Mecklenburg planners support cap on solar land going under panel

Two projects in pipeline come under limit

The Mecklenburg County Planning Commission took a stand Thursday against further solar development in the county, recommending a 2,300-acre cap on the amount of land that can be under photovoltaic panels for all local solar projects.

This number is different than the cap Mecklenburg County has already established for any single solar project, which is 500 acres or less. The 500-acre limit is the maximum size of a solar project enclosure and includes such areas as roadways and retention ponds as well as the areas covered by solar panels.

Zoning Administrator Robert Hendrick, speaking at the Thursday meeting of the planning commission, said that if the Board of Supervisors agrees to issue permits for two solar project currently making their way through the application process — Finneywood and Seven Bridges then Mecklenburg County would have allowed 2,223.53 acres of agriculture land to be covered with solar panels from five projects.

Every one of those facilities is situated in the county’s northwest quadrant near Chase City.

Finneywood is a proposed 97-megawatt facility that Dominion Energy wants to build on 493 acres near Highway 49 and Ft. Mitchell Road near Chase City. Seven Bridges is an 80-megawatt project that Longroad Energy wants to build on 499 acres of timbered land northeast of Chase City near Scotts Crossroads, Courthouse Road and the Meherrin River.

Two utility-scale solar arrays are currently generating power. These are Grasshopper, Dominion Energy’s 80 MW facility located at the intersection of Highways 47 and 49, which began operating in 2020, and the 50 MW Bluestone Facility owned by Engie on Spanish Grove Road which went online in 2021.

A third facility, Otter Creek, is under construction. It is a 60-megawatt photovoltaic array spread across both sides of Spanish Grove Road near Highway 92. Also owned by Dominion Energy, it is expected to be commissioned in 2023.

Planning Commission Chairman Kyle Crump made the motion that passed without objection.

Hendricks said the commission will have to hold a public hearing on the recommended policy before it can be sent to the Board of Supervisors for a vote. That hearing will take place April 27 at 7:30 p.m. during the next meeting of the planning commission.

Hendrick said County Attorney Russell Slayton advised against adopting an absolute moratorium on future solar projects, saying it would not withstand a legal challenge. Instead, the commission agreed to place a cap on the total acreage allowed for solar panel installations.

Hendrick said Slayton also advised against establishing a cap that would prevent the developers of Finneywood and Seven Bridges from making their case for receiving a special exception permit. Both projects were previously found to be in conformity with the county’s comprehensive plan, but yet to be decided is whether the projects qualify for special exception permits from the county, a prerequisite before either project can begin the state permitting process.

The 2,300-acre limit would allow the Finneywood and Seven Bridges projects to move forward in the application process without exceeding the cap. Hendrick said the county would then have approximately 76.47 acres that could be developed for one or more solar projects.

County supervisor and commission member David Brankley was quick to point out that there is no guarantee that supervisors will vote in favor of a special exception permit for either Finneywood or Seven Bridges.

He noted that both the planning commission and supervisors voted down two utility-scale projects, one in Bracey and another in Boydton and a community-scale project in Clarksville.

Attorneys for the Boydton area project, Antlers Road Solar, filed suit in Mecklenburg County Circuit Court on Feb. 8. The developers, RWE Renewables Americas, LLC and its subsidiaries RWE Solar Development, LLC and Antlers Road Solar, LLC, are challenging the finding of the Board of Supervisors that their project did not conform to the county’s comprehensive plan, calling the decision unreasonable, discriminatory, arbitrary, capricious and unconstitutional/unlawful.

“We’ve already built three in our area [ED-8] in Chase City and then we’ve got two more that have already passed the 2232 [comp plan review],” Brankley said, before adding that his constituents in ED-8 are calling him and asking, “Why are you all denying them everywhere else and you keep on chunking them to us [near Chase City]?

“I think it’s really, really unfair to those people up there [near Chase City] to continue to be swamped with them,” Brankley said.

He added that he expects a large contingent of residents from the Chase City area will attend future county public hearings about Finneywood and Seven Bridges. He further expects there to be a large number of vocal opponents to the projects.

Donna Dennis asked if an existing zoning provision that caps at 5 percent within a five-mile radius of Chase City the total number of acres that can be approved for solar, would be sufficient to block future solar developments if the under-panel limit was set at 2,500 acres. Brankley replied that it would not, because there are at least three other developers looking to bring solar to that region and they are all outside of the five-mile radius.

“It’s almost as if they see that and now, we will go a little bit farther,” Brankley explained.

Crump said he was aware of another project that a developer is looking to build near New Hope Baptist Church.

The project, deemed “New Hope Agrisolar Facility,” would be developed on a 45-acre site near Hanford and New Hope Roads in Skipwith. The developer, RC DEVCO, LLC says it will be a dual-use, farming and solar photovoltaic facility with a capacity of up to 4.99 MW.

A public hearing on the project, hosted by RC DEVCO, will take place  April 7 at 3 p.m. at the Butler Memorial Library, 515 N Marshall Street, Chase City.

The same company, RC DEVCO, LLC is also hosting a second meeting on the same date and at the same location, but at 6 p.m. to receive public comment on a second project, Lone Oak Agrisolar Facility. It is described as 45-acre dual-use farming and solar photovoltaic facility generating up to 4.99 acres near Old Cox Road and Highway 47.

As of Tuesday, the Mecklenburg County Planning Commission has not received an application for a 2232 hearing from RC DEVCO LLC for either proposed project.

As the commission meeting wound down, Brankley expressed the hope that the cap on solar panels would send “a real message that we don’t want no more [solar].”