The Ancram Planning Board made no decision at its meeting on Nov. 6 on the proposed 9.4-acre (originally 9.9-acre) solar array project by RIC Energy, to be built on farmland at 3333 Route 82 owned by Ancram Highway Superintendent Jim Miller.
The meeting included the seventh public hearing on the project since April. At the heart of the debate was whether the panels would be visible from surrounding homes and public roads. [CK number] members of the public discussed concerns over decommissioning, screening, and the preservation of Ancram’s rural character. Other residents argued that RIC Energy has yet to meet basic visual mitigation requirements as set forth in the town’s 2021 Solar Law.
“It wasn’t until a month ago that [RIC] acknowledged that the arrays would be visible from public vantage points,” said Rhea Mallet, an attorney with McCarthy Fingar, LLP, who represents multiple Ancram residents opposed to the project. “Over a year ago in their EAF [Environmental Assessment Form], [RIC] said it would not be visible from the public roads.”
“None of this will be hidden from the naked eye when the leaves are off entirely as they are for over six months a year,” said Matthew Tuck, who lives on Cottontail Road, in a prepared statement to the board. “Why wouldn’t RIC Energy be more forthright about this visual fallout from the very beginning?”
Ciara Hopkins, a project development associate for RIC, opened the meeting with a presentation that recapped the history of the project, which first appeared before the board in November 2024.
Hopkins went over site plans that outlined fencing and screening details, displayed documents recommending approval for the project from the Columbia County Planning Board, and clarified that per Ancram’s Solar Law, where possible “any on-site power lines shall be underground installations.”
Another detail discussed at the meeting was whether the transistors could be pad-mounted instead of pole-mounted (which is the current plan for the project). Pad-mounted transistors have a lower profile, and are housed in cabinets, making them more visually discreet.
“We have requested to the utility [companies] if switching to pad-mounted is viable,” said Rob Queirolo, RIC’s development director. The issue is the slope grade of the site of the transistors, which is 25%. “To put pads on a 25% grade is, I wouldn’t say impossible, but is going to be very difficult to achieve,” said Queirolo.
Quierolo spent much of the meeting defending the project, and the work done thus far by RIC Energy. “We have gone line by line through the code and are extremely confident we’ve met all those requirements,” he said. Quierolo also underscored that, as stated in Ancram’s Solar Law, community solar projects that are over 10 acres would be “incompatible with the Town‘s environmental, farmland, local food production, and rural character priorities,” while RIC’s is only 9.4 acres. According to the Solar Law, an array of that size would be able to meet the energy needs of roughly 25% of housing units in Ancram.
Doreen O’Sullivan, who lives at 3299 Route 82, was unpersuaded by RIC’s presentation. “My property butts right up next to the fields that are going to be the arrays,” she said. “Now that the corn and the leaves are down, I will see the arrays from my property. We were not considered at all in RIC’s landscaping mitigation plan.”
Quierolo and other RIC representatives have visited homeowner’s properties, proposing screening solutions, which the company would pay for and maintain.
Andrea Gaschke of 450 Woods Court Road, and her husband, Paul, were offered evergreen sapling screening options. Gaschke presented photographs that showed the saplings would not be tall enough to provide adequate screening, and would not comply with Ancram’s Solar Law of having solar projects be “maximally screened within five years.” The Gaschkes have set up a website and petition to oppose the project. The petition currently has 372 signatures.
The Planning Board has retained George M. Janes & Associates as a visual impact assessment consultant, and is in the process of hiring Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture to further aid in visual assessment.
The next Ancram Planning Board meeting, which will include another public hearing on the RIC project, is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Dec. 4.
As noted in this article, Ms Hopkins of RIC Energy cited the 3/18/25 project “Approval” recommendation provided by the Columbia County Planning Board (CCPB) for this industrial array project.
She failed, however, to note that this approval was based upon RIC’s original November 2024 Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) report, which, as Save Scenic Ancram’s attorney, Ms. Rhea Mallet, and adjacent property owners like Doreen O’Sullivan and I have pointed out repeatedly, provided false and misleading information to the Town of Ancram Planning Board and in turn, the CCPB.
Ms Hopkins also neglected to note that the CCPB, in their letter, cautioned that “The proposed solar array, although situated on the rear of the parcel, may be in stark contrast to the bucolic nature of the existing site and surrounds. The FEAF Supplement reads in part that the project site is not visible from any public vantage point.” It comes as no shock to Ancram residents that this is patently false.
The CCPB also suggested “that the applicant provide details on any landscaping bond” to ensure that proposed screening vegetation be “maintained, and replaced as necessary, for the lifetime of the project.” RIC’s current Site Plan and Landscape Notes only note their responsibility to maintain the plantings “for the entirety of the guarantee period; 18 months.”
One wonders if the CCPB had been provided with latest visual impact information, a professional viewshed analysis by Harkin Aerial cited in Ms. Mallet’s 9/25/25 letter to the Planning Board, and direct first person observation of both adjacent land owners and neighbors traveling public roads this leaf-off and corn-harvested season, and cited landscaping plan shortcomings, if they would have changed their recommendation to “Disapproval”…
Our community applauds the decision of the Planning Board to engage with independent consultants George Janes & Associates and Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture to review RIC Energy’s questionable submissions. We look forward to the results of these reviews and to the continuation of these critical Public Hearings.
I applaud Andrea Bell-Gaschke’s analysis and commentary.
To Mrs. Bell-Gaschke’s credit, why wouldn’t RIC be forthcoming and transparent with their entire application? With Ancram residents? Significantly, with our Ancram Planning Board?
RIC’s website claims to have completed hundreds of projects. Alarmingly, in our Ancram, inconclusive or inaccurate statements have been made by RIC Energy in a business they claim to know cold.
Furthermore, what RIC Energy is willfully NOT discussing includes:
* Utility bills will not change materially for Ancram residents.
* There are, in fact, other existing solar subscription options for Ancram residents to choose from today.
* Ancram proper will not benefit financially from the project in any manner: in fact, lower real estate taxes by those affected by the project will be a drag on town coffers. Our coffers.
* This lost revenue certainly won’t be made up by RIC Energy.
* Should Ancram residents be expected to subsidize these revenue shortfalls prompted by RIC Energy through higher taxes?
* And let’s not forget the prized and award winning Millerhurst Farm: how will their business be impacted?
At the center of this visual (economic and financial, too) analysis is how Ancram’s town hall motto, a historic farming community moving forward, is at risk under these specious arrangements.
While RIC is promoting their product for a foreign corporation, Ancram residents are expected to embrace RIC’s opaque and uneconomic solicitations. Worse yet, we are expected to embrace the future prospect of these industrial solar arrays RIC Energy will have left behind for the next 30 years.
Under these circumstances, this is not a historic farming community moving forward and I applaud the Ancram Planning Board – and those earnest town residents – who have scrutinized RIC Energy’s application and held them accountable.
Communities should fight to preserve all farmland from conversion to solar arrays. The only exception should be solar arrays built to supply farm operations with 110% of their energy needs. All other arrays should be constructed on brownfields, reclaimed mines, landfills, roof tops and personal arrays in backyards. Stop the madness.