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Michigan preservation law could hold up solar plans
 
By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
BAD AXE, Mich. — A California-based solar energy firm is making contacts with local landowners in the Thumb area of Michigan about installing commercial solar farms.
 
According to a report in the June 23 Huron Daily Tribune, Cypress Creek Renewables would like to build as many as fifteen 20-acre solar farms in Huron County, and landowners could be compensated as much as $800 an acre for such developments.

But according to the article and other sources, the state’s farmland preservation law could be an obstacle to such developments. Michigan’s law is known as P.A. 116 and about three-quarters of the land in Huron County is enrolled in P.A. 116.

The farmland preservation law provides credits to farmers who enroll their land in the program, but it also creates restrictions on the development of such land for commercial purposes; however, such land can still be farmed.

Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s farmland preservation program head Rich Harlow said any landowner with land currently enrolled in P.A. 116 could not have a commercial solar farm installed unless the land fit into certain discrete categories – for example, if it belongs to a church or nonprofit organization. In most cases, though, the land would have to be rezoned as commercial.

Cypress Creek Renewables’ contact for the Huron County effort, Casey May, acknowledged that P.A. 116 is “an obstacle. It’s really a matter of getting some guidance from the department of agriculture” as to how to deal with it, he said.
 
“There are some hurdles and challenges there, but we’ve worked with these kinds of programs in other states successfully,”
he added. “It’s really early in the development process and to be honest, we’re still ironing out the feasibility of the project. We’ve talked to a few farmers so far.

“We’ve looked at sites that we think might be suitable for a solar farm, in Huron County and elsewhere.” Cypress Creek is based in Santa Monica, Calif. According to the above-mentioned article, if the company does build the solar farms, it plans to sell the electricity
produced to DTE Energy. 
 
DTE has some small solar farms of its own in Huron County. Huron County Building and Zoning Director Jeff Smith said DTE was able to do this because it supplies “essential services” to the residents of the county. As such it falls into a separate category. For Cypress Creek and most other private sector companies, the county’s master plan would need to change to accommodate solar farms on land that are enrolled in P.A. 116.

Reports had it that farmers would be able to pay back credits to the state they received under P.A. 116, and Cypress Creek is quoted as saying it would compensate landowners for whatever cost they might incur as a result. However, both Smith and Harlow say it’s more complicated than that.

“In order to pay back the credits to the farmland preservation office, the zoning classification would also have to change, so it’s not a simple matter of compensating farmers for lost credits,” Smith said. “We want to work through the implications of P.A. 116. We want to preserve open farmland. If you open up a 30-acre piece of land to a solar farm, it’s lost to farmland preservation.

“We are currently revising and updating the Huron County Master Plan to include appropriate alternative energy provisions.”

Smith said to his knowledge Cypress Creek has not signed contracts with any landowners in Huron County; however, there are letters of intent. He also said he’s not seen the sort of opposition to solar farms that the area has seen lately with wind developments.

Residents of Huron County as well as neighboring areas recently voted down several proposals that would have advanced wind developments there, or voted for measures creating more restrictions on wind. The Thumb region already has more wind developments than any other area of Michigan. 
7/19/2017