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player ready...An Orland Park resident hopes to harvest sunlight for the energy needs of his house in the Orland Hills subdivision at the village’s north end.
The village plan commission on Tuesday night unanimously endorsed a request by Owen Hulse to install two dozen rooftop solar panels. The proposal now goes to the village board for final approval.
At least two other Orland Park homes, one in the Veritas subdivision and one in the Preserves of Marley Creek, have installed solar panels since the village added “environmental technology standards” to its municipal code in 2010. Orland Park also has a business-oriented program that’s also intended to encourage adoption of solar and other “green” energy use.
Village planner Michael Mazza told the plan commissioners that Hulse’s panels would cover 65 percent of the roof at his house in the 13500 block of Howe Drive, well under the village’s 75 percent maximum.
Joe Gordon, a representative Niles-based Solar Service, said the panels would be inconspicuous and their upward pitch would reduce glare, but he also acknowledged, in response to neighbors’ concerns, that bright reflected sunlight would momentarily occur at predictable times. Gordon downplayed the issue, likening the effect to sunlight temporarily reflecting off the windshield of a parked car.
Commission Chairman Louis Stephens asked Senior Planner Nectarios “Tari” Pittos if there have been complaints related to existing rooftop panels in the village, and Pittos said that staff had not heard of any.
In a separate issue, commissioners endorsed Dignan Properties’ proposed seven-home subdivision on 167th Street, northwest of the Orland Grasslands nature preserve and near the Muirfield and Hunter Point Estates subdivisions.
If village trustees agree, developer Ray Dignan said he expects to complete the infrastructure for the Winterset Estates subdivision in the fall.
Stephens praised Dignan for doing a “nice job working with the neighbors” on his plan, citing his including a small park on a site that was intended originally an eight residential lot.
Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter.