The Warren County Planning & Zoning Commission rejected a request Sept. 17 to establish a new solar overlay district for the Blue Bird Solar 2 project.
Despite the commissioners’ vote against the overlay district, however, the proposal could still be approved at a future Warren County Commission meeting.
In introducing the topic last week, Planning & Zoning Administrator Bill Roemer said the proposed solar district, which would consist of an additional 1,963 acres, met the goals of the county’s master plan.
Oliver Chag, development manager with Ranger Power, developer of the Blue Bird Solar 2 project, said county officials and solar developers had a “constructive conversation” at last month’s Planning & Zoning Commission meeting.
One issue brought up at the Aug. 20 meeting was the vegetative screening to block the proposed solar farm from view of neighboring properties. An alternative to the previously discussed tree screening would be to use native prairie grasses, Chag said.
“One of the things that I’ve discussed with our consultants on projects that have used this type of approach is that it’s a once-a-year mowing of approximately a third of the grass,” said Jordan Andrepont, representative of solar company Desri, which is partnering with Ranger Power on the Blue Bird 2 project.
“So if it’s 30 feet wide, every year going 10 feet of mowing from left to right, so that every three years it’s cut to the ground and will regrow, but you never have less than 20 feet of screening,” Andrepont said of the prairie grass screening proposal.
In response to a question from Commissioner Alan Weber, Andrepont said he could not recall the exact seed mix used for screening the Blue Bird 1 project, “but it was all local grasses and pollinators that have taken very well to this area.”
At the August meeting, Commissioner Mike Mirth said he wanted to conduct a site visit before voting on the proposed overlay district. Mirth said Sept. 17 that he had visited the solar farm site, and heard from residents that their concerns included storm runoff, as well as maintaining a private road.
“Between the stormwater pollution prevention plan that we’ve deployed during construction, as well as the design of the project, both of those are an attempt to make sure that no runoff or silt goes into any water bodies of adjacent land owners,” Andrepont said.
“Part of that, what we did with Blue Bird 1 was maintaining the terraces inside the array and minimizing the grading impacts done in the array to keep all the work that the farmers have put into their land that works for drainage, and utilizing that with the project. That would be our goal with Blue Bird 2 as well.”
Although Chag and Andrepont answered questions at both last month’s meeting and on Sept. 17, commissioners were not convinced that plans for the overlay district should move forward.
The final vote on the proposal was 4-2, with only Commissioners Russell Kersten and Mirth voting in favor of approving the overlay district, and Weber, Dawn Turpin, Scott Ravenscraft and Becca Gasperoni in opposition.
Following the Sept. 17 meeting, Mirth released a statement on his vote.
“My yes vote is based on the fact that the farmers and landowners are willing to lease or sell the property rather than continue using it for agricultural purposes,” he said. “Based on my interpretation of the requirements, I believe this request meets the criteria set forth for rezoning.”
Despite the planning and zoning commission’s rejection of the overlay district, the proposal is not completely dead just yet.
“Re-zones and adjustments go up to the county commission,” said Roemer. “It isn’t over.”
As of Sept. 17, Roemer said, no date had been set for the Warren County Commission to consider the overlay district proposal.
