Wind Leasing in Cattaraugus County, NY: The Alle-Catt Wind Farm

Cattaraugus County's hub covers the Seneca Nation's Allegany Territory and standard town zoning elsewhere in the county -- but the Towns of Farmersville and Freedom, in the county's north, host the largest share of a separate, very real project: the 340-megawatt Alle-Catt Wind Farm. Cattaraugus County itself has repeatedly and publicly fought the state siting process over noise limits and local control here, which is worth understanding whether you're a participating landowner, a neighbor, or just buying nearby.

This page covers what's specific to Cattaraugus County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

Cattaraugus hosts the largest share of the project

The Alle-Catt Wind Farm is an approximately $618 million, 340-megawatt wind project developed by Alle-Catt Wind Energy LLC (an Invenergy affiliate) across roughly 30,000 leased acres in the Towns of Farmersville and Freedom in Cattaraugus County, Centerville and Rushford in Allegany County, and Arcade in Wyoming County. Of the project's up to 83 turbine sites, 41 -- exactly half -- sit in Cattaraugus County: 14 in Farmersville and 27 in Freedom, making Freedom alone the single largest host town in the entire project. Developers began offering leases here in 2017; turbines have already been erected in Farmersville as of 2026, with commercial operation targeted for December 2026.

That scale is reflected in the negotiated public payments: Alle-Catt has agreed to roughly $380,000 per year in PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) payments to Cattaraugus County itself over 20 years, plus $360,000 annually to the Town of Farmersville and $450,000 annually to the Town of Freedom in combined PILOT and host-community-agreement payments -- on top of $6.4 million in sales tax exemptions and $7.5 million in mortgage recording tax exemptions the developer sought countywide, all approved through the Cattaraugus County Industrial Development Agency.

The county itself has repeatedly fought the state over control of this project

Alle-Catt was sited under New York's Article 10 process (Case 17-F-0282), which gives the state Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment authority to override local zoning and permitting standards it finds unreasonably burdensome -- and Cattaraugus County has pushed back against that state authority more than once. In 2023, the county sought a rehearing before the state Siting Board specifically over rulings it said ignored county and town laws. The Town of Farmersville separately updated its own local wind law in 2020 (raising height limits to 600 feet, tightening setbacks and noise limits after resident groups organized for greater protections), but that local law was itself rejected by the Cattaraugus County Planning Board over the turbine-height provisions -- an unusual instance of a county planning body blocking a town's own attempt to regulate the very project the county was separately fighting the state over. As recently as July 2026, Cattaraugus County again asked the state Siting Board for a rehearing on nighttime noise limits for the project's turbines.

For anyone near this project, that history is a concrete illustration that neither the county's nor a host town's own zoning and noise standards are the final word here -- state siting authority controls, and it has repeatedly ruled in the developer's favor over county and town objections. If you're evaluating a lease offer or buying land near an existing or planned turbine, don't assume a town or county ordinance on noise, height, or setbacks will actually be enforced against this project as written; confirm the specific Article 10 (or, for a newer project, Section 94-c) certificate conditions that actually govern it.

The Town of Freedom's decommissioning dispute, and what to check on a lease

In May 2025, the Town of Freedom filed a formal petition asking state regulators to withhold construction permission until an adequate decommissioning plan was in place, specifically disputing the value of the decommissioning letter of credit the developer had proposed -- the financial security meant to guarantee turbines are actually removed and the land restored at the end of the project's operating life. The Public Service Commission ultimately ruled in the developer's favor in June 2025, transferring effective authority over decommissioning-plan approval from the town to the state. That dispute is directly relevant to any Farmersville or Freedom landowner: if the state-approved decommissioning bond ever proves insufficient to fully remove turbines and restore land decades from now, the town's own leverage to demand more has already been tested and limited.

If you own or are buying land with an existing Alle-Catt lease, or land near turbine sites in Farmersville or Freedom, get the actual lease or easement document rather than relying on the project's aggregate figures ($2.7 million per year in landowner payments is a project-wide total, not a Cattaraugus-specific or per-parcel figure): check payment structure and escalation, whether the lease transfers to you on sale without renegotiation, the current decommissioning-bond value and who is responsible if it's insufficient, and whether an access-road or collection-line easement crosses the specific parcel you're evaluating.

Wind Leasing in Cattaraugus County: The Alle-Catt Wind Farm

Cattaraugus hosts the largest share of the project

The county itself has repeatedly fought the state over control of this project

The Town of Freedom's decommissioning dispute, and what to check on a lease

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