Collins Lake Solar faces public opposition - and council does not support it

Jeff Green | Aug 26, 2015

At a hastily organized second public meeting to discuss a proposed 13 megawatt solar power project in close proximity to Inverary, representatives from Canadian Solar Solutions faced angry local residents.

Originally Canadian Solar had planned a single public meeting for the project, on Monday August 17 at the Invista Centre on Gardiners Road in Kingston. Since the Invista Centre is located a significant distance from the site of the project, and in a different municipality, a second meeting in Sydenham, at the meeting room in the public library, was convened on August 19. The second meeting also used a question and answer format, whereas the first had been set up as a Open House.

The project is sponsored by Suncorps as well as Canadian Solar, and Dillon Consulting has been hired for technical support. Representatives from all three companies were on hand.

Many members of the audience were carrying yellow signs calling for the project to be abandoned, and when the questioning began the tone was angry and sometimes aggressive.

The project is set to be located on two sites. The northwest corner of one of the larger properties is at the junction of Perth Road and Davidson Road. It extends south and west towards Holmes Road, and the second property is located to the west, on Davidson Road near the junction with Latimer Road.

There are 15 or so abutting properties to the lots that are proposed for the solar farms and those particular property owners were well represented at the meeting.

One of the first questions had to do with location.

“My wife and I, we understand about solar energy and the need for it, but why here? Why are you doing it right here where there is a major road and people are moving in all the time, and there is farming going on? Why here?” asked one man.

Tyler Balding from Canadian Solar, said that the reason his company, and a number of others, are developing proposals in the South Frontenac and Rural Kingston area, is that province is pushing for solar power generation in eastern Ontario.

“The province has asked for projects to be built in certain areas. All of northern Ontario is blocked off, and lately they have filtered us further, down to certain areas of eastern Ontario. These two sites that we are looking at are great locations, because of transformer capacity and because they are not classified as farmland but as rural,” said Balding.

A key factor for the proponents is the fact that there is a transformer that borders the large Perth Road/Davidson Road site, and there are high capacity Hydro One lines linking the smaller site to the same transformer.

Members of the audience challenged the assertion that the area is not agricultural. “My family has farmed there for generations,” said one man, “and while we may not be class 1 farmland, it is land that we have improved over generations, and we have worked to improve the land all that time. We make our living by working the land, not covering it up.”

There are seven classes of soil in Ontario and land that falls into class 1-3 is not available for solar farm development.

However, according to a representative from Dillon Consulting, the fact that the Municipality of South Frontenac has gone to the effort of identifying prime agricultural land as part of its Official Plan process over-rides provincial soil classification.

“In this township it is only prime ag lands that are restricted,” said the rep.

The majority of the issues raised had to do with the project being an incursion into a region that has seen steady and increasing residential development over the last 20 years.

“I moved to this community because I love it,” said a resident. “You should have come to see us before going forward with this.”

Council wastes no time in rejecting proposal

Flash forward six days, to Tuesday, August 25. The scene is the South Frontenac Council chambers, just meters away from the library meeting room. Most of the same people are in attendance, but Canadian Solar has a smaller delegation on hand, just two people, one of whom is Tyler Balding. As well, while only Mayor Vandewal attended the meeting in the library last week, the entire Council is at this meeting, sitting around the horseshoe-shaped council table.

The first delegate to address Council was Tyler Balding. In his 10-minute presentation, he said the company had listened to the public and was prepared to increase setbacks, ensure that neighbours were not impacted, and would gladly adhere to any conditions Council put forward in exchange for a motion of support.

After he spoke, the first question from Council came from Councilor Ron Sleeth.

But instead of asking a question, Sleeth put forward a notice of motion that Council reject the proposal out of hand and make that known to the province, the IESO, and other parties.

Council voted to waive the rule that notices of motion are deferred until the next meeting, and then voted unanimously in favour of Sleeth's motion.

Mayor Vandewal then asked if any of the 20 people who were also on the list as delegates, all of whom were going to speak against the proposed solar farm, still wanted to address Council.

A few did, including Mike Phillips, who said that he was told by a Canadian Solar employee that if the project is not supported by him and the township, the company will make no effort to shield his property from the solar panels if the project ends up being approved without municipal support.

“I should point out to everyone that our vote does not mean the project will be rejected by the IESO. We just represent a certain amount of points in the procurement process,” said Mayor Vandewal, “We've done what we can, but it is out of our hands now.”

All told, South Frontenac has supported two solar farm projects under the large scale procurement process; two others were pulled by the applicant; and they have now rejected one. The deadline for applications to the IESO for large scale solar projects is September 1, and a decision is expected in November.

A number of smaller projects under the Feed in Tariff or FIT program have also come before Council in recent months, and they have supported 25 of 26 that came to them.