Buffalo Township municipal Building.

BUFFALO TWP — Much to the dismay of residents who showed up on Wednesday night, Aug. 13 to show almost-unanimous disapproval, supervisors voted to grant Atlanta-based energy company SolAmerica a conditional use permit to operate solar farms on two agricultural sites in the township.

Wednesday night’s meeting was the third contentious meeting involving the company’s applications to operate large-scale solar installations on parcels of land along Grimm and Bear Creek roads. The two parcels of land total nearly 100 acres — 19.25 acres for the Grimm Road property and 80 for the Bear Creek property — although only 13.5 acres of the latter site would be taken up by solar panels.

The votes for each application passed by a 4-1 decision, with Supervisor Michael Oehling being the sole dissenting vote on both.

Andrew Kane of engineering firm Pennoni, speaking on behalf of SolAmerica, stated that Chris Ziegler of the Butler Freeport Community Trail, as well as Matt Cypher, chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, had no negative comments on either plan.

Prior to the votes, residents of Buffalo Township — many of whom live near one of the two proposed solar sites — grilled representatives of the solar company on the plans. Many residents expressed concern about potential environmental contamination from the chemicals used to make the solar panels, as well as the possible effects of a fire at the facility.

“It’s not going to improve (my quality of life), that’s for sure,” said Bill Bricker. “There’s no doubt property values are going to go down.”

Others, like Brant Dempster, questioned what benefit the solar farms would bring to the residents of Buffalo Township.

“I’m not anti-solar. I just don’t see the attraction of this,” said resident Brant Dempster. “It really doesn’t do us any good. It just detracts from our neighborhood. People aren’t moving here and spending money on $250,000 or $500,000 homes to look at solar panels.”

Mark Whited, along with other residents, expressed frustration that plans for the Bear Creek Road solar installation called for it to be built roughly 50 feet away from the New Horizon Estates mobile home park.

“People at the trailer park … they didn’t even know about it until last week,” Whited said. “The only reason some of them knew about it was because I bought some signs and put them on Bear Creek Road.”

Before the votes were carried out, township Supervisor Ron Zampogna told the residents that, while he understood their frustrations, there was little justification for turning down the applications.

“Obviously, everyone’s not going to be happy with every decision that we make,” Zampogna said. “When an ordinance is in place, and the applicant meets those requirements … it’s hard for me to sit here and be a dictator and say, ‘No, you can’t do it,’ when they’ve met the criteria.”

Zampogna was referring to the township’s solar energy ordinance, which was adopted in September.

The owners of the Bear Creek Road property, Phil and Sara Vassallo, were present at the meeting but did not make a public comment. However, in a printed statement issued to the Butler Eagle, the couple wrote they leased their land to solar developers to keep it in their name and leave it to their grandchildren.

In addition, the couple plans to use the proceeds from the lease to start a scholarship for a student at Freeport High School.

“We know so many people in Buffalo Township are against solar,” the statement reads. “Would they rather have another housing plan or the 14 acres of solar which cannot be seen from the road?”