Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

everyone it is now 6:30 p.m. director Kelly do we have enough for quum Mr Duke I mean uh check your mic can you hear how's that is that better okay perect thank you I'm going to need that I'm a little under the weather myself okay Mr Parker present Mr dorda Mr Fox sent an email that he wasn't feeling well so he won't be here tonight Mr Williams here Mr Kendrick here Mr Moffett Miss Flatley here Mr Myers I don't see him Mr nicely here and Mr paloto present yes we have a quorum sir all right it has been established that we have quum uh if we can now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance we bow our heads Heavenly Father we thank you for the opportunity to come together as a United Community in this place we humbly

ask for your guidance over our hearts and Minds so that we may act with wisdom compassion and integrity always seeking to serve the best interest of our County amen board members you have had the opportunity to review the agenda um at this time I'd like to ask if there are there any amendments that need to be made to the agenda right seeing that there are none if I can get a motion to have the agenda accepted as is I'll make a motion to accept the current agenda copy for 11 March as is second right motion has been made and seconded all in favor say I all right the agenda will go as written right first on the agenda is uh the approval of our minutes uh so if you can take a minute just to review all right make a motion that we approve the minutes for the February 13 2025 meeting second right motion has been made and seconded any all in favor say I hand uh any AB exensions all right um the vote has been made to accept the minutes the approval of the minutes with I think it was three abstentions okay

okay next on the agenda is agenda is the citizen public uh comment period uh comments will be limited to 3 minutes per person to afford everyone an opportunity to speak if comments relate to a specific public hearing item we ask that you offer those comments at the time of the public hearing again if comments uh if the comments relate to a specific public hearing item we ask that you offer those comments at the time of the P public hearing right a public comment period is now open is there anyone seeing that there are none what's what's the question so can't I can't hear she's asking whe they're supposed to comment upon the item on the agenda well the if if you look under public hearing those are the the applications in which if you want to speak upon wait to that period in time okay all right are there any uh comments at the comment period at this time right seeing that there are none uh this period is now closed all right next on the agenda is uh Community planning leaon officer Naval Support Facility South patomic dog Mr Adam Adam Lynch is he in our presence today not here he's not here all right moving right along okay all

right next on our agenda is public hearing resolution pc03 d25 application z-20 24219 davis hill Development Special exception uh application is for a medium scale solar facility on parcel 15-16 hopefully you can hear this one oh good good evening everyone I'm just going to give a very brief um overview of the application and then turn it over to Will from davis hill development representatives from davis hill have applied for a special exception permit to construct a medium scale solar energy facility on approximately 14 acres zoned A2 located at 8209 Daisy Lane there's a map in your packet for reference the area proposed for the solar facility is in the middle of a larger parcel that is 83 acres in size the subject property lies within the Rural Development Area as designated in the comprehensive plan a major goal of the comprehensive plan is to preserve encourage and sustain the rural character of King George County in the non-primary settlement areas a goal for utilities within the county as laid out in the comprehensive plan is to research and develop strategies to attract and support green energy such as solar and wind while balancing preservation of environmental resources one of the land use policies listed in the comprehensive plan is to ensure that all new industrial uses provide adequate protection of adjacent existing land uses through techniques such as setbacks Landscaping screening noise lighting controls and access controls the performance standards for these facilities as written in the zoning ordinance as well as the draft conditions are the methods by which this

policy will be achieved the facility will be well screened from adjoining properties and is over onethird of a mile away from the nearest Road intersection the application addresses compliance with each of the performance standards listed in section 778 of the zoning ordinance including a preliminary decommissioning plan the applicants have been working with County staff to address any comments they had as well as their emergency planning and training needs for fire and rescue there are 19 draft permit conditions included in resolution pc- 0325 for your consideration and draft motions are included at the end of the staff report I will now turn it over to the applicants for their presentation thanks Kelly uh good evening everybody thank you for your time tonight uh I know some of you have seen some of this information so I apologize if it's repetitive but uh anybody in the public feel free to ask any questions uh happy to be as transparent and uh give you as much information as possible um so my name is Will Thurman I work with a company called davis hill development uh my colleague Chad southernland is here in the back um and Davis Hill development I'll just give you a quick company intro but uh we're developer owner operator of community solar and Community commercial and Industrial solar projects uh that meaning we develop and we're also longterm owner operators meaning we plan to own and operate the project throughout its life cycle uh the reason I mentioned that is just there's other developers out there that come and permit projects similar to this or bring

