Town of Rochester Environmental Conservation Commission
Meeting Minutes January 12, 2017
Facilitator: Laura
Recorder: Chris
Attendance: Laura Finestone, Rick Jones, Chris Hewitt, Colin McDonough, Tim Gagnon
Guest: Larry DeWitt, Tom Konrad (Marbletown ECC chair), John Wackman (Solarize), Mike Baden (Planning Board chair)
I. Call to Order
II. Business and Logistics
A. Minutes approved
III. Reports
A. Natural Heritage Plan report – Rick
-Reviewed priorities for the plan. Ecological resources and terrestrial habitat were rated most important while historic and cultural resources were rated on the low side. Rick handed out the ranking documents: “Town of Rochester Natural Heritage & Open Space Ranked Components & Protection Tool Options.” Discussed wetlands, from federal, state and local. Do we have local wetlands and control over them? In section titled “Protection of the Rondout Creek,” discussed what else could be added. We’d like to see protection from septic issues, and new septic. The Wawarsing section of the report has more info about Rondout protection. Discussed the new bridge project on Route 209. Chris would like to request details on the project from the DOT so we understand the riparian buffers. Mike attended the meeting to give feedback on the priorities from a Planning Board perspective. In order for us to have local wetlands, the town board would have to pass a Local Law on Wetlands. The town can do a wetland map for the town. After Solarize presentation, we went back to prioritizing. Rick will share our notes with John Michelson and David Church.
B. Omelet – Tim
-Update about the formation of the Army Corps of Engineers, when it started, and when they received authority to monitor and focus on navigable waterways.
IV. New Business
A. Solarize-John Wackman
– Solarize is a program of Sustainable Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountainkeeper, the two nonprofits that secured the grant from NYSERDA that allows the project to focus on five counties. Solarize is a limited time program within a specific location with a specific start date and end date. They invite towns to be a host community. It’s a model to extend economic benefits to a whole county. Started with Kingston and then moved on to Rosendale and Woodstock. Also moved into Orange County. In 2016, Saugerties, Northern Dutchess Alliance (6 towns), and down to Rockland in Nyack. In 2017, Solarize would like to move back into Ulster County. Marbletown and Rochester (possibly Wawarsing) are good next steps. Their small staff requires a team of volunteers. There is a lot of support: NYSERDA, The focus is residential (rooftop or ground) and commercial, but not municipal. The goal is to make solar affordable to as manner people as possible. Additional funding for LMI (Low to Moderate Income), with low interest loans (4.99%) offered. Also for apartment buildings with four or more units. Solarize provides the information to see if solar makes sense for people, in addition to the financial incentives. They do a lot of homework on the town’s behalf—public/private partnership—and offer group purchase discounts. John has a Solarize Campaign in 5 Easy Steps: 1. Ask communities to host public information events; 2. Choose installers dedicated to best practices who are willing to offer a group purchase discount of at least 10%; 3. Organize events and invite the community to learn about the benefits of the program; 4. Put those people in touch with the installers; 5. Watch it go. The volunteer team makes all of the difference. John has a document called the Spirit of A Volunteer Team, which describes what the volunteers do. The Solarize program is a window of economic opportunity. A homeowner can claim 30% tax credit off the cost of the system, and 25% for state, capped at $5,000.
– Questions: Who evaluates the contractor? Solarize goes through an RFP process that asks a lot of information. They demand a lot of the installers. The volunteer has a selection committee of 3-4 people who review the applications. They also have a man in Saugerties, Bob Halvaty, who analyzes applications. Then there are one-on-one interviews.
– Are they leased systems or purchased systems? Solarize offers options: purchase or lease, roof mount or ground mount. Some companies don’t do leases. They select two companies for residential projects and one company for commercial properties. The homeowners get to choose between the two. Most economic analysis shows that it makes more financial sense to purchase the system. Payback period is up to eight years.
– Next steps? Identify volunteers, not just ECC members. It’s good to have 6-8 per community involved. We should throw a pizza party for prospective volunteers to get a sense for who is going to step up to the team. We need a passionate team. Get someone from Wawarsing. Then choose a date. John will do the best he can to be there, and potentially Melissa Everett from Sustainable HV. We may want to make this overlap with our Earth Day event, or we may want to have our preliminary meeting first so we have volunteers ready by Earth Day, and make our Earth Day event a launch party. Once we have our volunteer teams, Solarize does a volunteer training, which leads to four community workshop events.
– What’s a healthy amount of installations? Saugerties had 60 residential installs. The Northern Dutchess Alliance had 80 residential installs. Marbletown’s goal is to have at least 10 in the town, especially because they are a Clean Energy Community (NYSERDA program, as opposed to Climate Smart [a DEC program]).
– Larry mentioned the Community Distributed Generation solar projects that are happening in the town. Will those help our Solarize campaign or distract from it?
I. Old Business
II. Action Item Review
III. Adjourn: 8:10pm