ANDERSON – A moratorium banning the event of huge photo voltaic vitality services has been prolonged for an additional 12 months.
Madison County Commissioners on Tuesday voted to increase the moratorium till Dec. 31, 2023, or till a brand new county photo voltaic vitality ordinance is adopted.
The present moratorium is ready to run out on Saturday.
Larry Unusual, director of the Madison County Planning Division, mentioned he hopes to have a draft of a brand new photo voltaic ordinance addressing giant developments of fifty acres or extra accomplished by subsequent 4 to 6 weeks.
It’s shocking that the Planning Fee ought to maintain a public listening to on the proposed new photo voltaic ordinance.
“There’s lots of curiosity,” he mentioned. “The county might wish to take into account outreach conferences for the general public within the northern and southern elements of the county.”
Unusual mentioned the county might additionally do a web based survey.
John Richwine, president of the Madison County Board of County Commissioners, mentioned he favors the outreach conferences and the net survey.
Unusual mentioned he’ll submit a proposal for outreach conferences for public enter on Jan. 10 Plan Fee assembly.
Brad Newman, the previous director of the Planning Division, is engaged on a draft of a photo voltaic ordinance beginning in 2020.
That draft ordinance accommodates a property worth assure, limits industrial photo voltaic farms to twenty% of the county’s prime agricultural land and limits what zone classification a undertaking is allowed.
Massive scale photo voltaic vitality tasks shall be permitted in areas zoned for industrial use.
Photo voltaic vitality tasks are prohibited in any space of the county zoned for residential use and are permitted with particular makes use of in areas zoned for agriculture, conservation, residential, parks, native industrial , basic and freeway industrial.
The ordinance requires a 200-foot setback from adjoining property traces and requires any developer to carry at the least one group informational assembly.
Together with a property worth assure for a residential property adjoining to a fenced boundary with growth, a non-participating property proprietor and the proprietor desirous to take part in a settlement, and there’s multiple piece of property adjoining to the event.
There’s a provision {that a} developer should present a efficiency assure within the type of a bond or letter of credit score as monetary safety within the quantity of 125% of the decommissioning of a photo voltaic vitality undertaking.
It additionally requires an financial growth settlement between the developer and the county for the potential loss or switch of property taxes.
At present, solely Invenergy’s $110 million, 120-megawatt proposed Lone Oak Photo voltaic Farm stays eligible for development within the county.
That undertaking is not going to be affected by the brand new photo voltaic ordinance and the undertaking has been granted a particular use for development in northern Madison County by the Madison County Board of Zoning Appeals.
The undertaking shall be accomplished by the top of 2023 and the Plan Fee denied a request for a two-year extension for the undertaking.
An enchantment of the denial of the extension is pending in Grant County.
catheter Ken de la Bastide on Twitter @KendelaBastide, or name 765-640-4863.
