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CTECH Solar representative asks Willington to amend zoning to accommodate larger ground-mounted solar projects
Summary
CTECH Solar sought feedback from the Willington Planning & Zoning Commission on a zoning text amendment to allow and regulate ground-mounted solar arrays under one megawatt, raising siting, farmland preservation, interconnection and tax-stabilization questions.
CTECH Solar representative Kevin Costello told the Willington Planning & Zoning Commission on March 3 that landowners have expressed interest in siting ground-mounted solar projects in town and that the company is seeking guidance on whether a zoning text amendment would be needed to allow such projects.
Costello said CTECH — a renewable-energy developer based in Bloomfield, Connecticut — is evaluating several potential sites and that projects in the development pipeline typically fall under one megawatt and therefore stay under local review rather than the Connecticut Siting Council. "At this point I think we probably have over a gigawatt of projects that are in development," Costello said, adding that site-specific capacity and local regulations determine whether a project can advance.
Jen Tao, who identified herself as a civil site engineer with Burns & McDonnell and as CTECH's consultant, told the commission that Willington's bylaws do not define "large-scale solar" or clearly place such installations in the table of uses. "I did notice that large scale solar is not listed as kind of a definition and it seems like from the bylaws there's more of an open ended special permit application process," Tao said, urging the commission to consider whether a defined principal-use category or an explicit special-permit path is preferable.
Commissioners and CTECH staff discussed scale and siting tradeoffs. Costello and Tao said Connecticut practice generally leaves projects under 1 megawatt to local authority, while projects larger than 1 megawatt go before the Connecticut Siting Council; they estimated a 1 MW array typically requires about 5–7 acres including road and transformer pads. Commissioners raised farmland-preservation goals and suggested nonprime or otherwise constrained sites — for example covered municipal landfills — might be better candidates than prime agricultural soils. Tao said careful site design and state-regulated stabilization practices can help preserve underlying soils during construction and through decommissioning.
The commission also pressed CTECH on utility interconnection and tax impacts. A commissioner asked whether Eversource would approve new interconnections or require capacity upgrades; staff and Costello replied developers generally locate where capacity exists or fund upgrades. Costello said CTECH has used tax-stabilization agreements in prior towns and offered to provide assessed-value estimates for a typical 1 MW array after the meeting.
Staff advised that because the town's zoning table does not currently list a large-scale solar use, a text amendment would be required and would trigger a public hearing and subsequent approvals. Commissioners discussed using a special-permit review as a gating mechanism to retain local siting control and to attach site-specific conditions. Costello and Tao asked for feedback on allowable zones and suggested they would return with more detailed proposal language if the commission is open to pursuing an amendment.
The commission did not take formal action at the March 3 meeting; staff said the matter would be placed on a future agenda if a text amendment is proposed.
