By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Barton County Planning Commission is officially putting the ball in someone else's court. After 10 months of developing regulations regarding large-scale commercial and non-commercial solar development in the county, and after several lengthy meetings on the subject, the all-volunteer panel voted Thursday morning to make its recommendation on the matter. The Barton County Board of Commissioners will vote to approve or not approve that recommendation at a future meeting. Zoning Administrator Judy Goreham said a 14-day protest period began with Thursday's recommendation.
"The soonest the county commission can vote is April 2," she said. "So, I will be reporting to them that we have a problem with the moratorium. I am hopeful they will get me on the agenda next Tuesday or the Tuesday after asking for an extension. I'm going to ask for 30 days because there's a possibility they will send one or all three back to the planning commission, and you need to have enough time to have a second meeting."
The planning board made final revisions and recommended the proposed solar regulations, district regulations, and a new zoning map that includes a 2-mile no-build zone around Cheyenne Bottoms. The moratorium on the construction of any large-scale solar projects is set to expire on March 31.
After speaking with officials in Douglas County, the Barton planning board agreed to one major addition to the regulations. Any large-scale commercial solar developer will be required to notify all landowners within a mile of the proposed location.
"The reason this is so important is it puts the pressure of conflict on the applicant," Goreham said. "The applicant has to do full disclosure and transparency ahead, and have a person designated to handle questions, answer their questions, answer their concerns, so when the application comes to the county, we're doing the work of doing the review of the application."
The application process is an extensive one. Douglas County reported it took more than half a dozen workers more than four months to process a single application. By statute, planning boards have 45 days to decide on an application. The Barton board also added a third-party requirement to its regulations. The applicant will pay for that independent third party to work through the application process, and that third party will then report to the planning board.
Most of Thursday's work involved modifications made to the original draft after the board heard from citizens during open meetings. Some highlights include:
- An extraordinary event is now defined as large-scale or system-wide damage to solar panels, solar modules, or solar arrays and facilities due to wind, storm, hail, fire, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster, explosion, grievous injury to any citizen or employee, or similar event.
- Wildlife is defined as living things, especially mammals, birds, and fish, vertebrates, reptiles, and amphibians that are neither human nor domesticated.
- The wildlife corridor definition did not change though Goreham clarified the first sentence of the draft included the definition "a vegetated route or other connection which allows movement of wildlife." The words "other connection" can include air and sky.
- All solar panels must be constructed to minimize glare or reflection onto adjacent properties and adjacent roadways, and must not interfere with wildlife or traffic, including air traffic, or create a safety hazard as per any local, state, and federal laws and regulations.
- County counselor Patrick Hoffman supplied detailed language regarding liability insurance and the decommissioning of any solar project.
- Wording was added pertaining to a groundwater monitoring plan.
The final draft of the regulations will be posted to the Barton County website once updates from Thursday are complete. Now that the planning board has made its recommendation on the solar regulations, the board of commissioners can approve the recommendations with a simple major (3-2) vote, or reject or modify the recommendations with a supermajority (4-1) vote.