Task Force Briefs City Council
On Solar Permits, Urban Forests
By LIBBY CUDMORE • for www.AllOTSEGO.com
ONEONTA – The sustainability task force wants to make it easier for homeowners to let the sunshine in – with solar panels, that is.
“We’ve brought forward a unified solar permit that makes it easier to go through the process of getting permits for rooftop solar,” said Mark Davies, a member of the Sustainability Task Force during tonight’s meeting of the Common Council. “If Common Council passes this, it will make it much quicker to get those permits.”
Though the permits were not on tonight’s agenda, Council Member Melissa Nicosia, liaison to the Environmental Board, said the permits passed the board unanimously. If the permits pass the council, the task force receives a $2,500 grant to help fund the permits. “It’s two angles,” said Davies. “It will make it easier for homeowners to install solar, and it encourages the city to explore and encourage solar.”
In addition to the permit process, the task force has begun working on collecting information about the city’s urban forests, carbon footprint, and undertaken a wind feasibility study lead by a former SUNY student as part of his master’s degree work.
The recommendations came out of the 2014 Sustainability Task Force, held at SUNY Oneonta.
Good article, but Mark Davies is Chair of the Environmental Board and Hannah Masterjohn is a member of the Environmental Board.