More On The Cape Vincent Zoning Revisions

As I mentioned in yesterday’s  post below, the Cape Vincent zoning revision committee has completed their work, and the revised law is on the Town of Cape Vincent website at the following link.

http://townofcapevincent.org/docs/cat_view/14-miscellaneous.html

 

If time allows I would like to examine certain parts of the new revisions in several posts over the next few days or so.

To be fully informed it may also be instructive to down load the CV Comp Plan at the same link since our zoning by state statute must be in accordance with the vision of the comp plan.  If the zoning does not support the comp plan, then serious legal issues can arise that can successfully challenge the zoning regulations. And there are some of those issues in our zoning  law…revised or not.

In the revision document from the town website, the revisions are highlighted in yellow and the language that has been removed is scratched out with a single line drawn through it.

Now before going forward, I believe there are areas of both our new 2012 comp plan and the new revised zoning law that are well done and I agree with.  But there are parts I do not agree with, as you might guess concerning the zoning regulations around industrial wind…and the solar zoning which created such an embarrassing  zoning mess last summer for town official, particularly Mr. Hirschey the town supervisor with his own solar project which was in violation of the very law he promoted and approved.  Those regulations are still a fiasco.

As I said…surprise surprise… those regulations on solar have been significantly relaxed. Imagine that!!!

Now my first examination in this series  is…why is the town in such a love affair with, and promoting solar in the first place??? 

And right off the top, as in the old law these CV solar regulations fall significantly short in many areas.  For example once again the solar zoning geniuses, like Bob Brown the revision committee chairman, and a key player in creating last summer’s solar zoning fiasco, fail to recognize the various types of solar and it appears they lump it all as photo voltaic (PV) solar.  Get a clue, there are several potential types of solar that could be used with different issues.

There is active solar hot water which can be used to heat the house or just the hot water, and there is thermal solar which generally uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight and which is used more on a commercial scale.  The latter can cause real significant reflective problems onto neighboring areas.  See below.

  

 

        Picture I took last winter of the persistent and invasive sun  reflection issues  at a commercial thermal solar plant near Las Vegas NV. The picture was taken approximately 5 miles from the complex.  The closer you are the more disturbing this impact is.  However, the CV solar zoning geniuses have striped out in the revision any solar reflective protection regulations that might protect neighbors.  That is brilliant...literally!!!

 

 

There is also passive solar, like the house I live in in AZ, but which is far more integrated into the house design without exterior panels on the roof or ground , so this type of solar doesn’t create as much of a zoning issue.  The house would look pretty much like a regular house except it has integrated sunrooms or more south facing glass windows and doors, and heat storage is internal.

 

                                           Passive Solar Home

                    No panels, no power lines, no visual issues to

                      deal with and no specific zoning problems.

                       However, it is backed with natural

                         gas and conventional electricity.

None of this is addressed in our new zoning revisions.  Well…apparently the town supervisor has PV solar so that is all we really have to worry about!

But back to the basic question…why is the town promoting solar in the first place?  Why is the town playing favorites with heavily subsidized PV solar on the tax payer dime (just like wind) or any solar as a preferred energy type?  The town should not be promoting a preference in the energy markets to heavily subsidized energy sources, especially when they continue to prove they don’t have a clue what they are doing with solar… or can’t even read their own law about solar.  In the end this is an energy fiasco just like wind.

I don’t really mind if a person on a personal level chooses solar, ( I did almost 30 years ago, before it was fashionable)  but skip the tax breaks and the town should not be playing renewable favorites, since just like wind there is no science behind it to say it will do anything to change our climate or energy issues. 

 Although I love my solar house and chose to build it for many reasons, but I don’t pretend to believe I am saving the planet. Although if you want to think you are having a positive impact on the environment, in many ways passive solar makes a lot more sense than PV.  More on that in another post. The irony is that the town trashed wind, but in another breath LOVES solar that has many of the same issues, is more expensive, and about as or  more unreliable, and heavily subsidized.

Now that good Republican R. Wiley at his JLL blog has been screaming about these subsidies for several years...how come he isn't talking about the town's love affair with heavily subsidized solar???   Not a word! Maybe it isn't good cocktail party conversation...eh???  Especially when the person throwing the party has a solar panel!!!

Green zoning zealots with no science to back it up…and at the cost to the tax payer!!!  Is somebody cozy with the company Fourth Coast who is in the solar business??? Didn’t Fourth Coast also do the accounting of the water dist 2 issues?   It appears the supervisor and the town zoning geniuses are using zoning to irrationally and recklessly force solar on the community.

Not to mention  that one of the largest solar plants in the nation near Las Vegas NV (very sunny desert) has a paltry capacity factor of just 24%.  I did a double take when I saw how low that figure was in such a sunny climate.  So what about NNY that has far far more cloudy days????

One thing I think should be in our zoning if we are going to be promoting solar is a regulation that REQUIRES anyone who gets a CV permit to build a solar or wind project, residential or commercial to annually make public a full accounting of it’s performance.  It should show the capacity factors, costs, maintenance costs, and problems, savings on the electric bills, and projected savings to the life of the project. etc.  These projects go up but we never have a freakin clue as to whether they actually work or not.

Now I can hear some people screaming that govt can’t force a private individual or business to do that.

Well my answer is…why the hell not…they are using our tax money to make these projects viable, so they should be accountable as to what the performance is to educate the public as to whether this is viable, or just an expensive toy constructed with tax payer money.

I also noted a couple funny things about this solar zoning that seems awful hypocritical when you consider the CV wind zoning!

How come the CV solar zoning doesn’t require that there be no advertising on the solar panels or equipment?

  How come they don’t require power lines from solar projects to be underground? 

And geee…do ya think maybe that for roof top solar there might be some language for a roof inspection to make sure the roof structure can actually support the weight of solar panels? Especially considering CV is a place where additional significant snow and ice  loads could build up! 

Naaahhh…we will just do it the good ole boy way.  Just throw those panels up there, they are "green"…who cares if your roof collapses! 

Oh… and when that snow and ice slides off those panels…is it going land on somebody’s head????

They either don’t know what they are doing or they are hypocrites when it comes to THEIR favorite green renewable energy source and its tax breaks.

Stay tuned…more to come on the zoning revisions!