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| Anthony DelVicario of Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy LLC wants to install thousands of solar panels to generate 13.8 megawatts of electricity on nearly 62 acres of privately owned forestland off Route 91. Much of the rectangular parcel at the bottom that fronts Old Deport Road has been removed from the project's footprint. (Hopkinton Planning Board/ecoRI News photos) |
Old Depot Road residents were thrown a bone by a solar-energy developer in hopes their opposition to a 13.8-megawatt project would fade. It hasn’t.
“Ninety-nine percent of
us are still against the project because it’s changing the zoning,” Joe Moreau
said. “We’re still fighting it.”
In fact, a group of
concerned residents, including Moreau and Steve Wiehl, is considering hiring an
attorney and their own experts to represent their interests.
Warwick-based Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy III LLC wants to build a utility-scale solar facility on three lots — off Woodville Alton Road, off Townsend Road, and on an adjacent site that was once used as a municipal landfill and then as a private dump.
The rectangle-shaped lot that would have hosted solar panels across the street from several Old Deport Road residents has been dropped from the proposal.
Warwick-based Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy III LLC wants to build a utility-scale solar facility on three lots — off Woodville Alton Road, off Townsend Road, and on an adjacent site that was once used as a municipal landfill and then as a private dump.
The rectangle-shaped lot that would have hosted solar panels across the street from several Old Deport Road residents has been dropped from the proposal.
“The project doesn’t
change. He’s offered to move the frontage back 700 feet,” said Wiehl, who like
Moreau is an Old Depot Road resident. “It’s about spot zoning. You don’t do
that to your residents. The project isn’t even consistent with the town’s own
guidelines.”
The classic definition
of spot zoning is, “The process of singling out a small parcel of land for a
use classification totally different from that of the surrounding area for the
benefit of the owner of such property and to the detriment of other owners,”
according to Anderson’s American Law of Zoning, 4th Edition.
The town’s latest comprehensive plan recommends,
“Develop and enforce buffers and transition zones to prevent intrusion into
residential neighborhoods by future new economic development” and “Use land use
controls, such as PUD [planned unit development] and cluster development, to
encourage creative land planning concepts that reduce development costs while
preserving open space and environmentally sensitive areas not otherwise
protected by local, state, and federal law.”
The 148-page plan also
has land-use goals that “protect the quality of life and rural character of
Hopkinton” and “preserve existing working farms, wildlife and wildlife
habitat.”
Residents of Old Depot
Road and other area neighborhoods gathered in early July after
a handful of Old Depot Road residents received a certified letter in the mail
about the proposed energy project, which requires a zoning change from
residential to limited-use commercial and would go against the town’s
comprehensive plan.
Even without most of the
Old Depot Road parcel included in the project, opponents, including those whose
neighborhoods wouldn't be directly impacted, remain concerned that the
clear-cutting of thousands of trees will increase stormwater runoff, create
flooding conditions, destroy wildlife habitat, and hurt property values.
Besides the requested
zoning change and the proposed project’s impacts, opponents are also concerned
about the costs associated with the future decommissioning of the panels and
clean up of the site when the solar arrays reach the end of their useful life
after 20 or so years.
“Who’s going to pay to
clean up the site, and who will ensure it’s done right?” Moreau asked.
Opponents also are
concerned about the process itself. They claim the developer and his hired
expert witnesses have presented hours of testimony while they haven’t been
given the same opportunities to address the council.
During the project's
second hearing, on July 2, the attorney representing Rhode Island Solar
Renewable Energy, Vincent Naccarato, had nine expert witnesses in attendance,
according to the meeting minutes. He also
had nine expert witnesses, including Audie Osgood of DiPrete Engineering, in
attendance at the first hearing, according to the minutes from the
council's June 18 meeting.
Moreau recently told
ecoRI News that one council member’s comments have amounted to nothing less
than “testimony in favor of the project.”
Moreau, for one, is also
worried that the council hasn’t looked closely enough at the developer, Anthony
DelVicario of Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy. He brought up those concerns
at the July 16 Hopkinton Town Council
meeting.
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| The town has approved 12 solar projects and nine others have been proposed. |
Spotty record
Four Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy LLCs have been registered in Rhode Island since 2016, according to the secretary of state's office.
Three of these LLCs were created this year, on Jan. 31, April 26, and June 28. The original's license was revoked in December 2017 for failure to maintain a registered office.
Four Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy LLCs have been registered in Rhode Island since 2016, according to the secretary of state's office.
Three of these LLCs were created this year, on Jan. 31, April 26, and June 28. The original's license was revoked in December 2017 for failure to maintain a registered office.
In fact, DelVicario has
been associated with at least 14 Rhode Island LLCs or corporations since 1999.
The licenses of nine have since been revoked, including Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy LLC. The other eight were revoked for failure to file annual reports.
The licenses of nine have since been revoked, including Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy LLC. The other eight were revoked for failure to file annual reports.
Rhode Island Solar
Renewable Energy III LLC is the listed developer of the project being opposed
by Moreau, Wiehl, and others, at least according to Town Council agendas for
hearings on June 18, July 2, and July 16.
The three agendas list the LLC with an address of 43 Creston Way in Warwick. Paperwork with the secretary of state's office lists the address as 300 Centerville Road Summit West, Suite 300, in Warwick.
The three agendas list the LLC with an address of 43 Creston Way in Warwick. Paperwork with the secretary of state's office lists the address as 300 Centerville Road Summit West, Suite 300, in Warwick.
Four years ago this
August, DelVicario was arrested by the Rhode Island State Police Financial
Crimes Unit and charged with obtaining money under false pretenses.
