A planned commercial solar farm in eastern Howard County will not face a legal appeal.
No one living near the proposed Locomotive Solar project filed a petition for judicial review over the Howard County Board of Zoning Appeals’ approval of a special exception permit for the approximately 2,000-acre project.
County Attorney Alan Wilson said the county has not been served with a petition for judicial review, and a Tribune review of lawsuits filed in local courts against either the BZA or Locomotive Solar found nothing.
The deadline to file an appeal was April 27, or 30 days after the BZA granted the special exception permit.
The lack of appeal means Ranger Power, the Chicago-based utility-scale solar development company behind Locomotive Solar, will not have to spend possibly several months defending the granting of the special exception permit and can instead focus its attention on receiving other needed governmental approvals, such as drainage approval, road use approval, stormwater plan approval, decommissioning plan approval, development plan approval from the Howard County Plan Commission and economic development agreement approval.
When the company will begin the process to receive those approvals is unclear. A request for comment made to Colin Snow, senior development manager for Ranger Power, was not returned.
Locomotive Solar, according to a presentation at the March 28 BZA meeting, is a 200MW commercial solar project that will take up a total of approximately 2,000 acres mostly north of Indiana 22 and around the Duke-owned Greentown substation.
Of those 2,000 acres, the project fence will surround approximately 1,700 acres, and within that fenced area, approximately 600 acres will actually house the solar panels.
Perennial vegetation will be planted around and under the solar panels, the company says. The panels themselves, and any other structure within the project fence, will not exceed 20 feet in height.
Ranger Power, in its special exception permit application, stated the project is an estimated $250 million investment and will generate an estimated 200-300 temporary construction jobs during the 18-month construction time and three to six full-time jobs for operation and maintenance once complete.
The company also estimated the project will generate approximately $55 million in property taxes over its life, which is expected to be 30-35 years. After the project’s lifespan, Ranger Power says it will convert the land back to tillable farmland.
The solar farm will have to adhere to the Howard County solar ordinance passed by county commissioners in late 2021.
Those regulations include a setback of 300 feet from any permanent structure more than 250 square feet in size on a non-participating property owner’s land, 50 feet from the right of way of state highways and 40 feet from the right of way of other roads.
The ordinance also requires large-scale commercial solar projects to adhere to county landscape and buffering regulations, with any trees or similar vegetation planted as a buffer having to be at least four feet in height and one placed every eight feet. No barbed wire fences are allowed to be used as fencing and a decommissioning bond must be set up that will cover 125% of the cost of decommissioning.
Snow said Ranger Power would meet or exceed the county’s solar ordinance.
The company is also offering “good neighbor” agreements to adjacent non-participating landowners. The payments include a $1,000 payment upon signing and another $10,000 within 45 days of the beginning of construction of the solar farm.
EMERALD GREEN SOLAR
Locomotive Solar is the second publicly announced large-scale commercial solar project set to be built in Howard County.
The other, Emerald Green Solar proposed by ENGIE North America, is a 200MW, 1,800-acre commercial solar farm also on land near the Greentown Substation. Of those 1,800 acres, ENGIE says 1,300 acres will be covered with solar panels.
Unlike Locomotive Solar, Emerald Green Solar’s special exception permit approval is facing a petition for judicial review.
The appeal, filed by a number of Greentown-area property owners near the proposed solar farm, is currently in litigation in Howard County Circuit Court. The plaintiffs are waiting for the county to provide it with a copy of the complete board record for the Feb. 28 BZA meeting.
In the appeal, the plaintiffs argue that the BZA did not consider evidence presented by those in opposition, that ENGIE failed to present evidence that its proposed solar farm is “clearly a benefit” to adjacent property owners and that there were violations of the Indiana Open Door Law during the Feb. 28 BZA meeting.
Lastly, ENGIE is also in litigation over a petition for judicial review it filed in August 2022 against the county BZA following the board’s decision earlier that July to deny for a second time the company’s application for a special exception permit.
Despite ENGIE being granted the special exception permit on its third try in March, the company has continued to pursue its appeal. Both ENGIE and the BZA have filed their legal briefs, according to the court docket. A hearing in front of Miami County Superior Court I David Grund is scheduled for July 5.