Residents off Natick Avenue remain determined to fight off a solar farm proposed in their midst. They are now asking the state Supreme Court to hear their case.

 The project in question is a Warwick-based energy company’s proposal to clear-cut about 28 acres owned by Ronald Rossi off Natick Avenue for the installation of solar panels.

The fight against the solar farm has been a seven-year-long battle, and it has not had a smooth ride.

The master plan was approved in 2019 by the city Planning Commission, but residents opposed to the project appealed the decision to Superior Court.

The project was sent back to the Planning Commission after Judge Netti Vogel found a procedural flaw in which more than 100 pages of evidence and a revised site plan were accepted into the record after the close of public comment, according to the case documents.

The project went through planning review again, and this time, the Planning Commission rejected the master plan, underlining concerns about the proposal’s impact on the environment and neighborhood.

The city Zoning Board upheld the Planning Commission’s decision, and then it was Revity Energy’s turn to appeal the ruling to Superior Court.

Judge Joseph Montalbano reversed the decision and ordered the Planning Commission to approve the proposed solar farm’s master plan.

This decision cleared the way for the project to move forward.

At that point, Mayor Kenneth Hopkins said, the city had spent about $71,000 defending the Planning Commission’s rejection of the plan. 

 “After that ruling, I consulted our legal staff and outside attorneys to evaluate next steps,” Hopkins said in a statement to the Herald. “At that juncture, I was advised that the city should not appeal Judge Montalbano’s order, as his judgment was founded on a solid rule of law.”

 A Boston Globe story published ahead of the November election noted that residents alleged a conflict of interest between the mayor’s office and the developer’s lawyer, Robert Murray. 

 Murray is Hopkin’s friend and personal lawyer. Some residents see that as a conflict of interest. 

 Murray said he does not know the basis of this suggestion. “There is no conflict of interest,” he said.

 Murray has represented Rossi and Revity Energy since the inception of the project in 2018. 

 In response to these allegations, Hopkins emphasized that no one outside of his legal team or administration advised him in “doing the right thing for the residents and taxpayers of Cranston.”

  Hopkins said he followed the decisions of the courts and will continue to do so. 

 In a statement to the Herald, Hopkins said he fully supported the Planning Commission throughout the process and defended its vote concerning the solar project.

 He also noted that he has heard and understands the concerns of the residents who have been vocal in their opposition to the project.  

 The neighborhood group, known to some as “Citizens of Natick," have cited several concerns with the project.

 Drake Patten has long been in the fight against the solar farm and has concerns about driving conditions, and concerns about environmental damage and blasting, such as the project’s proximity to a high-pressure natural-gas delivery line, deforestation, risk of damage from flooding, impact on wildlife in the area and much more. 

 “When you take the trees away, you're doing a number of things to the ecosystem, but flooding was only one of the things,” Patten said. “Most of us sit below the project; it is on quite a steep slope.”

 According to Patten, neighbors are concerned regardless of the project’s ability to meet state Department of Environmental Management standards. “By denuding a large area of land,” she says, “you are placing the adjoining neighborhood at risk for damage.” 

Patten and others in the neighborhood group have made their voices heard, and have also looked into alternatives to the project.

One of those is changing the zoning ordinance to be more restrictive on commercial power production in residential areas, and to favor placing these projects on land already disturbed.

 Patten said the group has worked hard to change the ordinance to look at other communities nationwide that are choosing brownfields sites – properties already compromised by industrial use – for their solar projects. 

Neighbors fought to place a moratorium on solar projects and change the original zoning ordinance, according to Patten. 

 “What we understood was that the blanket allowance to put commercial power production in our city would in the majority wipe out the rest of open land in Western Cranston,” Patten said. “And we felt that that was not a reasonable way to treat our land.”

 After the proposal’s long, contentious journey in the legal system, the Planning Commission in October cleared the master plan of the project in accord with the ruling by Judge Montalbano.

 The next stage is to get preliminary plan approval, and Murray said the proponents are moving toward that.

 “This has been a fully designed project for many years, so we will look to move forward in the near future,” he said.

The neighborhood group is continuing to fight the project while it waits to see if the Supreme Court will hear their case. 

 “People care about the place they live, and we shouldn't be demonized for that,” Patten said.