Solar, wind changes floated

Solar and wind farm ordinance amendments are in the works.

Jay County Plan Commission heard suggestions to change fees, setbacks and other details in the county’s solar and wind farm ordinances Thursday.

Jay County Building and Planning director John Hemmelgarn and assistant director Pati McLaughlin shared draft copies of suggested changes to the ordinances.

Those suggestions include:

•Requiring construction start dates and completion dates for projects to be included in development plans

•Increasing filing fees from $20,000 to $50,000

•Requiring a $1,000 filing fee for revisions to development plans

•Increasing permit fees from $1,750 per megawatt to $2,500 per megawatt

•Requiring emergency safety and fire safety plans to be approved by Jay County Emergency Management Agency and local fire departments, respectively

Other suggestions related to increasing setbacks.

Proposed amendments would include an option for participating and non-participating landowners to waive the setback distance in writing.

“This gives non-participating people a little more say in this,” said Hemmelgarn.

“All four of (the Jay County solar) projects, I’ve got people coming to me and saying, ‘I’m getting boxed in, and I have no control of it. This is not why I moved out into the country.’”

There were also suggestions to change the setback requirements from buildings, which currently measure from the edge of equipment to the structure, to instead measure from property lines.

Per the building and planning department’s draft, setbacks for solar farms would be increased to 250 feet from participating and non-participating landowners’ property lines. (That would include all types of properties, such as residential dwellings, churches, schools, businesses or public buildings, areas zoned as commercial or rural residential and nature preserves, parks and or recreational use properties. Currently there are different setback distances depending on the type of property.) Setbacks for wind farms, per the draft, would be 1,500 feet from participating and non-participating landowners’ property lines. 

The proposed changes for solar and wind farms would also stipulate 1,500-foot setbacks from the corporate limits of Bryant, Pennville, Redkey and Salamonia, a half-mile setback from Dunkirk’s corporate limits and a 2-mile setback from Portland’s corporate limits.

Plan commission member Scott Hilfilker noted setbacks were originally wider and changed shortly before the ordinances were approved. Plan commission member Casey Wagner questioned whether there were setback requirements between two solar projects, with Hemmelgarn noting he’s not seen that in other ordinances but said they would look into it.

Plan commission and Jay County Commissioners president Chad Aker voiced support for the increased solar farm setbacks.

“It does give to participating, non-participating landowners, it gives them a little bit of choice in there if they want those a little bit closer, I do like that,” he said. “And we’re not spacing this out so far back to kill a project.”

Plan commission member Steve Ford questioned the increased setbacks for solar farms, pointing to concerns about maintaining the distance between the property line and fencing.

“Two hundred fifty feet’s a long way,” he said. “I don’t think the other, the 25-foot, that wasn’t enough. I understand that. But 250 feet, I automatically think in terms of mowing it …”

Another change would be to remove narratives regarding road use and decommission agreements, with McLaughlin explaining the new language would solely require proof of both agreements to be signed between the county and project applicant. 

Discussion also briefly touched on requirements for vegetation and buffer areas and whether to remove them or require companies to keep up with vegetation maintenance.

McLaughlin talked about a solar farm project in Randolph County, explaining the company has a “good neighbor” policy, allowing adjoining landowners to have a say in what vegetation is planted around the farm. She suggested that practice could become a potential requirement in Jay County’s ordinance.

Hemmelgarn asked commission members review the draft and return to the discussion at the next meeting, in which they plan to propose ordinance drafts for carbon sequestration, battery storage and data centers.

In other business, plan commission members Brad Daniels, Steve McIntosh, Ford, Hilfiker, Aker and Wagner, absent Michelle Penrod, Todd Skirvin and Jeanne Houchins, also talked about carbon sequestration requirements.

Hemmelgarn suggested 1,000-foot setbacks from wellheads or pipelines to residences. He expressed safety concerns in the event of a leak or disaster, with Adam Homan of POET Bioprocessing noting a firm has been hired to create a dispersion model. 

“So, what’s a catastrophic failure look like?” Homan explained. “And what’s the model, what’s that plume look like, what’s that area affected?”

“Every wellhead, every site, is going to have a different look of what that dispersion could look like, if … a truck barrels through and takes the wellhead out or something like that, versus a small leak,” he continued. “So, that model would, I think, answer a lot of the questions on what that setback looks like, what’s the impacted region.”

Plan commission also discussed potential requirements for battery storage facilities, such as differentiating between utility-scale and commercial-scale projects. Aker suggested 250-foot setbacks, with adjoining landowners to have the option to waive those setbacks in writing. 

Mark Trumbauer of NextEra Energy shared information about projects in other areas, such as the company’s goal to keep the noise to a maximum of 55 decibels from nearby structures. Regarding safety requirements, Trumbauer noted battery storage facilities typically house a fire suppression system, which is stipulated through the National Fire Protection Agency.