Join us at Newport Tavern on Thursday, February 10 before the 6 PM public hearing across the street for the solar amendments being proposed by the APC. We'll be there to explain why these amendments make it much harder to develop a project, but we need YOUR help to make sure they know their constituents don't support these changes. 

We'll have talking points available and will help you craft your public comment. In the meantime, if you have questions about these changes, please don't hesitate to reach out to Meagan or Taylor. 

The proposed amendments are unnecessary for the following reasons:

• Changing a 200 foot setback to a 500 foot setback from all non-participating property lines. Increasing the setbacks from property lines creates a large area that cannot be used for either farming or solar panels and is a waste of space. We do support a waivable setback between 300 and 500 feet from non-participating residences, and we also support the planting of evergreen trees and shrubs to screen the project from homes. In fact, the view of solar projects can easily be shielded with foliage such as evergreen trees and other vegetation. However, creating a big gap from property lines is inefficient and only serves to create non-usable land.
• Changing a $500 application fee to a $50,000 application fee. When you compare Vermillion County’s fee schedules and the solar project application fees across Indiana, this is a significant outlier. We believe that our company should definitely cover the reasonable costs it will take for the County to review and process our permit application, but the $50,000 price tag seems arbitrary and punitive in this case. We believe this number would be more in the range of $20,000. Please ask your Planning Commissioners why this random and large amount was proposed.