The Hancock County board of commissioners adopted an ordinance governing large-scale solar energy systems at their August 6 meeting.
The ordinance follows a similar one adopted by the commissioners in March governing small-to-medium-scale SES. The adoption of the ordinances follow nearly a year of work by the plan commission, which set out last summer to create guidelines to allow and regulate SES in the county. Prior to the adoption of these ordinances, SES were largely prohibited in Hancock County, with the exception of micro-scale systems such as those on the roof of a small business.
“We heard that there were residents who were being approached by companies who dealt with utility-scale solar, so we started researching and bringing forward draft ordinances that dealt with solar all the way from micro to utility scale,” Hancock County assistant planner Hollie Kinker said.
The large-scale SES ordinance creates a new zoning overlay for individuals wanting to build an SES with an area of at least one acre and no more than 30 acres. Initially, the large or utility-scale ordinance was planned to cover SES with an area of up to 100 acres, but the plan commission eventually whittled that number down to 20 before finally bumping it up to the final mark of 30. The plan commission used the IMPA farm in Greenfield, a 17-acre facility, as a reference when creating acreage limitations.
Structuring the ordinance as a zoning overlay provided several benefits to the county, including ensuring that each large-scale SES goes before both the plan commission and the board of commissioners and not rezoning the original land so it can still be used for its prior purpose, generally agriculture, if the SES project is delayed or falls through.
“We are the executives of the county, so why would you not want it there?” vice president of the commissioners Gary McDaniel said. “We have to answer directly to the people, and we’re the ones they’re going to call when they want to do something like this.” All large-scale SES must be accompanied by a decommission plan, a failsafe measure in case the solar panels are either not being used to their fullest capacity or fall into disrepair. If a facility functions below 80% capacity for 12 consecutive months, the decommission plan will trigger. The plan will include a timeline and cost estimate for construction and removal, restoration of previous soil, vegetation and roads and any other measures the board of commissioners deems necessary.
“One of the bigger things we were concerned about was if one of the solar facilities was ever to up and leave the county, what would we do,” president of the commissioners Bill Spalding said. “If we start solar, we want it to be to the benefit of Hancock County, and we want to have an exit strategy as well.”
Both the details of the decommission plan, ensuring resoiling and replanting of the area, and the zoning overlay, maintaining the original zoning ordinance of the land, were decisions made to protect the agricultural land in the county.
“It’s been months of research and working with the plan commission and taxpayers to draft an ordinance that takes into account many factors,” Kinker said. “Preservation of our rich farmland was very important, so we’ve really tried to keep that in mind.”
The ordinance took effect immediately when it was passed Tuesday morning.
