Applicant seeks variances for two battery storage systems at 114 Parkview Road; hearing to be coordinated with planning board

The Goshen Zoning Board on an unspecified date heard a presentation from applicant representatives for two battery energy storage systems proposed at 114 Parkview Road, a parcel located in the municipality's battery storage overlay district. Alec Glad, representing the applicant, said the two battery facilities would be located behind existing commercial buildings with access from Hartley Road via the existing drive aisle.

The project originally sought multiple variances. "We were able to eliminate two of the variances," Alec Glad said, while confirming the application still requires four variances — two for each facility — including a frontage variance because the sites lack road frontage on Hartley Road and an internal side-yard setback variance. Glad said constraints that prevent relocating the facilities include material storage areas, a septic field, salt sheds and wetlands and wetland buffers on the property.

Terrence Nolan of New Leaf Energy said the applicant's lease with the underlying property owner reserves a right of access and that the company will record an access easement. "We'll be recording access easement, which will be a permanent easement," Nolan said. Board members asked whether the access runs with the land or only with the lease; Nolan said the lease is long term and the intent is to put the easement on record.

Board members and the applicant discussed coordinating a joint public hearing with the planning board so the public would have a single hearing to attend and both boards could hear the same questions. The board noted it lacked a full complement of members at the meeting and agreed to table final action and place the item on a future agenda after further coordination with planning board counsel and staff. The applicant said it will return to the boards with recorded easement documentation and clearer on-site access delineation for the hearing.

No formal vote on approvals or variances was recorded in the transcript. The board did not adopt any final determinations at the meeting; instead it directed staff and the applicant to coordinate a joint public hearing and to return with updated materials and evidence of the recorded easement.