Noble Plan Commission sends solar ordinance to commissioners

The only hiccup to potential final passage is the one dissenting vote to the ordinance as presented Wednesday was plan commission member Anita Hess.

Hess is also a Noble County Commissioner.

Hess isn’t against the solar ordinance, the purpose of which is to set up a framework potential commercial solar enterprises would have to follow to install a solar field in Noble County, but something said Wednesday by an attorney representing a group of residents opposed to the ordinance resonated with her.

During his presentation, Fort Wayne attorney Jason Kuchmay suggested it might be prudent for the plan commission to include an expert’s opinion as part of the approval process. The expert’s opinion would be another factor the Noble County Plan Commission and eventually the Noble County Commissioners could consider when contemplating final approval.

“He made one good point that got to me,” Hess said. “I thought maybe (his idea) gave the county and check and balance. It’s another person to grade the paper.”

Hess said she wasn’t necessarily married to the idea of adding such an expert’s opinion to the process, but she at least wanted time to consider it.

If Hess can convince either Commissioner Gary Leatherman or Dave Dolezal to agree with her, that body could send the proposed ordinance back to the plan commission for further consideration.

According to plan commission attorney J. Everett Newman III, the commissioners could deal with the proposal as early as at their Oct. 12 meeting.

The commissioners said Thursday that they will take it up Oct. 12 as an agenda item for their regularly-scheduled meeting, but that the solar discussion will occur after a lunch break at 1:30 p.m. in the Dekko room of the county’s south office complex.

The commissioners’ options include approving the ordinance or sending it back for further work. If the commissioners fail to act, after a 90-day period, the ordinance would become part of the UDO since it carried a positive recommendation from the plan commission.

The plan commission has been working on the ordinance for seven months, according to plan commission president George Bennett. The issue got the attention of local officials when it was learned the state was considering its own law regarding commercial regulations, and that if a county did not have its own standards approved, the county would be stuck with what the state considered appropriate.

The plan being sent to the commissioners would not require a rezoning of land for commercial solar use, but would create a zoning overlay. This overlay would set the rules for solar fields. Among its provisions:

• the solar panels can be no taller than 15 feet;

• a vegetative buffer at least 6 feet high at time of installation;

• any solar field would have to be at least 300 feet from a non-participating, pre-existing residential dwelling, and be at least 50 feet from any property line.

• any developer would have to purchase a bond which would pay for 100% of the costs of decommissioning the solar field.

If a developer presents an application to the Noble County Plan Commission Office, it would be a sent to a developmental committee consisting of the county’s zoning administrator, representatives from the highway, surveyor’s and building departments, the county’s flood plain administrator, the Noble County Economic Development Corp. and an ag educator.

Once that committee is comfortable with the proposal, it would go before the Noble County Plan Commission for consideration. The commission could kick it back to the committee for further work or make a recommendation for the Noble County Commissioners.

Before the plan commission would send a recommendation, the proposed ordinance would require it consider the following findings of fact:

• The development plan complies with applicable standards of the underlying district in which the lot is located;

• The development plan complies with applicable provisions of the overlay district;

• The proposed development is compatible to the site and its surroundings;

• The development plan complies with applicable provisions of the Unified Development Ordinance; and

• The proposed development is consistent with the Noble County Comprehensive Plan.

A North Carolina company, Geenex, has been contacting some Noble County rural residents, offering $900 per acre per year to lease land for a potentially large solar field in the north central part of the county that runs along high voltage power lines.

Two Geenex employees spoke in favor of the ordinance, but neither were authorized to say whether the plan given a favorable recommendation Wednesday would fit into their company’s plans for such a Noble County project.

According to Noble County Planning Department officials, Geenex is in the preliminary stages of planning a 2,000-3,000 acre operation in southern Orange and northern Jefferson townships in Noble County.

The project proposed by Geenex would generate between 300-400 megawatts of power. For size comparison, the Noble REMC solar field off S.R. 3 near LaOtto generates 1 megawatt and sits on 6 acres.

Kendallville’s proposed 1.55-megawatt field will sit on the former McCray Refrigerator property, which is similarly sized.

At the start of Wednesday’s public meeting, Bennett stressed to the 30-plus people in attendance that the purpose of the meeting was not to address any specific project, but to set guidelines for any project involving commercial solar.

Nine people signed up to speak before the plan commission during the public meeting, with three of those being in opposition to the proposed solar zoning ordinance.

Noble County resident Renee Cox said she questioned what would happen to land values in the area and also expressed concern that the heat given off by the solar panels might kill birds.

Kuchmay made several points to the commission, arguing that:

• the solar fields should not be allowed on land currently zoned agriculture because of the loss of valuable farm land;

• the solar fields should not be allowed on land zoned residential;

• the plan should include a mechanism for ensuring local fire departments had access to the panels in the event of a fire, and questioned whether local department might be properly equipped to deal with such a fire since the chemical makeup of the solar panels had not been discussed.

Kuchmay also said the solar fields would harm the fertility of the soil should it ever return to agricultural land.

Plan Commissioner Ann Kline, who wrote her master’s thesis on soil fertility, disagreed, saying depending on the vegetation allowed to grow as ground cover, that the soil fertility could actually increase.

Connie Neininger, speaking on behalf of Hoosiers for Renewables, spoke about the positive impact a planned solar field would have on White County where she is from.

“It’s minimal disruption to the soil,” Neininger said. “The tax rates generally go down.”

Tax rates go down, because multi-million-dollar solar fields are taxed at a higher rate than agriculture land, reducing the rate paid for all property owners in the country where the solar fields are installed.

Charlie Lemmon spoke passionately in favor of the solar ordinance, saying it would become a crop, of sorts, that isn’t limited by season.

“We’ll be harvesting sunlight 365 days a year,” Lemmon said. “I’m excited about that.”