FARMINGTON — Farmington's zoning regulations say nothing about solar panels in the yard. On Monday, Sept. 28, the Town Plan and Zoning Commission is scheduled to take up a rule that would change that. The town's Zoning Board of Appeals, whose members are also elected, has asked it to wait.
The appeals board's chair says he supports most of the draft. The dispute is over who decides the hard cases: when a homeowner may put an array somewhere other than behind the house, and how far the town can go in requiring trees to hide it from the neighbors.
On Sept. 21, the appeals board voted to have town staff ask the commission to set the proposal aside until a committee drawn from both boards can review it. The question may not stop at solar. Staff has said it may later take the same approach to sheds, which the appeals board's chair says make up half or more of his board's work.
What the draft does
Staff has been handling these applications under the town's rule for satellite dishes and other receiving antennas. "Clearly, ground-mounted solar is not a receiving antenna," Town Planner Shannon Rutherford told the commission on Sept. 14.
The draft, a new Article IV, Section 2.G, covers only one- to four-family homes. An array can be no bigger than roughly what the property needs in energy, and the owner has to show that the roof either cannot hold panels or cannot produce enough power. On a typical lot, the array goes behind the longest rear wall of the house or in the rear half of the lot. It has to keep the zone's required distance from the side and rear property lines, stay at least 25 feet from any street and stand no more than 15 feet tall at the top of the panel. Every array needs the commission's approval of a site plan.
Two provisions draw the appeals board's objection. The first lets the commission grant a special permit to put an array elsewhere in two situations: on a corner lot, as long as it stays behind the house and keeps its distance from the street, or in the R40 and R80 zones, which staff describes as roughly one-acre and two-acre zones, on a lot at least twice the zone's minimum size and screened with evergreens. The second says the commission may require landscaping to screen an array, "provided it does not impact the efficiency of the panel," as Assistant Town Planner Garrett Daigle read the draft aloud.
Two ways to say yes
Under the current rules, a homeowner who wants an array outside the usual spot needs a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals, then site plan approval from the commission. A variance means persuading the appeals board that something about the land itself, not the owner's preference or budget, makes following the rule a hardship.
A special permit works differently. The applicant has to show the commission that the project meets the conditions written into the regulation. "They'd have to show complete compliance with the zoning regulations," Daigle told the appeals board.
Staff says that difference is the point. Daigle described large lots with wooded backyards, wetlands or a ridgeline, and said there are cases where a hardship "could probably not be granted." "If you have an oversized lot, what's your hardship?" he asked. Anything else outside the rules, such as building closer to a property line or taller than 15 feet, would still need a variance, he said.
The objection
Zoning Board of Appeals Chair Jon L. Schoenhorn, an attorney, took his case to the commission's hearing on Sept. 14. "I am not opposed at all to the idea of establishing standards and specifications for ground-mounted solar," he said. One concern was the screening language: "Almost any screening is going to cut down somewhat the amount of production. And therefore, that caveat would preclude any screening that would protect the neighbors from having to look at very shiny, reflective panels, especially on a sunny day."
A week later, before his own board, he went further on the special permit. "It appears to be an infringement on the statutory authority of this board," he said. He cited MacKenzie v. Planning and Zoning Commission of Monroe, a 2013 decision of the Connecticut Appellate Court. Monroe's regulations had let its planning and zoning commission vary setback and landscaped buffer requirements, case by case, when it approved a special exception. The court held that the commission did not have that power, and it quoted the principle that "the exclusive authority to vary the zoning regulations is vested in the zoning board of appeals." Schoenhorn said he was offering his own reading, not a land-use attorney's opinion.
Daigle, who wrote Farmington's draft, reads the case differently. MacKenzie, he said, involved "a blanket waiver written into the zoning regulations." A later case, which he did not name, found that a special permit with standards written into the regulation is not a variance in disguise. The town has reviewed the draft with its attorney. "He's taking another look at it," Daigle said. He had put it more simply to the commission on Sept. 14: "It's not a blanket waiver."
At least one commissioner agreed with staff that night. "It just seems more logical," Commissioner David St. Germain said. "We would be the ones to process that."
Who hears these cases
The two boards' workloads keep coming up. Daigle has handled four variance requests for solar "in the past four and a half years," he told the commission. Schoenhorn put the appeals board's count at "about two a year."
By Schoenhorn's account, the Sept. 21 meeting was the appeals board's first since February. Alternate Haritha Subramanian put it bluntly: "I still think it's crazy that one group has five-hour meetings two times a month and we haven't met in the past seven months." Schoenhorn had made a similar point on Sept. 14, at the same meeting where the commission adopted the town's version of the state housing law. When he spoke, it was already past 10 p.m.
Staff says workload was never the reason. Asked on Sept. 14 whether the intent was to take these cases away from the appeals board, Rutherford answered: "No, the intent was to create a regulation for something that didn't exist." On Sept. 21, when Schoenhorn suggested someone might not like the appeals board's rulings, Daigle replied: "That is not the intent of this change."
Then there are the sheds. "Down the line, we might include this for sheds and pools and tennis courts," Daigle told the commission. Sheds and similar structures, Schoenhorn told his board, are "basically half of, if not a majority, what we do." Any such change, Daigle said, would have to go back to the commission.
The commission has doubts of its own. On Sept. 14, Commissioner Josh Davidson argued that a neighbor's right to screening should outweigh the panels' efficiency and proposed cutting that caveat. Commissioner Peter Zarella said he would rather see every ground-mounted array need a special permit unless the rule set firmer limits. The commission continued the hearing to Sept. 28.
A request, not a veto
The appeals board approved its request on a voice vote. Its minutes, which will record the count, have not been posted. Subramanian was among the members who volunteered for the joint committee, and Schoenhorn said he would serve ex officio, though he might not attend. Daigle said he would review the wording of the request with Schoenhorn.
Secretary Christopher R. Cloud called the proposal "a solution looking for a problem."
Whether it waits is the commission's call. The appeals board, for now, has no October applications in sight. Asked about them, Daigle said: "Not that I've had any conversations about."
Separately, for homeowners still deciding whether to go solar at all: Connecticut's solar incentive program no longer ends in 2027.
This coverage is supported by Farmington Storage, 155 Scott Swamp Road, the only storage facility in Connecticut with Museum air. Solar panels, the town's assistant planner says, last 25 to 30 years on average. Some things are better kept indoors, at institutional grade. 860.777.4001 📦
Jack Beckett has covered Farmington's land-use boards long enough to explain the difference between a variance and a special permit, and long enough to know he will be explaining it again. He is on his second coffee. ☕
The Farmington Mercury covers the town nobody else is covering: the appeals board that went seven months between meetings, the planning commission still going at 10 p.m., and the solar rule that sits between them. We publish slowly, deliberately, and without apology. Our motto is "Always last to breaking news," and we mean it. Find us at farmingtonmercury.com and tell your neighbors. #WeAreFarmington 📰