever. Mr. Siebe - If someone comes in and proposes a solar project don't they have to have a permit process to do that? Isn't it this board's option or the Planning Board's option to just deny that? Or can I simply buy property and put solar up? It is part of the process where I actually have to come in and get permission to build that solar farm, is that not correct? It was explained that an application would need to be submitted for a Special Permit and that the Town Board would review it and either approve or disapprove it. Mr. Siebe suggested that during that review process, all of these concerns could be addressed and options could be explored. Ms. Maloney Hahn - I'm also on the Planning Board and we've dealt with these cell towers and so we've always built into our agreements with them a decommissioning fee that would protect the Town and cover our expenses if they should abandon their project at any point in time. And you can tax them without opting out because you can do the PILOT. So, that's how you can distinguish between a residential and a larger format. Mr. Neuhauser - If you go look at the NYSERDA website, they've done all the work for you so that you can do all kinds of things. You have something to work with there if you want to set up a PILOT. It's already set up for you to do that and you can negotiate. The NYSERDA document is basically saying that if you do a PILOT that you're not discouraging the residential development. Mr. Mayo - NYSERDA will send people to help because they're really trying to work out this bump that offered by opting out. They offer a lot on this issue. Kellie Lamereau - I didn't really understand completely, the law, but what it feels to me that something is not in support of renewable energy. I have for many years just trying to do my best to reduce the damage we're doing as a society. Our country is just destroying the earth so awfully. I just bought a home. I'm a new resident and am so excited about getting solar panels for it. I'm a nurse and don't really have a high paying salary that allows me to give as much to the environmental causes that I'd like, so I was looking forward to a tax credit. Also I feel that if we pass this it's going to, as other people have said, give the impression that Groton does not value renewable, clean energy. Supervisor Scheffler - I do have a little history in renewable energy. I've been building wind generators since 1980, so I know a little about renewable energy. I'm not against it. I don't want anyone to think that I'm against solar or wind or anything that works, anything that people want to try. But I think should be viable. Town Board Minutes Page S January 30, 2019 Mr. Siebe - I'm not advocating either way, but would ask that maybe you consider, for the sake of educating yourselves or us, as I don't know that much about it either, but maybe consider tabling this until a later date so that you could work on finding some of the things out. There being no more members of the public who wished to speak, Councilperson Young MOVED to close the Public Hearing, seconded by Councilperson Gamel, at 8:10 pm. Ayes - Gamel, Young, Clark, Scheffler Supervisor Scheffler asked the Board for their thoughts. Councilperson Young - I think I've heard a lot of information here tonight that I didn't realize and know before. I thank everyone for coming here and giving that information. It's really useful, and I personally, would like to look into it a little bit more. I would be willing to reach out to NYSERDA and talk to them about different PILOTs and how we might be able to make sure that we're getting what we need and making sure that the decommissioning fee and all of that information is included. I think there was so much information given here tonight that I'd like to take more of a look at it. Councilperson Gamel - I don't want to see a large chunk of land used up for solar that's not being taxed, but I also don't want to see homeowners ... I mean I've looked at solar a number of times myself and I understand that there really isn't a way for them to tax you on it at this point but that doesn't mean that it isn't coming down the road. So, I think we need to look into the PILOT a little bit more. Consensus of the Board was to table the decision for a later time and they thanked everyone for coming. Attorney Casullo - Said that he would get more information for the Board for their next meeting. Supervisor Scheffler - Discussion on the fee schedule: We were revisiting some things and noticed that our fee schedule hadn't been increased in quite awhile or looked at and adjusted. So, we checked with other towns to see what their doing and what they are charging and when you think about all the new zoning and building code laws, we are probably not in line with what we should be charging. I give Rick a lot of credit for researching some of this. After some discussion, the following resolution was passed: RESOLUTION #19-020 - UPDATE ZONING FEE SCHEDULE MOVED by Councilperson Gamel, second by Councilperson Clark WHEREAS, the Town Board has reviewed the Town of Groton Zoning Fee Schedule and wishes to update certain fees pertaining to building permits and special permits, now therefore be it RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby sets the following fees pertaining to the Town of Groton Zoning Fee Schedule: Town of Groton Zoning Fee Schedule BuildinLy Permit Fees: Green Energy Production- Large Scale Green Energy Production - Large Scale Renewal of Building Permit Special Permit Applications: Special Permit - Cemetery Special Permit - Junk Yard Special Permit - High Density Housing Special Permit - Mining Special Permit- Large Scale Green Energy Special Permit - Manufactured Home Park Special Permit - Sexually Oriented Businesses Ayes - Gamel, Young, Clark, Scheffler Nays - Resolution Passed Fee $25,000 per megawatt according to the nameplate output rating Same as the original permit $200 $4,500 $5,000 $5,000 $4,500 $5,000 $7,500 Town Board Minutes Page 6 January 30, 2019 There being no further business, Councilperson Gamel moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilperson Clark, at 8:42 pm. Unanimous. April L. Scheffler, RMC Town Clerk