Solar Farm Rules

From the News-Gazette website Friday:

Champaign County Zoning Board recommends approval of solar farm rules
The Champaign County Zoning Board of Appeals has recommended approval of the rules for solar farms in the rural part of the county.

Director of Planning and Zoning for the county John Hall says that the board Thursday night voted 4-2, with Marilyn Lee and Jim Randol voting no. The rules will now go before the Environment and Land Use Committee next Thursday night.

That committee won't vote on the recommendation from the zoning board until Aug. 9th, where it could then be sent on to the full county board.

Hall says that a decommissioning plan was approved Thursday night as a part of the rules, which provides financial assurance, if and when the panels ever need to be taken down.

Some of the other rules include that the solar farms must be a certain distance away from a home, or from a community's city limits, a noise study must be done, and that there must be a road use agreement to cover the costs of damage to rural roads during construction.

Full article with additional details here. Here's a background article that lays out concerns about noise, topsoil, and other issues the potential solar farm raised (don't let the "wind" title throw you): Sidney resident offers cautionary tale on wind farms.