Resolution opposing home rule override OK’d

By MARTIN WILBUR

The Mount Kisco Village Board unanimously approved a resolution Monday evening to formally oppose any action by the state that would allow it to override home rule to site a battery energy storage system.

Board members sought to send a message to Gov. Kathy Hochul, leadership in the state legislature and its own representatives that proposed legislation permitting the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission to approve applications for the facilities is wrong.

Many communities across the state have had deep concerns about the safety of BESS after multiple reports of fires erupted in the units in New York and throughout the U.S., sometimes burning for days and have passed similar resolutions.

“We want to make our thoughts known to our senator and our assemblyman, and all the assemblymen or persons, I should say, and also to the governor that this is a home rule state and the powers granted to this local government to adopt, amend local laws in addition to the powers granted by the state of New York are statutory and we don’t want them infringed upon, and we object any attempt to take local zoning away from our community in particular,” said Mayor J. Michael Cindrich.

If the state legislation were to pass, it could make it easier to have the state seize control of the approval process on other issues. Mount Kisco passed its zoning in 1929.

“Our opposition has less to do with battery storage, quite honestly, and more on the infringement on home rule, which is not to be violated, and which both of the member organizations that we are a part of, as a co-terminus village and town, in New York state, both the Association of Towns, has this as their top legislative priority every year, to preserve and protect home rule for all of the municipalities in New York state,” said Village Manager Ed Brancati.

That is also true of the New York Conference of Mayors, to which the village also belongs, he said. 

Last year, state Sen. Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat, proposed legislation that would give the Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission the power to approve or deny storage facility applications of at least 25 megawatts. There is a similar bill in the Assembly. Neither state Sen. Pete Harckham or Assemblymember Chris Burdick are co-sponsors of the bills.

In 2024, Mount Kisco fought off an application from New Leaf Energy to place a BESS at the Diamond Properties complex at 333 North Bedford Road.