Solar panels will rise on 50 acres in Raritan Township

With a use variance and preliminary and final site plan approval granted, Millennium Development Limited LLC will place as many as 41,816 solar panels on roughly 50 acres of a 72.4-acre parcel adjacent to Copper Hill Elementary School.

The state considers solar projects “inherently beneficial,” a land use designation that makes it easier for solar developments to earn approvals from zoning and planning boards.

“If the negative outweighs the inherently beneficial, the board votes no,” board attorney Jonathan Drill said at an earlier hearing. “If the inherently beneficial is more than the negative, they vote yes, but what they’re supposed to do when they do that balancing is consider whether or not they can impose conditions.”

Taking residents’ concerns into consideration, the board imposed a list of conditions Millennium will have to abide by.

“This is a good example of making sure we get it right and there was a lot of give and take,” board member Jack Glessner said, noting that the board and neighbors pored over the details. “There’s an awful lot of people that … assisted in the application’s modifications to make this kind of a best possible solution.”

Board chairman Bernard Salmon said Millennium made a significant number of concessions.

Those included installing a triple row of 6- to 14-foot evergreens along the perimeter, relocating the site access and switchgear panels from Everitts Road, preserving five specimen trees, expanding conservation easements, and agreeing to test all metal components for toxicity.

Driven piles, helical screws and concrete footings will be used to anchor the posts into the ground, project engineer Evan Hill testified. The board imposed a 10% cap on the amount of concrete, which will only be used if crews encounter a problem with either of the first two methods.

The applicant agreed to use vibrating pile drivers instead of hammers to address concerns over noise.

The installation of posts will take between two and two-and-a-half months of the nine-month project, Hill said.

Landscaping will be planted during the first available planting season, but if construction begins before the trees are in place, a 14-foot windscreen will be installed to screen nearby residences and highway travelers from the panels and any potential glare, Hill said.

Planting season is between Sept. 1 and Nov. 1 and between March 1 and June 1, said John Thomas, the township’s landscape architect.

Several 55-foot utility poles will be installed in place of the existing 35-foot poles at the point of interconnection and along Everitts Road toward Route 202-31 to run the 345-kV transmission lines.

Hill said he would ask Jersey Central Power & Light if it would consider allowing Millennium to tie into the grid through an existing utility pole closer to the intersection at Route 202-31, per the request of the Moreira family, who said the taller utility poles would be in their line of sight.

The project is in the AR-2 zone and as such, a residential development with as many as 40 homes could have also been proposed for the land, said planner Tiffany Cuviello, who testified for the applicant.

“I consider it a long-term temporary development with a very limited impact to the property in terms of disturbance,” she said of the solar field, noting that a residential developer would have to grade the site and install streets, sewer and water infrastructure. “Yet the proposed development as a solar facility allows … for the property to be farmed again in the future.”

Glessner, Salmon and fellow board members Wayne Ingram, Paul Higgins and Jayne Gilbert voted in favor of the application. Aaron Easley, who was also present at the meeting, was ineligible to vote.

Earlier in the week, hearings continued for a pair of pending solar projects.
Garden Solar is proposing a 2-megawatt field in the northern end of the township. As many as 7,940 crystalline panels would occupy about 5 acres of a 78-acre tract between Old Clinton and River roads north of Desmares Elementary School.

Meanwhile, EffiSolar Energy Corp. is proposing a larger, 18-megawatt field in the southern end of the township. Roughly 65,000 panels would occupy about 65 acres of a 155-acre tract between Everitts Road and Toad Lane west of the Cornet Way jughandle. The Black River and Western Railroad runs through the property.

Expert testimony and public comment will continue Dec. 15 for Garden Solar and Jan. 5 for EffiSolar, but the hearings may be switched due to an attendance conflict among board members.