By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
A series of timelines converging all around the same deadline pushed the Barton County Commission to schedule a special meeting at 9 a.m. on Friday at the former JC Penney building in Great Bend. At issue is the approval of recommended commercial solar development regulations and a new zoning map versus a solar development moratorium set to expire at the end of March. County Counselor Patrick Hoffman outlined the issue to the commission.
"This board of commissioners directed the planning commission to develop some commercial solar regs," he said. "At that time, the commissioners also enacted a moratorium to go into effect until the planning commission had finished the regulation work. The purpose of the moratorium is to make sure we didn't get an application for a commercial solar permit before we actually had regulations we could use to evaluate that permit."
The Barton County Planning Commission began working on the solar regulations last May and voted to recommend those regulations on March 14. Due to a 14-day protest period following that vote, the board of commissioners would have been unable to vote on the recommendation until after the moratorium expired on March 31. Commission Chair Barb Esfeld explained why the board is holding the special meeting on Friday.
"Just so everybody knows, the board doesn't want to extend the moratorium," she said. "We didn't want to put it in place to begin just because we're taking landowner rights away as well. It's one of the most serious topics, by far, that we've had to take on. There's been a lot of study, reading, and hearing from constituents."
At Friday's meeting, the board of commissioners will vote on recommendations for proposed district regulations, solar regulations, and a new zoning map. If it approves the recommendation, the moratorium will naturally expire on March 31. If the board does not approve the recommendation, it will also address the expiring moratorium, and failed proposals will go back before the planning commission for its regular April 11 meeting. Another proposal could go before the board of commissioners at the April 16 meeting with no 14-day protest period required.