DelVicario, who had been
part of a failed movie studio development deal in Hopkinton and a long-stalled
movie studio development deal in Connecticut, wanted to build a connector road
between the site of a rollerskating rink off South Pier Road and Point Judith
Road in Narragansett. He faced a felony fraud charge.
Police alleged that
DelVicario, of 43 Creston Way in Warwick, owner of O.C. Realty LLC, used his
interest in Connecticut Studios LLC, a construction project he was affiliated
with, as collateral to secure a $200,000 personal loan.
The lender told police that when the loan defaulted, the lender discovered DelVicario had already used his shares in Connecticut Studios as collateral on a separate loan in 2009, according to an October 2014 story in The Independent.
The lender told police that when the loan defaulted, the lender discovered DelVicario had already used his shares in Connecticut Studios as collateral on a separate loan in 2009, according to an October 2014 story in The Independent.
Following a settlement
with the complainant, the charge against him was eventually dropped.
According to The Independent, questions into DelVicario’s financial deals surfaced after his request for a Narragansett easement came forward.
DelVicario, as head of Providence’s Halden Acquisition Group, pitched a $75 million studio with eight sound stages for farmland in Hopkinton.
The venture would have been done in collaboration with Pacifica Ventures, a production studio based in Santa Monica, Calif. It never made it past the initial planning stages and was declared dead in August 2008.
The project moved to
South Windsor, Conn., in 2009, where the developers touted more than 495,000
square feet of facilities, including film studios, sound stages, a hotel, a
5-megawatt fuel-cell operation, and a visitor center, according to the Journal Inquirer.
The project has yet to
break ground.
The Hartford Courant reported that in 2013 the Connecticut Legislature ended film tax credits, but included an exception for Connecticut Studios.
The Halden Acquisition Group paid the law firm of former Connecticut House Speaker Thomas Ritter nearly $194,000 between 2009 and 2013, and Ritter lobbied on behalf of the company to gain the exception, according to the newspaper's reporting.
The Halden Acquisition Group filed
for bankruptcy in December 2013 and closed in March 2014. Its interest was
acquired by dck North America LLC of Delaware. The Hartford Courant reported
that DelVicario’s company owed dck North America, the project’s former
construction management company, more than $2 million.
In 1990, DelVicario, one
of three general partners for Commercial Associates, was named in a Bald Hill
Plaza lawsuit, which claimed work progressed without regard to the terms of the
contract.
“The contract was continually amended by oral agreements between [Thomas D.] Gammino of [Tilcon Gammino Inc.] and DelVicario of Commercial,” according to the lawsuit. “DelVicario requested overtime work, extra equipment, extra materials, and the shifting of work crews from one part of the site to another. He would order different equipment for the job when he was unsatisfied. Tilcon honored these requests because DelVicario had promised that Commercial would pay for all the work he directed to be performed.”
The petitioner was
awarded $1.3 million.
Besides his association
and partnerships with the Halden Acquisition Group, Commercial Associates,
Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy III, O.C. Realty, and
Connecticut Studios, DelVicario has owned, operated, or been involved with a
number of other limited liability companies (LLCs) and corporations, according
to the Rhode Island secretary of state’s office.
Those Rhode Island
businesses include:
Prov. Construction Co. Inc.,
200 River Farms Drive, West Warwick; incorporated July 1, 1996; date of
revocation Sept. 22, 1999, for failure to file annual report; building,
remodeling, and construction management.
River Farms Development and Realty
Inc., 100 River Farms Drive, West Warwick; incorporated Dec. 8,
1999; date of revocation Jan. 11, 2008, for failure to file annual report;
build and sell condominiums.
RF Construction Co. Inc.,
100 River Farms Drive, West Warwick; incorporated Aug. 3, 2000; date of
revocation Oct. 7, 2002, for failure to file annual report; general
construction and contracting.
Tony DelVicario LLC, 381
River Ave., Providence; created Aug. 10, 2005; date of revocation Aug. 19,
2008, for failure to file annual report; real estate.
Halden Acquisition Group LLC,
381 River Ave., Providence; created Aug. 3, 2006; date of revocation Aug. 19,
2008, for failure to file annual report; real estate.
North Victory Highway Development
LLC, 381 River Ave., Providence; created April 11, 2007; date of
revocation June 15, 2009, for failure to file annual report; real estate.
Halden Acquisition Group II LLC,
117 Metro Center Blvd., Suite 2007, Warwick, created Aug. 7, 2007; real estate.
CTSRI Investors LLC, 381
River Road, Providence; created Sept. 9, 2013; date of revocation July 1, 2015,
for failure to file annual report.
360 South Pier Realty Holdings LLC,
43 Creston Way, Warwick; created July 21, 2014; date of revocation June 8,
2016, for failure to file annual report.
Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy
LLC, 46 Creston Way, Warwick, created June 15, 2016; date of
revocation Dec. 1, 2017, for failure to maintain a registered office.
Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy
II LLC, 300 Centerville Road Summit West , Suite 300, Warwick;
created Jan. 31, 2018.
Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy
IV LLC, 300 Centerville Road Summit West , Suite 300, Warwick;
created June 28, 2018.
On June 18, the Rhode
Island Solar Renewable Energy III project was one of five solar arrays under
consideration by town officials, according to a Planning Department memorandum.
By July 13, four more solar proposals had been added to the list.
The town has already
approved 12 solar projects, including an 18.8-megawatt Rhode Island Solar
Renewable Energy facility on 60 acres off Alton-Bradford Road.
The Town Council is
expected to continue the Rhode Island Solar Renewable Energy III project public
hearing at its meeting scheduled for Aug. 6 at 7 p.m. at Chariho Middle School.
This fourth hearing is expected to be the council’s last, but Wiehl said
opponents may ask for a continuance if they decide to hire a lawyer and
experts.
