Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Solar Developer’s Tax Abatement Requests Tabled

SNOW HILL – County leaders opted to postpone their decision on a solar developer’s request for a substantial tax abatement in an effort to get more information.

The Worcester County Commissioners agreed to table the tax abatement request from Longview Solar Tuesday as more financial data was gathered. Longview Solar has plans to build facilities in Berlin and Snow Hill and is hoping to secure an 80-percent personal property tax abatement from the county.

“Our focus is to develop the lowest cost solar assets in the U.S. market,” said Byron Crawford of Longview Solar. “That’s what led us to the Eastern Shore.”

Crawford, whose company has done projects throughout the country, said he’d been drawn to the Eastern Shore because it was ideal for solar, with open land, hot summers and lots of sunshine.

“The sunniest places will produce the lowest cost energy,” he said.

More

5 comments:

Steve said...

Absolutely not! Solar farms are improvements and should be taxed at the same rate any other improved property is taxes. After all, covering open land with solar panels precludes the possibility of using it as farmland, residential buildings or building businesses, all uses that pay taxes.
Solar panels belong on rooftops of existing buildings for this and several more reasons, voltage loss being just one. Leave vacant land vacant. Mother Nature makes for the best land use, anyway!

Oh, wait. If the panels are on our own roofs, it makes us independent and free, not dependent on the solar farm owners...

Anonymous said...

As always, developers of so called "green energy" need taxpayer subsidies to exist.

Solar is impractical and will never compete with gas, coal and nuclear.

Anonymous said...

The developer is not being truthful on many counts. The ones who really bear the cost of this development are nearby residents and electricity ratepayers.
The reason solar development has come to the shore, is not because of abundant sunshine but because of our liberal legislative policy that requires 20% renewables by 2022.
Solar generates massive amounts of waste, Somerset County will be covered in more than 1.5 square miles of solar and now it looks like Worcester is on the same path. Kent County has even more being proposed. All of these solar panels will become worthless at approximately the same time creating miles and miles of waste, some of which is hazardous and will require expensive disposal techniques.

Anonymous said...

11:22 spot on...just say NO to solar. it's too expensive as you and I are paying for this...

Anonymous said...

If they tax unsold cemetery plots they can tax solar farms.