Planning Board Green-Lights Racquet Club's Solar Panel Application

Forty-thousand dollars were at stake, applicant attorney Charles Collins told the planning board beside a drawing of a racquet club with solar panels, now a growing trend in the village.

For a variety of reasons, the oft-delayed application to put 216 solar panels on the club's mostly-flat roof at 249 Ackerman hasn't been heard by the planning board. But with $39,960 in state and federal grant money on the line and ready to expire in about a month, the board decided to grant a straight shot through the building permit process to cuts its electric costs.

Representing CMI Holdings LLC, Martin Infante told the board that the application was at a critical juncture in time after one instance of Collins saying he'd 'dropped the ball' as well as planning board agenda items taking precedents. Money would be gone if he could not finish construction by May 20, he said. The board ultimately agreed in expediting the process through the building department.

Infante cited electric costs as rising over the years as a cause for installation and said he'd long been mulling a solar change. "It just made the project more feasible," he said of receiving grants.

But one planning member felt the process wasn't smooth enough to grant a 'yes' vote and required more information. Member Constantino Suriano objected to the fact that the representative of the solar company installing the panels on the eastern portion of the roof never attended the application session.

"It sounds like there's questions where testimony of an expert would be helpful," Suriano said.

Other planning board members cited familiarity with previous solar applications, such as the Whole Foods building and the , as reasons to proceed without the expert witness.

Like recent applications, the Ridgewood Racquet Club will have panels inverting DC electricity into AC and sending excess back to the grid. Unlike the application at 555 Goffle, the inverter would be housed within the building and Village Engineer Chris Rutishauser reported there shouldn't be a fire hazard concern to the Fire Department.

There were also lingering concerns that the panels could create glare to a few homes on Broad Street, though expert engineer witness Andrew Marshall said because of the location of deciduous trees in the location, natural cover would block any glare from the panels. Other members of the planning board agreed with Marshall's testimony.

Suriano was the only 'no' vote of the eight, with Mayor Keith Killion and Kevin Reilly not in attendance. The Racquet Club is expected to finish installation before May date.