Solar Wind Farm Project for Kingston & Mattapoisett, Massachusetts

Solar Wind Farm Project: The Kingston Green Energy Committee is looking to identify suitable locations within Plymouth County for the development of a combined solar/wind farm. The maps above are for the Towns of Kingston and Mattapoisett, Massachusetts. Both maps indicate the possible locations within each town, as identified in red, that would be a suitable fit for this type of development. The process used to identify these specific sites was to find land within the towns that have a slope equal to a 15 degree angle and the slope would also need to have a southerly facing aspect. Also included is the wind contour speed, which for a wind farm the locations would have to have winds at 5m/second or greater, this is based upon a 30 meter wind height. Further analysis needs to be addressed to locate suitable sites for the solar/wind farm. Analysis on the type of zoning these sites are located and their land use type. As well as, they type of vegetation, if there is wetlands, water bodies, and if the space is State park/forest. In addition the Committee would also need to address the solar portion of this project, by measuring the amount of solar radiation each site receives during the different seasons.

Click here to also view the Solar Wind Farm site locations in an ArcGIS Online Web Application.

City of Brockton - Sites for a Bio-Tech Industrial Park

Analysis:
Site selection: For the site selection, four parcels were found based upon the directed criteria. The data used for this project is from Mass GIS, and included the Political/Administrative Boundaries - Level 3 Assessors’ parcels, Zoning data, which is the boundaries for the municipal zoning districts and also the MDEP Hydrography data, which contains all water related features such as lakes, ponds, wetlands, rivers and streams.

Parcels suitable and non-suitable: Sites 104-042, 105-114 (these two are located at the Westgate Mall) and 155-107 (Brockton Hospital) would not be suitable sites for a Bio-Tech industrial park. These sites are located in the inner city boundaries and close to a dense residential population. Also, these sites are in areas that experience high traffic volume. The only site found that is possibly suitable is site number 080-001D. This site is already an active industrial area, it is located south of the inner city area of Brockton and has direct accessibility to Route 28 and the area is located in a less dense residential area.

Additional criteria for analysis: Additional criteria that should be analyzed is residential areas, adding a graduated table to show the population within the buffered area and also showing the location of schools and parks on the map would be useful information for the town planner to know. Knowing where the closest fire department is would also be valuable in making a selection. For the selection of the site, suggest possible removing the commercial zoning from the criteria and looking at industrial lands that is shared by surrounding towns with Brockton. Depending on what the Bio-Tech industry is creating or researching, it should be contained within an industrial park.

Other options for Bio-Tech industrial park: Other options that may exist to site a Bio-Tech Industrial Park are adding an academic institute to make it a learning environment, having space for a hotel would provide space for those visiting from other institutions. Having small satellite facilities and meeting spaces. Having a satellite emergency response station as well as adequate parking and green spaces, these are also important options to consider.

How to make site selection “Portable” for other localities: Instead of running this analysis on a town by town basis, create an analysis that is run for each county within the state. Having this analysis run based upon counties instead of by town would make the site selection process more portable and efficient to the localities with in the county and would give the Industry looking to build more options for space and travel.