FREEDOM — Days ahead of a Jan. 21 vote, residents have received a letter in the mail urging them to vote against the town’s proposed Commercial Solar Ordinance.

The letter, citing problems with the ordinance’s treatment of landowners and restrictions on solar development, is the latest push in a three-year fight between the town’s Board of Selectmen and Planning Board, each accusing the other of writing an insufficient ordinance while making a grab for power.

Signed by “concerned property owners against the solar ordinance,” the mailer was backed by 15 residents who met to discuss concerns in December. The group included Planning Board Chairman Tyler Hadyniak, who said he helped draft the letter as a concerned resident.

“We hoped to highlight the most critical deficiencies, or downsides, of this proposed ordinance,” Hadyniak said. “So the letter had three bullet points of the three most important issues we wanted to highlight for voters.”

The letter states the ordinance infringes on the right of property owners to develop solar, demands restrictive setback requirements, limits a potential source of tax revenue and does not embody the rural spirit of the town.

The Planning Board first approved a commercial solar ordinance draft in December 2023. The Select Board’s final draft, approved almost a year later, was revised to include language about soil protection, shielding and vegetative buffers, setbacks of no less than 450 feet — changed from the original 50 feet — and consistency with ‘town character,’ or the visual character of the town.

The Select Board has final authority over ordinances according to Laura Greeley, chairperson of the Board of Selectmen.

“Ultimately, ordinances are the Select Board’s,” Greeley said. “And so when the Planning Board brought it to us that first time, it was extremely lacking. I think they were a little surprised that we didn’t accept it, because I don’t think in Freedom, a Select Board has ever refused to take an ordinance from a Planning Board.”

To understand what residents wanted, the town distributed a survey in May. Of the residents who responded, 60.2% said they strongly opposed commercial solar arrays in Freedom, and 64% said commercial solar arrays should be visible only to those on the property where they are located.

The Planning Board used the survey data to revise the ordinance, but the Select Board wasn’t satisfied. The approved version of the ordinance says that solar projects can be denied if they aren’t consistent with a standard of town character “determined by the Planning and Select Boards.”

All other town land-use ordinances, including the existing Commercial Development Review Ordinance, are drafted and overseen by the Planning Board alone. By involving both boards, Hadyniak said, the solar ordinance goes against established government processes.

“This is a dual decision-making structure which has absolutely no precedence in Freedom’s local government,” Hadyniak said.

Ordinances are enacted by a majority vote of town residents following a public process that includes public hearings.

The town had enacted a moratorium on commercial solar development that has expired and cannot be extended, and no other ordinance that regulates solar energy has been drafted. The town’s current rules leave Freedom’s farmland open to development if the ordinance does not pass, Select Board Member Heather Donahue said.

“We have very few ways to defend ourselves or to even regulate how they come down, because a big company knows that we don’t have the litigation resources,” Donahue said. “And so we have to protect ourselves ahead of this development happening, because if we try to catch it from behind, we’re not going to.”

The mailer wasn’t the only effort to reach voters this week. Prentice Grassi, a Planning Board member who was also at the December meeting, sent out an email Monday to around 45 of his personal contacts, in which he said the ordinance gives the Select Board disproportionate discretionary power.

Grassi  said defeating the proposed ordinance would send the Select Board a message. In the meantime, he said he is not worried about imminent development.

“I’m not particularly concerned that this ordinance will be voted down and a commercial developer will show up the next day with plans and an application,” Grassi said. “My feeling is that ultimately, if the townspeople don’t want an application going forward, there are ways to slow down or stop an applicant in a small town.”

After the mailers arrived, Greeley said three Select Board members spent hours Thursday morning on the phone with confused residents. She said she also aired her concerns to Grassi.

“I said, ‘You do realize that if people took your advice, that you are then opening the town up to possible commercial solar, that only your board has control, and that the people of Freedom have no say,'” Greeley said.

Voting takes place 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the town office, located at 71 Pleasant St.