To the Editor:

The Marion Spring Town Meeting Warrant has arrived in your mailbox. The warrant contains two solar zoning bylaw articles to be voted on at the May 13 Meeting. Yes, Marion needs good solar bylaws. There is no disagreement on this basic issue. Marion needs to protect our neighborhoods and property values form the adverse consequence of out-of-town solar speculators and poorly sited solar installations in our neighborhoods.

The Planning Board clearly recognizes the need for good, rationally designed and drafted solar bylaws, and plans to deal with this important issue in a way that benefits our residents, neighborhoods, and the town. Marion residents need the ability to install new solar technology. The technology is here. Solar performance should improve as well as the size and costs reduced over time as the technology matures.

The disagreement between the Planning Board and the Energy Management Committee, sponsor of the solar zoning bylaws, is that EMC’s poorly designed and drafted bylaws are clearly not the ones for Marion.

During recent public hearings, the EMC’s proposed solar zoning bylaws have been opposed by Marion Planning Board members. Article 30 is a solar bylaw that allows for the placement of ground and pole mounted solar systems including commercial solar farms, such as those planned for Rochester and Dartmouth, in Marion’s residential neighborhoods. Many South Coast towns either prohibit large-scale commercial farms in residential neighborhoods or restrict their placement to specially restricted solar overlay districts where their impact is more benign. All Marion’s residential neighborhoods, however, having lot sizes of an acre or more will become vulnerable for placement of ground and pole mounted solar installations including commercial solar farms.

Article 31 has to do with “as of right zoning” which would allow the Marion Energy Committee to place a private commercial solar garden on the town’s Landfill; therefore, bypassing Marion’s traditional zoning protections of special permit and site plan review now required for commercial and industrial projects.

These two bylaws contain bad public policy, are poorly drafted, and place Marion residential neighborhoods at risk for commercial solar development. The bylaws throw the door wide open to entice out- of- town solar speculators to shop for cheap land leases to site solar projects in order to harvest the very rich financial and tax subsidies and incentives available for these projects. The bylaws are so poorly drafted (no front or side yard restrictions as an example) that “your across the street neighbor” can install a ground mounted solar system of 900 SF in their front yard. That’s a footprint equal to the size of two city transit buses parked end to end. You will have no remedies under the EMC’s proposed bylaws to stop it. Do you want this in Marion?

The proposed solar bylaws, Article 30 and 31, are not good solar policy and zoning for Marion. Both Articles being rushed by the EMC to Town Meeting for a vote are poorly designed and drafted should be defeated by a NO vote. Wait for the Planning Board to respond with solar bylaws reflecting the needs of our Town. Developing good zoning is a participatory process.

Ted North

Marion

The views expressed in the “Letters to the Editor” column are not necessarily those of The Wanderer, its staff or advertisers. The Wanderer will gladly accept any and all correspondence relating to timely and pertinent issues in the great Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester area, provided they include the author’s name, address and phone number for verification. We cannot publish anonymous, unsigned or unconfirmed submissions. The Wanderer reserves the right to edit, condense and otherwise alter submissions for purposes of clarity and/or spacing considerations. The Wanderer may choose to not run letters that thank businesses, and The Wanderer has the right to edit letters to omit business names. The Wanderer also reserves the right to deny publication of any submitted correspondence. 

To the Editor:

We have a lot of rights as citizens of the United States and as property owners in the town of Marion. Let’s paint a fictionalized picture: I’m overlooking the pool from my deck where my two children, their four friends, and our dogs are playing in a joyful (read: loud) manner, enjoying a swim to cool off after playing on our tennis court. There are big ruts in my front lawn from the trailer truck that just came on yesterday’s rainy day to pick-up my 40-foot sailboat from the side yard. The boat’s scheduled pick-up finally forced me to take apart the illuminated Santa’s sleigh in the front yard that the kids love so much. The boat, when shrink-wrapped, is about 18 feet high and takes up about 320 square feet and sits right on our property line.

