Grant County Commissioners asks area plan commission to approve proposed solar ordinance that initiated with county drainage board

Morgan Keller, Managing Editor, (Marion) Chronicle-Tribune

Wednesday, June 5, 2024 12:26 PM

The Grant County Commissioners voted to pass Resolution 8-2024 at their Monday morning meeting.

The resolution requests that the Grant County Area Plan Commission considers and recommends amendments for solar energy systems regulations. Specifically, the resolution asks the APC to consider amendments that would establish distances “required for setbacks for major or minor solar projects from residences, regulated county drains, towns and/or cities as well as whether or not to mandate a reasonable cap on solar development in unincorporated areas of Grant County.”

The resolution originally came from the drainage board, according to Commissioner President Ron Stewart.

“It’s stipulations, if solar comes into Grant County, this is stipulations that the drainage board would like to see put into the ordinance if it goes through,” Stewart said.

Commissioner Mark Bardsley is the representative of the commissioners on the drainage board.

“They (the drainage board) did a resolution to the commissioners that I presented last meeting to the commissioners, and I told them that I would come up with the resolution that we could sign to send it on to the APC,” Bardsley told the Chronicle-Tribune. “So we took their requests for the setback from drains, the public drains, and then we also tacked in what we’d already been discussing. We talked about residential setbacks, we’ve talked about the concept of caps on the amount of acreage that can be used. And then there was another one that was the review of adjacent municipalities to see if they want setbacks or buffers as well. So we just encapsulated that in the resolution that we passed today to send to the APC and then the APC will do the study, the public hearing, and go on from there.”

The resolution itself does not amend the existing solar ordinance, Bardsley clarified, it is a request from the commissioners to the APC to review the matter and recommend amendments that the commissioners can then vote to accept or not.

According to the resolution, the APC will hold a public hearing within 60 days of receiving the resolution and then within 10 days after the public hearing will certify any recommendation it makes to the commissioners for consideration.

The commissioners voted for a six-month moratorium on industrial solar at the beginning of February that is set to expire in August.

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