Mulligan Solar seeks Logan County Enterprise Zone designation while preparing to meet conditional use requirements

 

[January 11, 2021] 

At the Logan County Board’s Planning and Zoning Committee meeting on Wednesday, January 6, representatives from Mulligan Solar provided an update on their plans.

A conditional use permit for the Mulligan Solar project was approved in June. Kyle Barry, attorney for the project, said there was a December 22 hearing at Logan County Zoning Officer Will D’Andrea’s office. This hearing was the first step in initiating the enterprise zone change process.

Mulligan Solar is asking for solar farms to be added to the list of projects eligible to receive enterprise zone benefits. Barry said Mulligan Solar would like the enterprise zone to be extended by connecting to the existing enterprise zone. The extension would be starting at Fifth Street, travelling down to the south along Route 66 and extend to the parcels in the solar farm project.

Being in the enterprise zone would allow Mulligan Solar to take advantage of sales and use taxes associated with being in the enterprise zone. Barry said that could be done without taking revenue away from the county.

Since there would be some changes, Planning and Zoning Committee Chairman David Hepler asked whether they would be amendments to the current ordinance or new ordinances.

D’Andrea said it is an amendment to an existing ordinance. The county would be amending the ordinance to include both the use of solar farms and the additional area while creating new descriptions and a new zone.

The state must sign off on changes to the enterprise zone, but Barry said first each of the governing bodies involved must pass an amendment. Mulligan Solar is seeking approval of the document that is necessary to affect the changes.

The city will need to approve the change, too. Hepler said he talked to Lincoln Mayor Tracy Welch who wanted the county to address it first since it is fundamentally a county issue.

The full county board would first decide whether to approve adding solar projects to the enterprise zone. Committee member David Blankenship could then motion to extend the enterprise zone to include Mulligan Solar.

Update on Mulligan Solar plans

Erin Baker of Mulligan Solar said the planning for the solar project is going well. The company is in advanced stages of discussion with potential financial partners. They have also selected an EPC contractor for the project and are hoping to start construction this spring. Mulligan Solar hopes to be operational by early 2022.

Mulligan Solar representatives have been looking at the conditions of the conditional use permit. Reviewing the conditions helps the company see what they need to complete for compliance before they get building permits.

Right now, Baker said they are preparing a drain and tile repair plan and a decommissioning plan. These conditions require board approval. Baker wanted to know the process for approval for these two documents, who to present the documents to and whether they should use a third party to review the documents.

As the next step in the process, Barry said Mulligan Solar hopes to submit these plans for approval in February.

Hepler asked whether it is customary in the solar industry to have drainage and tile plan and decommissioning plans reviewed independently. He wanted to know whether the county engineer could review these plans. He would like D’Andrea and Logan County Highway Engineer Bret Aukamp to review the decommissioning plans and decide if a third-party review is needed.

For the drainage and tile repair plans, Barry said both D’Andrea and Aukamp have reviewed similar plans for wind projects. Therefore, Barry does not think it would be necessary to have a third-party review for drainage and tile repair plans.

The decommissioning plans for solar are different than the ones for wind since there is less concrete involved and solar panels sit on poles driven into the ground. When it comes time to decommission the solar project, Barry said there is much less to remove than there is with a wind project.

D’Andrea said he agrees that solar farm decommissioning is much less intrusive and difficult than decommissioning a wind farm. However, D’Andrea is not sure Aukamp has the experience or expertise to weigh in on decommissioning and the hours involved. He asked Mulligan Solar to talk to Aukamp about it.

Though he does not expect the decommissioning plans to need much of review, D’Andrea said it may be better to have a third party review them.

The impact on the ground and tiles would much less with a solar project than with wind projects. D’Andrea said Solar projects use regular commercial type vehicles to bring in panels and do not use huge cranes to bring in massive weight. D’Andrea would be comfortable with an in-house review of the drainage and tile plans by him and Aukamp.

Baker would like to get Aukamp’s take on what he suggests for the next steps of the decommissioning plans.

A drainage report was submitted by Mulligan Solar for the Conditional Use Permit application. Baker said it was more of a high-level drainage analysis and not necessarily a tile repair plan. She plans to check on that. Baker wants to see a sample of a tile repair plan for the Conditional Use permits.

Mulligan Solar hopes to bring the plans forward next month.

[Angela Reiners]