My brother-in-law is at the table saw in our large garage/shop building his wife a desk for her birthday while enjoying a six-pack of Sam Adams. We’re excited about the arrival of summer and “Back in Black” by AC/DC is pumping through our outside speakers. Life is good.

I only wish my neighbors had more time to chat when I go out for my newspaper each morning.

Back to reality: The way we work as a town, state, and nation is that we have a lot of individual rights, even while that might be slightly uncomfortable at times for our neighbors. That’s why we invented block party barbecues, borrowed cups of sugar, and jumper cables to keep the peace. Unfortunately, despite the wide latitude we have on our property for swimming pools, boats, tennis courts, and garages, the Marion Planning Board appears uncomfortable allowing similar rights for modestly sized, noiseless, and properly screened solar panels.

For example, if I had at least an acre of land and wanted to install some solar panels and posts to hold them up that would cover only 1.5% of the lot size, set them back 35 feet from property lines, and screen it all entirely from my neighbors, the Planning Board would prefer that I still get a special permit to do so. Why? I love the adage, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Could it be that the Planning Board’s hammer is a Special Permit requirement? The reason given by one member, and I applaud his candor, is to retain “the ability to say no.” I do trust that his “the ability to say no” is well intended and for the town’s welfare as he sees it, however, that power is unnecessary for something as benign as solar panels.

Therefore, the answer to whether you can do anything with solar panels on your property, with the exception of putting them on your roof, is “maybe.” When asked what the possible objections to solar panels might be, it was stated that neighbors might object to the sight of the solar panels even while they would have to be entirely screened. There was also a suggestion that these solar panels might lessen the property values of a neighbor’s home. How so? What makes solar panels different than pools, large garages, and tennis courts? We should give solar panels at least equal rights among these structures.

Marion is currently ranked No. 104 among 351 municipalities in Massachusetts in solar capacity per capita. Not terrible, but just my opinion that we should lead in renewable energy rather than follow. The sun’s energy is clean and financially competitive given the incentives. Massachusetts State Law permits solar installations in all zones and limits a town’s ability to regulate them. Marion’s Energy Committee, made up of some of our most admired citizens, has worked hard to come up with reasonable guidelines, in the form of bylaws, which will accommodate both the state law and the character of the town. The simple idea is – if you want to install solar panels, you may do so, by right, if you follow the common sense guidelines without further review from the town. You wouldn’t have to expend the time, energy, and maybe money for drawings and all that jazz that becomes part of a special permit process. Even the preparation for a one-night public meeting is a hassle given the very busy lives that people lead. In short, the special permit is an unnecessary friction that will slow the use of solar panels among our fellow citizens.

I enjoyed my rare visit to a committee meeting. The Board’s members are volunteers and our neighbors; they put in long hours hashing out issues with the nothing but good intentions and their sense of the well-being of the town. They were informed and engaged and the discourse was always civil. There was even some good, appropriate humor coming from the Board despite the disagreements. Despite my appreciation for their professional and studied approach, my preference, in the case of solar, would be for the Board to do what they have done so well in so many other areas: establish clear goals, policies and procedures that protect the town but also give property owners the knowledge, up front, to understand what we can or cannot do on our property. That’s what good planning is all about! I ask you to please attend the Town Meeting beginning May 13 and vote for the Solar Bylaw as recommended by the Energy Management Committee.

Dan Cooney

Marion

The views expressed in the “Letters to the Editor” column are not necessarily those of The Wanderer, its staff or advertisers. The Wanderer will gladly accept any and all correspondence relating to timely and pertinent issues in the great Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester area, provided they include the author’s name, address and phone number for verification. We cannot publish anonymous, unsigned or unconfirmed submissions. The Wanderer reserves the right to edit, condense and otherwise alter submissions for purposes of clarity and/or spacing considerations. The Wanderer may choose to not run letters that thank businesses, and The Wanderer has the right to edit letters to omit business names. The Wanderer also reserves the right to deny publication of any submitted correspondence.