The St. Lawrence County Planning Office created the Solar Development Mapping Tool in response to widespread solar development on prime agricultural land throughout the County. This Tool is intended to be used as a guide for solar developers as they seek out property for future solar development and for municipalities, who may wish to manage development in certain parts of their community. The Tool is for planning and development purposes only. Should the identified locations conflict with local land use regulations, adopted regulations will supersede The Mapping Tool recommendations. All information is subject to such variations and corrections as might result from a complete title search and accurate field survey.
The map contains the following data layers:
- County, Villages, Towns: St. Lawrence County Municipal Boundaries.
- Parcels: countywide parcel data from the St. Lawrence County Real Property Office.
- Proposed Solar in the County: Solar projects proposed in St. Lawrence County reviewed by the County Planning Board. This includes both the parcel outline and the array outline.
- Suitable Solar Parcels: Parcels that contain 10 or more acres suitable for solar development.
- Degraded Land Preferred for Solar Development: sites that include quarries, brownfields, landfills, and DEC listed remediation sites on which the county encourages solar development.
- Suitable Areas for Solar: Areas suitable for solar development through criteria defined below.
The “suitable areas for solar” was determined through the following assessment:
- An initial selection of parcels 15 acres in size or greater; classed as industrial, commercial, vacant, residential, or agricultural; and not owned by the Government (Local, State, or Federal) was made.
- Within these initial parcels, the following areas were removed to protect certain natural resources:
- Soils: Class 2 and 3 from USDA Soil Conservation Service Land Capability Classification;
- Forestland: derived from National Land Cover Database 2016;
- Wetlands: Federal wetlands, State wetlands, and 100’ buffer around State wetlands.
- The following additional areas were removed based on solar developers’ input:
- Rock outcroppings as determined by SSURGO with a depth to bedrock of 0;
- Areas with greater than 10% slope (Digital Elevation Model data from NYS GIS Clearing house derived from LIDAR data);
- Any parcel with a distance greater than 3 miles from a substation or 0.25 miles from a 3 phase power line.
- Once the above areas were removed, the remaining continuous areas that were a minimum of 10 acres were deemed suitable for solar development.
Staff encourage developers and municipalities to work together to examine these areas for the construction of community-scale solar arrays. This map is a living document that will be updated as new information is obtained. Any questions about land use regulations should be directed to either local municipalities or the County Planning Office. For other general questions, feel free to contact the Planning Office at (315) 379-2292.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to email the Planning Office at [email protected]
CLICK BELOW TO ACCESS THE MAPPING TOOL
