WALNUT >> Swayed by resident concerns, Mount San Antonio College trustees postponed a vote Wednesday night to erect hundreds of solar panels on a hillside 75 feet from homes.

The seven-member board will bring back the issue 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Founder’s Hall.

The project is planned for 11 acres of a residentially-zoned, steep hillside across the street from the community college along Grand Avenue, south of Temple Avenue/Amar Road. It would be one of the larger solar projects in the San Gabriel Valley and supply half the college’s electrical power for decades.

Many residents said the plant will mar the entrance to the city of Walnut, block views and lower property values in a hillside community ranked in the Top 50 “Best Places to Live in 2015” in the United States by Money Magazine, mostly for its natural hillsides and “excellent schools.”

Members of a residential group, United Walnut Taxpayers, which successfully stopped a Mt. SAC parking garage project overlooking the Timberline neighborhood, have asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to block the solar plant. Several addressed the board during a lengthy public hearing.

“There are a number of homes in that area that will lose their views,” said Dennis Majors, a licensed engineer with the group. He presented a study showing homeowners in the Timberline and Snowcreek neighborhoods would see the solar panels.

In a rare move, board members Manuel Baca and Fred Chyr led a postponement vote against the recommendation of college President Bill Scroggins, who urged them to award the contract. Both board members said they wanted more studies.

“I would like a re-examination of the sight lines,” Baca said.

Gary Nellesen, Mt. SAC’s director of facilities, planning and management, told the board the contract engineer hired by the college deemed Majors’ analysis “inadequate.” Nellesen acknowledged that the solar panels would be visible from “some homes” in Timberline and others in Snowcreek, most likely in a neighborhood closest called The Willows on Regal Canyon Drive.

Nellesen added that only residents from two homes would be able to look down on the panels. Berms and landscaping would shield the 2-to-6-feet-tall geometric-shaped panels from cars on busy Grand Avenue, he said.

Chyr wanted more analysis of the view impacts on Walnut residents and resisted pressure from Scroggins and Nellesen to approve the project immediately because the college faced a deadline. It must sign a deal with Southern California Edison by Sept. 24 or lose up to $4 million in no-interest loans and other funding incentives.

“I feel pushed into a corner,” said Chyr, who is running for re-election in November. “I’m very uncomfortable.”

The solar project will cost $5.3 million to design and build and will generate 2 megawatts of electrical power. The college’s base electrical use is 4 megawatts and up to 6 megawatts on extremely hot days.

The college anticipates saving $400,000-$500,000 a year in electrical costs, Scroggins said. Solar, plus power from its co-generation plant, would supply 100 percent of the college’s base power demand.

The solar plant is the second college project in the last two years to face strong opposition. In a lawsuit, Walnut city officials are seeking to channel all college projects into normal planning process.

“The city doesn’t allow solar-generating plants in a residential zone, which this is,” said Mike Montgomery, Walnut’s city attorney. “The college needs to apply for a variance or a conditional use permit.”

But the college has refused, saying it only answers to state authorities. Approvals must come from four agencies: U.S. Fish and Wildlife, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, California Fish and Wildlife and the Los Angeles Area Water Resources Control Board, which are conducting their own reviews, said Jill Dolan, Mt. SAC spokesperson.

Residents say the college suspended plans for a focused environmental impact report and instead has relied on a more general report the trustees approved in December 2013 as part of a master plan of building projects for the 420-acre campus.

Craig Sherman, attorney for United Walnut Taxpayers, said in a letter to the board the project would violate the California Environmental Quality Act and other state laws.

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