PITTSBURGH — A community meeting is taking place Tuesday evening for residents to learn more about a proposed solar farm for the City of Pittsburgh.
The solar farm would be the city’s first, and would be located within Swisshelm Park, where originally there were plans for a third Summerset construction phase.
“It would have called for a bridge over the creek as well as a bridge connecting to Commercial Street, so it was at least $18-20 million dollars of infrastructure,” said councilman Corey O’Connor. “A lot of residents were a little concerned about that much money being spent.”
So O’Connor, along with city officials and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, are proposing a solar farm instead, arguing that it could ultimately save some residents money.
A release from the city states a solar farm could improve “air quality and public health by providing pollution-free energy to consumers,” “deliver power to consumers at a lower cost” and “keep the lights on for consumers during outages by diversifying the sources of energy feeding into the local power grid.”
“When you’re looking at building a city of the future and using different means of energy, solar energy is one that we’re really supportive of,” said O’Connor. “It’s going to be a really unique project.”
City residents we spoke with, like Diane Scheuermann of Edgewood, told us she is in favor of solar panels, but would hate to see the construction negatively impact Swisshelm Park and neighboring Frick Park.
O’Connor said a lot of details haven’t been ironed out yet, but that the project includes plans to actually extend Frick Park by about 100 acres.
On Tuesday night, the first community meeting is taking place virtually, where residents can learn more by clicking here.
O’Connor expects future meetings to take place as well.
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