By Charles Bolinger <\/p>\n
Editor \u2022 In the wake of its denial at the Troy Planning Commission meeting on Aug. 13, Tess Buchanan, a project manager with Cultivate Power, sent a three-page letter to Mayor David Nonn and the Troy City Council regarding the company\u2019s requested special-use permit application.<\/p>\n
City Engineer Tom Cissell rehashed his presentation from four days earlier for the mayor and council during an administrative and community services committee meeting that took place just prior to the city council meeting on Aug. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the city council meeting which immediately followed the committee forum, city councilmen gave the project its first reading at council under the city\u2019s new rules for any project in Troy\u2019s industrial zoning areas. These projects get three readings now \u2013 one at planning commission followed by two at city council, at least 14 days apart. Councilwoman Debbie Knoll was absent.<\/p>\n
Kent Higgins requested a special-use permit for 1515 Formosa Road to erect a 15-acre community solar farm on his land. The site is south of the US 40\/Interstate 55-70 interchange and the Collinsville-Troy Church of Christ. There\u2019s a tree line south of the church that prevents most drivers on either highway from seeing the site. Immediately south of the tree line is a triangle-shaped piece of land that Higgins plans to use as storage units and for which he already received approval from the city. The solar farm would be south of the storage area.<\/p>\n
If the special-use permit is approved, construction will start in the autumn of 2027 and take 16-24 weeks to complete and should be operational in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n
South of the planned solar array is a projected future single-family home development from Cade Osborn called Carrington Farms.<\/p>\n
Cissell reminded everyone that Springfield has already ruled that no solar project can be denied without a good reason, he said. Local municipalities can set setback distances and have a say in screening materials and lighting details but solar cannot be banned outright.<\/p>\n
The letter notes that the hearing record of the Aug. 13 meeting did not discuss substantial opposition or a project-specific basis for denial of the project. At that Aug. 13 meeting, three commissioners voted no, two voted yes, two abstained and one was absent.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly one speaker clearly opposed the project and her concerns focused primarily on traffic and the existing use and conditions of Formosa Road, rather than on the project itself,\u201d the letter wrote.<\/p>\n
Along with passing the resolution, there are four stipulations: the property must be subdivided into three parcels \u2014 one for Higgins\u2019 home, one for the solar field and one for the storage units. There needs to be a more extensive landscape barrier to the north to protect the tree line in perpetuity. City officials asked Osborn Development to honor the 150-foot residential setback between the solar farm and Carrington Farms even though no homes are exist yet. Finally, the last stipulation is the city gets to decide on some of these items. \u201cThe special-use permit isn\u2019t enforced until we approve their site plan,\u201d Cissell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Buchanan and Sean Pluta, an attorney with the Polsinelli Law Firm in St. Louis, spoke on behalf of Ironbark Solar, LLC, a Cultivate Power subsidiary.<\/p>\n
In her presentation, Buchanan reviewed the definition of community solar, how it works and the benefits. In our area, community solar will currently only work for Ameren Illinois customers, not for cooperative electric customers such as Southwestern.<\/p>\n
She said Cultivate has proposed a community benefit agreement with the city for $325,000 to support Formosa Road improvements, including a shared-use path.<\/p>\n
Next is a special city council meeting on Aug. 31 at 4:30 p.m. for the council to hear a second reading of the request and to vote on it. The next regular Troy City Council meeting is Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m., a day after its normal day because Sept. 7 is Labor Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Charles Bolinger Editor \u2022 In the wake of its denial at the Troy Planning Commission meeting on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-309258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}