Pictured is the proposed site of a solar farm on South Main Street Extension in the town of Busti. Submitted photo

BUSTI — A 9-megawatt solar project proposed in the town of Busti is moving along — albeit slowly.

The project applicant is the Buffalo-based solar company Solar Liberty. The solar array is proposed on 29 acres of land at 1255 S. Main St. Ext. The property is currently owned by PPP Future Development of Alexander, N.Y.

Nathan Rizzo from Solar Liberty presented an updated site plan to the town Planning Board on Wednesday. The plan shifts the array slightly from its prior location.

“What you’ll notice is that the system has shifted a little from South Main Street, where we’re allowing some of the vegetation to act as a buffer,” Rizzo told the planning board. “We thought this would be a benefit to the project itself, from a visual perspective.”

The new plan also updates some of the access roads, fencing and the tie-in point to utility lines already in place. The updated plan slightly reduces the footprint of the array with the use of 400-watt panels as opposed to 360-watt panels.

To help the town wade through some of the legal aspects of the project, the planning board is employing the help of Andrew Reilly. Reilly is a part of Wendel Companies, and deals with project planning and design.

“In the actual law, it leaves us the leeway to hire, or have hired at Solar Liberty’s expense, a consultant to review all of the things that have come about with this project, and just to make sure that we have good understanding, they have good understanding, and that we’re all on the same page and doing everything legally,” planning board chairman David Paterniti said.

“I do this for a lot of municipalities,” Reilly said at the meeting. “I’ve been doing this for 35 years. My expertise is in the environmental laws of New York state, and of late, I’ve been helping communities with green energy projects, from wind turbines to solar projects.”

Paterniti said, despite the slow progress, the planning board has been working on the project.

“This whole thing has been progressing forward since the first time we met,” Paterniti told Rizzo. “We haven’t really been stalling or pushing off. It’s been moving forward. It’s had a lot of behind-the-scenes work done.”

At the meeting, Reilly went through Solar Liberty’s plan and Busti town law to inform the board and Rizzo about what needed to be done in order for the project to meet the requirements.

The meeting was held so the planning board can move forward and make an informed recommendation to the town board, which ultimately has the final say on the project.

To assist the planning board, Reilly compiled a checklist based off town law and the project proposal. “You have a checklist of your law, that you can go through and answer the questions,” Reilly told the board.

At the end of the discussion, Reilly informed the board that one of the biggest items to consider is the new site plan.

“That is one of, what I think, the more subjective items,” Reilly said. “The black-and-white stuff is easy, but the more subjective things are that (Solar Liberty) is minimizing the tree loss, trying to fit the site in and screen it as best as possible to fit as best as you can within that character and minimize those impacts.”

Rizzo said in a phone interview he believes the hiring of Reilly will “define the process much better,” and hopefully help to move the project along, and eventually allow him to pass through the planning board phase and begin entering town board meetings.

He also has high hopes for the project, given that it “meets the town code very well,” he said. As a Jamestown native and a co-founder of the Buffalo-based company, Rizzo believes his local company works well to make sure community needs and requirements are met.

Rizzo said the town has been “great to work with,” and Solar Liberty is doing everything it can to appease the board and meet the requirements of town law. “Internally, we’ll take all of your comments, we’ll put it on a tracker and then we’ll state how we’re making the modification,” Rizzo said, “so you can easily follow what the recommendation was (and) how we modified the system to meet the recommendation takes place in the plan.”

At the end of Wednesday’s meeting, Paterniti noted that he and the planning board members “have a lot of homework to do.” The board meets again at 6:30 p.m. July 28 and is hoping to have a recommendation at that point.

There has been some community opposition to the proposed project. A Facebook page called “Busti/Kiantone Residents against Industrial Solar Array” exists, where updates to the status of the Busti project are posted and users voice their issues with the project.

In addition, a petition with at least 180 signatures called “Stop the 60 acre Solar Array in Busti” is present on change.org.