Pictured are members of the Chautauqua Town Board. P-J photo by Gregory Bacon

While the town of Chautauqua is updating its comprehensive plan, it is putting a hold on any future solar projects until the plan is completed.

At the same time, a previously proposed solar project is expected to face new technical difficulties to get approved.

During the August Chautauqua Town Board meeting, board members held a public hearing on a moratorium on future solar projects that will be in place until Sept. 1, 2025.

The town, along with the village of Mayville, has been in the process of updating its comprehensive plan over the last year and a half. They’ve sought and received grants, appointed steering committee members, hired a consultant and held public meetings.

One of the steering committee members is Councilman Scott Cummings. “The comprehensive plan that we’re working on, a big part of that is land use within our town and village. As we’ve been working and talking with people, commercial solar and commercial wind is a big issue that people are concerned about. Talking with our consultants, they said, ‘yes this is something we need to address in our comprehensive plan.’ But we are not there yet. We are a ways away from putting that in and getting all the information we need,” he said.

Because of this, the steering committee requested a one-year moratorium, which is about how long they expect for the comprehensive plan to be completed.

The public hearing lasted for more than 30 minutes, with people expressing opinions both for and against the moratorium.

Many of the comments appeared to be directed at current solar projects proposed.

In early 2023, two solar projects were proposed in the town – one at 6049 Wright Road, Dewittville and

a separate one at 6455 Cadenza Passage, which is off of Chautauqua-Stedman Road.

Town Supervisor Don Emhardt said the moratorium would not impact either or those applications, but would put a hold on future ones until the comprehensive plan is finished.

In October of 2023 the town board voted that the solar project proposed on Cadenza Passage would be given a positive declaration for the State Environmental Quality Review.

After that vote, Town Attorney Joel Seachrist explained that a positive declaration says the board has determined that there could be significant environmental impacts and therefore they are asking the applicant to participate in a scoping process. In a scoping process, the town and the public have a chance to “scope” what issues need to be looked at in further detail. After that, the applicant is responsible for producing an environmental impact statement.

Since that ruling, the developers of the solar project on Cadenza Passage have not returned to a town board meeting.

During the August meeting, Seachrist asked board members for their opinions on if they were leaning to issue a positive or negative declaration on the proposed Wright Road solar project.

Emhardt said he supports a negative declaration. “A person has the right to do what he wants to with his personal property. They’ve met every one of our requirements,” he said.

However council members Cummings, Tom Carlson and Akin disagreed with Emhardt.

“I’m supporting a positive declaration. This is nothing new. We had the previous solar project; we determined that was a positive declaration,” Carlson said.

“With what I’ve read about solar, I’m in favor of a positive declaration also,” Cummings said.

“I’ve always been in favor of a positive declaration,” Burnett said.

Councilman Ken Burnett was not at the meeting.

There had been talk that the soil was considered high quality for farming, however the state Department of Agriculture and Markets disagreed.

The town board is expected to formally vote on a positive declaration next month. If that happens, an environmental impact statement will be required before the Dewittville solar project can be issued a special use permit.

Meanwhile, the town board unanimously approved the one-year moratorium on future solar projects.