In the face of fierce community opposition, the Buffalo Township supervisors gave developers the green light Wednesday for two controversial solar farms.

After a summerlong discussion and two delayed votes, supervisors opted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based SolAmerica to install solar arrays on an 81-acre spot off Bear Creek Road and a 19-acre parcel along Grimm Road.

Supervisors Ron Zampogna, Michael Sweeny, Albert Roenigk and Gary Risch Sr. voted in favor of allowing the developments. Michael Oehling was the sole dissenter.

The vote comes despite sharp community resistance to the projects, which again manifested at the Wednesday night meeting.

Dozens of residents showed up for the standing-room-only event to grill the developers and express their disapproval of the solar arrays, which many said would lower property values for nearby homeowners and present potential health risks in the case of a fire.

Peggy Bonfiglio, who lives near the Grimm Road site, asked Alviez Chagan, a project development manager for SolAmerica, about potential glare from the sites and how emergency response would occur without lighting at the arrays.

An engineer for Pennoni, the firm representing SolAmerica, Andrew Kane said his company had performed a glare study after a public hearing regarding the sites in June. As a result, he said, SolAmerica would not turn the panels at specific angles that could generate glare for nearby residents.

Mark Whited, who lives on Bear Creek Road, questioned developers about where the power generated at the farms would go and the potential toxicity of panels.

Chagan said the electricity generated at the sites would be channeled into the regional electrical grid for distribution to power company customers. It would not be used to power Buffalo Township specifically.

Repeatedly questioned, Chagan said he was unaware of any toxic chemicals in the panels.

Though Whited seemed to accept some counterpoints to his assertions, he came to the same conclusion.

“There’s nobody in Buffalo Township who would benefit from this,” he said.

But the arguments didn’t sway most of the supervisors, some of whom sparred with residents in verbal back-and-forths throughout the meeting.

Township solicitor Brian Farrington said the sites seemed to fall in line with township ordinances and recommended that the supervisors vote to allow the sites with conditions.

Those conditions included the prohibition of lithium battery storage at the arrays and no further expansion of the sites without additional conditional use applications to the township.

In a seemingly last ditch effort, Bonfiglio offered a final question to supervisors.

“Is there any legal way you can deny the requests?” she asked.

Supervisor Matthew Sweeney gave a flat answer: “No.”

The board’s president, Ron Zampogna, said he appreciated the input of residents but he didn’t see a legal reason to say no to the developments.

“We respect everyone’s opinion; we respect everyone’s thoughts,” Zampogna said. “There’s some issues in this room where we are between a rock and a hard place — this happens to be one of them.”

The panels would use only a fraction of the land at each site, according to Michael Kissinger, an engineer with Pennoni.

Kane said the 19-acre Grimm Road parcel would house 2.27 acres of panels within an 8.1 acre fenced-in area. As for the 81-acre Bear Creek site, Kane said, 3.35 acres would have panels, and 13.5 acres would be set off by fencing.

Next, the developer will have to enter the land development phase, which will iron out exact construction details and see further input from the township’s planning commission and supervisors.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)