The challenge of an ordinance enacted last year by East Huntingdon regarding solar farm development has been settled.
Court records made public Wednesday revealed lawyers for the township and GreenKey Development Inc. reached a deal this month that kept the township’s ordinance in place but also allowed the company to proceed with plans to install solar panels on three properties.
The company, in a lawsuit filed last year, contended East Huntingdon’s ordinance, approved in March 2025, essentially banned the development of solar energy farms in the township and claimed applications for its proposed project predated the new law.
The ordinance regulates where solar farms can be built within the township and requires developers to meet specific installation guidelines. It also requires companies to submit detailed plans to decommission the farms or prepay for their eventual removal.
Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Harry Smail Jr. on March 2 signed a consent order that resolved the litigation.
“The parties have agreed (the ordinance) is inapplicable to the GreenKey preliminary land development plans as submitted to the township on or about Feb. 26, 2025,” according to the consent order.
East Huntingdon supervisors referred questions to township solicitor Aaron Bialon.
Talks between GreenKey and the township resulted in a tentative deal late last summer that was finalized this year. As those negotiations progressed, East Huntingdon supervisors Sept. 4 signed off on the solar farm projects, Bialon said.
The negotiated deal calls for the company to meet specific requirements to train local emergency crews to respond to potential hazards related to the solar energy equipment and to assign a local representative to serve as a liaison between GreenKey and neighbors where the solar farms will be installed.
“And the most important aspect of this is that the ordinance stands to this day,” Bialon said.
GreenKey filed two legal challenges against East Huntingdon’s ordinance. One lawsuit alleged the ordinance was invalid with regard to GreenKey’s project because it was approved a month after the company’s application was submitted to East Huntingdon officials. A second lawsuit claimed the ordinance was illegal because it essentially created requirements for solar farm projects that developers could not meet.
GreenKey lawyer Anna Skipper Jewart and company officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Bialon said the solar farm development appears to be on track.
“The township realizes and knows these things are going to happen, so the supervisors decided that working with them was a heck of a lot easier than battling this out,” Bialon said.