Company aims to put solar panels at site of former US Rubber mill

WOONSOCKET – While neighboring North Smithfield has imposed a moratorium on solar installations, a Maryland company is proposing the city’s first ground-mounted array of solar panels at a site known as the home of the storied U.S. Rubber Company.

Direct Energy Solar of Hanover, Md., has filed an application with the Zoning Board of Review for permits to erect 2,776 solar panels on land where the Alice Mill stood until 2011, when it was destroyed in a spectacular fire. There is still a 19th-century brick building on the mill’s original 7.4-acre parcel, which is now used as a parking depot for school buses.

There are no plans of pulling the buses off the 85 Fairmount St. land, but Cranston-based Mizner Holdings

LLC, the owner and co-applicant, would make room for the solar panels on 4.4 acres of it, according to the zoning application.

Direct (nergy Solar and Mizner Holdings have apparently been working on the proposal for months. They’ve already received permission from the state Department of (nvironmental Management to remove potentially toxic materials from the parcel, choked with weeds and strewn with demolition debris from the remnants of the burned-out mill.

“The solar project will make much better use of the land as it has been left unattended for some time, with buses using it as storage area,” papers submitted to the Zoning Office say. “Once the project is complete the view shed will be a lot cleaner and more appealing than what is there now.”

Zoning Officer Carl Johnson said the applicants also held off on submitting the paperwork until the City Council approved an ordinance allowing the zoning board to consider granting two types of relief simultaneously. $fter months in process, that ordinance was just approved on Oct. 7.

Council President Dan Gendron said he hasn’t heard enough about Direct (nergy’s plans to have an opinion yet, but the council saw a need to amend the zoning ordinance because it had previously put applicants like Direct (nergy Solar in an difficult double bind. Previously applicants could only appear before the zoning board for a dimensional variance or a use variance, but not both at the same time; the ordinance required applicants to have one or the other before applying for whichever they were lacking.

“I’m sort of neutral on this proposal at this point,” said Gendron, though he adds that it will be interesting to see how zoners and abutters react to the prospect of a substantial solar array in the Fairmount section.

The proposal could be the first local test of alternative energy installations, which have been protested in other communities partly as a visual blight. In North Smithfield, for example, the zoning board rejected a proposed wind turbine off Old Smithfield Road after a contentious series of hearings and legal machinations. North Smithfield also imposed a temporary moratorium on ground-mounted solar installations amid steady pressure from developers who see the town’s open space as a resource.

“The biggest thing about these solar projects is the unknown about decommissioning,” says Johnson, who also serves as zoning inspector in North Smithfield. “No one knows what’s going to happen to these things 20 or 25 years from now.”

With the recently approved amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance, Direct (nergy Solar is scheduled to appear before the Zoning Board of Review on Nov. 12 to request a special use permit and dimensional variances to proceed with construction at the Alice Mill parcel. They’re asking the board to waive the restriction on solar panels in an industrial zone, as well as the normal requirement for a 20-foot setback from the nearest lot lines.

The developers want to reduce the setbacks to five feet on the perimeter line to the south, which abuts Fairmount Street, and nine feet on the west, alongside the Blackstone River.

According to the applicants, the solar installation would be capable of generating .999 kilowatts of electricity, or nearly a megawatt. In the first year of operation, they say, that represents the equivalent fossil fuel output of 105,034 gallons of gasoline or over 1 million pounds of coal.

Direct (nergy Services would lease the Fairmount Street property from Mizner Holdings for 20 years, paying $52,000 a year, according to the documents tendered to zoners.

Though this is the first ground-mounted solar installation with an approval-ready plan, the City Council has been working to bring a similar proposal to fruition for some time. The panel has reached a preliminary accord with North Kingstown-based Green Development to build solar installations at several city-owned sites, including River’s (dge Recreational Complex, a former dump.

At the insistence of Mayor /isa Baldelli-Hunt, however, the council has hired an environmental lawyer to evaluate the feasibility of developing the proposed sites and make recommendations before negotiations with Green Development resume.