The vacant lot in Woodlawn Heights, as seen from E 234th St. (Credit: Connor O’Leary Herreras)
At a heated community board meeting on Sept. 24, residents of Woodlawn Heights in the Bronx debated with representatives from a renewable energy company. But the topic wasn’t high energy costs or carbon emissions. It was a proposed battery storage facility that the company, Orenda Power, plans to build in a vacant lot.
Three representatives of Orenda Power, including its president and chief executive officer Bill Grinstead, presented for roughly 15 minutes to the Community Board, and took questions from its members for nearly an hour.
Orenda’s representatives asserted that the benefits at the site, 249 East 233rd St., would outweigh its risks; it would store energy that could be deployed to support a strained energy grid on hot summer days. When pressed on Orenda’s reasoning for selecting the Woodlawn site, Grinstead cited its proximity to preexisting feeders, or high-voltage electric lines that distribute power throughout the Con-Edison energy grid.
Grinstead reiterated an offer he made to the Woodlawn Heights Taxpayers and Community Association in the spring to pay for an independent fire safety engineer who could provide a second opinion. According to their presentation, Orenda intends to have the site running by next November, with construction beginning in January.
Responding to a question from community board member Kim Lonzo about whether the company had appropriately communicated their plans for the lot to Woodlawn residents, Mike Porto, Orenda’s director of external affairs, seemed to acknowledge those concerns.
“We could always have done it earlier,” he said.
Woodlawn residents in the public gallery broke into applause when Lonzo concluded, “You didn’t think about your neighbors, but you’re here to convince us that you’re going to be good neighbors.”
Community Board 12, which serves Wakefield, Edenwald, Eastchester, Williamsbridge, Baychester, Olinville and Woodlawn, also heard arguments from eight residents living in close proximity to the location of the proposed plant.
Those who spoke, including parents, seniors and emergency workers, were each allotted three minutes. They expressed concern with the lack of communication from Orenda Power as well as for the fire hazard posed by the facility.
Lithium-ion battery fires require a more involved emergency response than traditional blazes. Once a chain reaction occurs inside a battery cell, the intense heat, flammable gases and oxygen it produces can prolong the time it takes to bring the event under control. In one instance on December 19th, 2025, a fire at a battery storage facility in Warwick, NY remained active late into the following evening.
The potential for noise pollution posed by the system also came up during the meeting. Frances Weaver, a Woodlawn resident, looked into the effects of noise exposure at night, when battery energy storage systems, or BESS for short, are known to recharge.
Weaver explained that the facility’s cumulative noise could rise above 70 to 90 decibels – levels known to “increase blood pressure, reduce ability to concentrate, [and] reduce reading scores in children.”
“You can’t go beyond the noise code, you wouldn’t get a permit,” Porto later said while answering questions from community board members. “At the end of the day these are not noisy projects.”
Most Woodlawn residents ultimately left Thursday night’s meeting feeling no different from when they arrived. Daniel McNabb, a longtime resident, lamented that Orenda had not provided any updated details about their plan for a fire suppression system.
“We have not been able to get full answers or actual answers on anything, except for the fact they’re telling us there’s overhead spray heads that’ll be dumping something like 2,000 gallons a minute, overflowing the property and washing away any hazardous metals down to the Bronx River,” he said.
Members of Community Board Twelve appeared as wary of Orenda’s planned facility as the Woodlawn residents whom they represent.
“Maybe we can get Con-Ed and the fire department in here with you guys at another time,” Clinton Myke, the board chairperson, said.
Approval for the site from the Fire Department and the City’s Department of Buildings is still pending. The next Woodlawn Heights Taxpayers and Community Association meeting will take place at 7:30 pm on November 2nd inside Rambling House, a pub in the heart of the neighborhood.
New York Fire Department’s Chief of Fire Prevention, Thomas Currao, is expected to attend in order to hear out the community’s concerns.
About the author(s)
Connor O'Leary Herreras is a first year part-time student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism covering local politics and culture.