Delaware County commissioners pass solar project moratorium again

Delaware County is again under a solar energy project moratorium.  As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, this comes after the county spent more than two years coming up with rules governing such projects on agricultural land.

“Me personally, I’m tired of these solar companies coming here, doing their business behind everybody, then all of a sudden, after they get to the place where they want to do it, then they send out the letters and everything,” said Delaware County commissioner James King.

King proposed the new solar project moratorium after hearing from Hamilton Township-area residents.  They’d been contacted by a renewable energy company ready to locate in the area.  King said officials hadn’t been notified and approval paperwork hadn’t been filed yet, even though the company said it began getting lease agreements with local farmers in the year 2020.

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At last week’s meeting of the Delaware County Council, Delaware-Muncie Metropolitan Plan Commission Executive Director Kylene Swackhamer said the company hadn’t yet filed paperwork with the county to begin a project.  But, she said the county’s requirement that area residents around a proposed project be notified so far in advance means the residents learned of the project before county officials.

With the passed moratorium, King said, “The solar companies, they cannot get any permits to start construction on the plan.  No solar can.”

The new moratorium is on any solar project anywhere in the county.  It is not limited to agricultural land projects.  It’s those projects that many residents objected to, and those projects that were the subject of a zoning use variance ordinance that the county spent years crafting.  That came after coordinated opposition to two proposed solar projects near Gaston and Albany.

Commissioners’ attorney John Brooke said the new moratorium is based on the county’s previous one.

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Commissioner Shannon Henry said he wanted to put the question about allowing solar to the voters, but missed the deadline for November’s ballot.

“So then I asked if we could have a separate sheet of paper at all the polling locations to have people vote,” he said.  “And that’s illegal now.  Apparently some other county did that and it kind of messed the election up, so we can’t do that.”

Commissioners want to consider a “property value guarantee.”  The concept was proposed for the county’s solar ordinance last year, but ultimately removed at the suggestion of a hired consultant who said it was “largely unenforceable” by the county.

Commissioners suspended the rules at a Tuesday morning meeting to pass the moratorium in one day.  It is in effect until March 1, 2025.

Stephanie Wiechmann is our Managing Editor and “All Things Considered” Host.  Contact her at slwiechmann@bsu.edu.