Accomack planners grapple with solar zoning, taxes

“How is it going to benefit Accomack County? — that’s the question.”

For Spiro Papadapoulos and some other Accomack County Planning Commission members, economics is the crux of the discussion as they work to determine what a new solar zoning district in the county will look like.

The state requires solar utilities be exempted — either in part or whole, depending on their size — from paying local taxes. That means the locality receives less revenue than it would from other types of industry or business — a fact Accomack planners are grappling with as they work out details of a new floating solar district.

“It’s not been done before,” said Rich Morrison, Accomack's director of planning and community development.

“The creation of this district is pretty uncharted — so this is kind of new and we need to take the time to do it properly,” said Kristen Tremblay, assistant planner.

The county zoning ordinance used to allow utility-scale solar facilities with a conditional use permit in the agricultural district, which makes up around 85 percent of the county.

That ordinance was repealed by the Accomack County Board of Supervisors — and now the Planning Commission is working on a different way to regulate future solar projects.

Accomack County already has one 80-megawatt project in Oak Hall, and officials have approved a 20-megawatt project near Tasley.

In discussions, planners have whittled down to about 25,000 acres the area deemed suitable for solar utility projects. Land for a project would have to be rezoned to the floating solar district.

“The box was big; now the box is small,” Morrison said.

Excluded are land within 2,500 feet of the waterfront, land near Route 13 or Route 175, and land with prime agricultural soils, according to the draft version of eligibility and design standards for the district.

Of the remaining acreage, “the ones closest to (Route) 13 are going to be the most attractive,” Morrison said.

Commissioner Spiro Papadapoulos asked how much energy could be produced on 25,000 acres if it were all developed; Morrison replied the figure the county has been using is about six acres required to produce one megawatt of electricity from a solar facility.

“Small is a relative term. ... We still can produce 2,000 megawatts in this county,” Papadapoulos said.

“Solar isn’t good for the tax base. … What we’re saying is … for the foreseeable future, 25,000 acres — maybe half of that is really useful for solar — that’s at least 10 or 12 projects. And we’re reserving Route 13 and the waterfront and 175 for other economic activities of high value — maybe higher value to us,” said Chairman David Lumgair.

Commissioner Bob Hickman noted planners have been using a figure of about 100,000 acres actually under cultivation in the county.

“If you build it all out … you could be taking away 15 percent of the county’s current productive agricultural land,” he said — although other commission members noted some of the 25,000 acres likely is wetlands or forested.

“Every time we turn over hundreds of acres to a solar farm, you lose tax base and you lose money coming into the economy,” Hickman said.

Among commissioners' concerns is how to prevent developers from submitting separate applications for several smaller projects near one another — resulting, in effect, in one, larger project.

Similar scenarios have happened with large poultry operations in the county resulting from a loophole in the ordinance governing them.

“One of the keys is going to be … to figure out how not to have the 12 chickenhouses next to 12 chickenhouses problem,” Lumgair said.

“You can’t have five developers come in together as a partnership and suddenly say, we’re each doing one,” he said.

Morrison introduced the idea of requiring each project to have its own substation — or to offer mitigation if it doesn’t — in order to discourage that scenario.

He said the rezoning requirement also gives county officials more control.

“You’re going to get to view the thing early on,” he said, adding, “You are zoning property. … There is no (comprehensive) plan designation for solar. … The only way you can get a solar project in this county is to rezone it.”

Planners will continue to fine tune the ordinance before they make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors.

On Twitter @cvvaughnESN

443-260-3314