ReVision Energy will build a solar farm at Morris Farm regardless of whether a ninth member is found to buy into it, a company representative said Nov.  9.

With eight members now signed up, plans still call for posts to go into the ground before the ground freezes; then the panels will go up either this winter or next spring, Hans Albee, a solar designer for the Liberty-based firm, told the Wiscasset Planning Board. No one on the board or in the audience spoke against the project.

The board on Monday night determined that the firm’s application was complete, pending ReVision Energy’s addition of a survey of nearby land.

Albee said he had the survey, but didn’t realize the board wanted it. He planned to get the survey to Town Planner Jamel Torres on Tuesday, Nov 10.

Monday’s meeting was ReVision Energy’s second time seeing the full board about the proposed project, which still needs the panel’s final nod. The board set a public hearing for 7 p.m. Nov.23 at the municipal building.

Deb Pooler, one of three board members on a recent site walk, said the solar farm will be visible from Gardiner Road.

“Highly visible,” fellow board member Karl Olson said.

“And so are all the telephone poles,” Chairman Ray Soule said, prompting some laughter around the room. Under town rules, the project does not use enough square footage to need planning board approval; due to its visibility, the board took up the review so that neighbors and others would have a chance to talk about it and ask questions, Soule said during the meeting and in a telephone interview Tuesday.

The project will come as close as 25 feet from the edge of the pavement on Gardiner Road, Albee said. The public right-of-way runs 33 feet from the road’s center line, where the measurement was supposed to start, board members said. However, the distance Albee cited still avoids the right-of-way, they said.

Olson described the site as small. “Not a whole lot to see, it’s in the corner of a field. But it’s certainly developable.”

Among attendees, residents Sam Selby and Marty Fox were glad to see the project continuing through the approval process. Sam Selby is one of eight buyers into the solar array that will yield electricity and, in turn, credits for members’ Central Maine Power accounts. Selby will use his credits toward the power on his Young’s Point Road home. “I just have always believed that solar power makes sense,” he said, when asked why he wanted to be part of the project.

It’s a shame that solar power has taken so long to catch on, Selby said.

The board was approaching the proposal in a positive way, Fox said. Fox is not among the solar farm’s buyers, but the Wiscasset Sun CATs member has advocated for local use of solar power. The group has proposed that Wiscasset put solar panels on its municipal and public works buildings. 

Albee said he thought Monday’s meeting went very well. “It’s been a very positive process so far.”