County Commissioners review proposed amendments to solar ordinance
Before the coronavirus shut down most of the state, the County Commissioners shut down the development of large solar farm projects with a 12- month moratorium.
During the Feb. 17 meeting, the commissioners did pass an ordinance that provided framework for the County Board of Zoning Appeals to use when considering solar projects.
The moratorium only included solar farm projects 10 acres or more.
A taskforce consisting of one commissioner, one County Council appointee, the county plan director, and four mem
bers of the public was created to review the ordinance and recommend changes.
Those changes were presented to
the commissioners on Monday, Sept. 21 by County Plan Director Ty Adley.
“We met several times over the last several months, took it through TRC ( Technical Review Committee) with a favorable recommendation, they made only one small adjustment. It was taken before the Planning Commission at the end of last month,” Adley summarized the progress of the taskforce and the ordinance.
The Planning Commission approved the amendments.
He then detailed items that were added in the ordinance. Some of those details included the
addition of a 150 foot setback from the centerline of adjacent right-of-ways, removal of the Minnesota State Standard and replacing it with the Michiana Area Council of Government (MACOG)’S standard, and then terminology that states that the site will be free of all invasive species as listed by the Indiana Invasive Species Council.
Another amendment was to go with a qualitative process for the buffer rather than a quantitive one. “It also included a note from TRC which buffering shall be considered when adjacent to non-residential parcels when they have competing uses,” Adley said.
Previously, the ordinance stated that drainage systems be repaired, but with the amendments it says that drainage systems be repair and install new tile should any of the systems be damaged during construction.
The security fence section of the ordinance was amended to state that fences be maintained and repaired as needed and kept in good condition.
For decommissioning, if the facility hasn’t generated power for six months, the decommissioning process will commence. The term of six consecutive months was reduced from 12 consecutive months.
One of the last things Adley talked about concerned preferred locations for solar farms. “Preferred locations for solar farms came out of the solar taskforce are on brown fields, industrial zoned property or on marginal agricultural soils,” Adley said.
The public hearing portion of this issue was opened. Deb Vandemark spoke about her concern about the location section of the amendments. Primarily, the definition of the word “marginal.”
Hearing no other comments, the public hearing was closed.
“I share Deb’s concern on what is marginal. My fear is you get into a situation like this where we’re going to wind up in litigation from a bunch of lawyers coming in here trying to interpret what they think we meant,” said Commissioner Stan Klotz. He also serves on the solar taskforce and had brought up this concern during the taskforce meetings.
County Attorney James Clevenger brought up the fact that Adley mentioned that the amendment concerning marginal farm ground was a preference and not a requirement.
Another concern Klotz brought up concerned decommissioning and whether or not solar materials could be recycled. “I don’t know if we’re ready for this,” he said.
Klotz talked about a presentation that the taskforce listened to where the presenter admitted that there was no benefit for the county.
“And if you take tax abatements away, there is really no benefit, because that’s what everybody’s going to want,” said Klotz.
The commissioners passed the amendments on first reading only. It was discussed that if it was passed on first reading, changes could be made on later readings. In order for this to take into effect, it has to pass on all three readings.
It will discussed at the second meeting of October.