Despite opposition, LaPorte Board of Zoning Appeals approves $500 million solar farm

LAPORTE — The LaPorte County Board of Zoning Appeals has granted final approval to RWE Clean Energy LLC to build a solar farm on more than 3,300 acres of farmland in eastern LaPorte County.

By a 3-2 vote on June 18, the BZA granted a special exception to the current agricultural zoning for RWE to build the solar farm, which is projected to produce enough electricity for the grid to power 68,000 homes annually.

The approval came the same night that the St. Joseph County Area Plan Commission voted to give a favorable recommendation to a proposal to tighten regulations on solar farms in St. Joseph County after a mixture of support and opposition to a proposed solar farm near North Liberty. That now heads to the St. Joseph County Council for a final vote on July 9.

Chicago-based RWE has 130 solar projects operating in the U.S.

Plans call for the construction of solar panels and other infrastructure to serve the operation to begin early in 2025.

It’ll take about 12 to 18 months to finish construction of the $500 million facility, which will stretch from Kankakee to Wills and Pleasant townships.

Farmer speaks against solar farm

The BZA decided the request without any discussion from its members or accepting public comment after listening extensively to both sides during its May 21 meeting and workshop sessions in previous weeks.

“We already heard evidence and remonstrance,” BZA President Melissa Mischke said.

The BZA voted to table the plans last month to give them a final review before taking a vote.

Mike Ekovich, whose dairy farm is just 400 feet away from the site, was among the opponents at the jam-packed meeting.

“It borders us on all three sides,” he said the next day.

One of his concerns is the site becoming an eyesore, particularly for him and other nearby farmers.

“You got the farm landscape your whole life, and then you got to deal with this,” he said.

The company has agreed to provide setbacks of at least 250 feet from other properties, vegetative screening from homes and to bury cables three and four feet below the ground within and away from the site.

Other requirements include taking steps to control glare from the solar panels and designing the facility to control storm water drainage.

“I have two and a half pages of conditions set for the solar project, and many of them mirror what I believe will be additions to our solar ordinance,” BZA attorney Craig Biege said.

Ekovich said one of his concerns hasn’t been addressed, though.

He’s worried about the possibility of low volumes of electricity straying from the site and coming into contact with some of his 1,000 cows.

Ekovich said electricity can arc because of things such as bad grounding of the solar panels and loose wiring.

He said cows drinking water on wet concrete surfaces, for example, might feel a tingling sensation and could produce less milk from contact with any stray voltage.

“That’s a very big concern of ours,” he said.

$100 million in property tax revenue

Emily McDuff, an engineer and project manager with RWE, said the power from the solar farm would help replace the electricity that will be lost when coal-fired generating plants in Indiana, such as the NIPSCO generating station in Michigan City, shutdown in the next couple of years.

She also said about a dozen farmland owners would no longer have to worry about selling their properties for future financial security with the supplemental income they’ll be paid for use of their ground under the lease agreements.

McDuff said the solar farm would also mean about $100 million in property tax revenue for local governments over the lifetime of the operation.

After 35 years, McDuff said, the solar farm would be decommissioned and the property restored to farmland.

BZA member John Carr said he saw no downsides to the project, calling some of the concerns “myths” after doing extensive research about solar farms.

He said the company addressed the remainder of the concerns to his satisfaction.

“With the amount of tax revenue this project is going to generate and the amount of jobs that it’s going to generate to build the solar farm, it’s a win-win,” he said.

Carr also said he’s against local governments telling people what they can do with their land as long as neighbors aren’t going to be harmed.

“At the end of the day, I think it comes down to personal property rights,” he said.

Farmer Steve Holifield, who lives a few miles from where the solar farm is planned, said he’s concerned about the loss of farmland and that even more will be taken out of production if the decision attracts other solar farm projects.

His other fears include the soil not being as productive once the site is restored to farmland along with loss of property value and quality of life.

Holifield said he respects the rights of property owners as long as nearby land owners are not negatively affected.

“We’ve never argued they don’t have the right to do what they want, but you don’t have the right to devalue or take away the enjoyment of another person’s rights on their private property," he said Wednesday. "That whole thing was ignored.”

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Despite opposition, LaPorte Board of Zoning Appeals approves $500 million solar farm