a project to construction and then sell it to another developer that's not what we do that's not what we're about so you know we are in the project through the life cycle we're here understanding the community's feedback and trying to incorporate that into our project and plans uh and be a great Community partner uh this is just a high Lev overview of kind of who we are uh Sky View Ventures is our parent company but davis hill development is the development arm of that company uh we started in 2013 so we do have experience in the community solar space um we currently own and operate just over 100 megawatts uh of community solar assets across 15 states these are just kind of our statement of qualifications um I won't go through all these but this presentation's been shared uh and Public's welcome to look at any of these but it's basically just showing that we're kind of a full service uh development arm uh we do our origination inhouse meaning we reach out to the land owners ourselves to find the land uh and then do all the interconnection and due diligence process with Dominion in this case uh and then going through the uh land use permitting which we're going through now and go through Construction and to operation of the asset um so we have successfully developed 30 grid tie projects that goes into that 100 megawatt number that I just spoke about before uh we have currently you know 250 megawatts in our current development pipeline whether that's in development or under construction this is just a high level list of uh our operating projects across the country as you can see it's a majority in kind of the Northeast uh M Atlant regions uh we do have a few projects here in Virginia we love Virginia Chad is local to Virginia uh and then obviously more

projects up in the Northeast in New York Pennsylvania uh Maryland Etc these are just a few pictures of uh some Community solar projects that we've completed in the past um this is just for reference so people can see what a a finish product does look like it does vary sight to site uh depending on the conditions this one will look a little different than the others because it's very naturally screened and very tucked away uh so Community solar in general uh so it's also known as shared solar in Virginia uh the program currently is the Virginia shared solar program um so it's the model is we produce solar energy on site we sell it back to the grid Dominion does Bill credits back to the subscribers so you as the community members could subscribe to this farm and get uh around a 10 to 15% Bill reduction on your power bill we'll go into more detail on that now I just want to give you a high level overview uh so the project details uh it's 2.7 uh megawatts AC um so the total parcel acreage is just about 83 Acres we are only occupying about 12 acres of that uh parcel as Kelly mentioned it's kind of the middle portion of the parcel it's heavily screened by existing trees and tucked back off of Dy Lane Road um and you cannot see it from any abing properties these are just kind of some some more high level facts the module count um we also will participate in the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation pollinator smart program that essentially just means we are using pollinator friendly species in seed mix uh as we develop the project we'll lay

that underneath uh the Disturbed area and underneath the panels it'll create a nice uh pollinator habitat and essentially Revitalize uh what is now underutilize and re Revitalize the land underneath um so this will this specific site will generate enough electricity to power 679 us households annually uh and then 30% of this uh capacity that we're creating will go to low to moderate income households this is just a highle concept plan I understand it's not easy to see on a on a slideshow um but this is just basically the the more technical uh layout of the array showing the panels the access uh as well as the fencing details things like that and then here I provided this is also a little harder to see in a presentation mode but this is a visual analysis that we did as part of the application process so essentially it creates visual simulations showing you what future points will look like at a specific point on a map so it's tougher to see here but uh we have five different I think uh locations um so that one to the far left would be going up Fox Run Road into the little C sack and then the others are more closer to the array and then we also have some up on uh I'm blanking on the road I'll show you in the next slide here so that top left picture is just a a visual simulation of an aerial view of what the solar facility will look like uh as you can see those trees are screening the entire outside of the uh portion of the property those are existing trees we don't anticipate planting new trees unless it's necessary uh we like to keep as much of the existing vegetation as possible and

limit uh tree clearing uh the top right is that figure I showed from the culdesac it seems like an odd odd figure to show at this time because you can't see anything but that's essentially the point uh you can't see through the trees uh from any portion of that neighborhood and see the array uh the bottom right is the Summer View from Mohawk Drive so that would be a on the you know northeast side looking into the property just showing you know the natural tree coverage you will not be seeing the property uh and then the bottom left is the access road essentially it's just showing that it would be graded uh and you know new fresh gravel on top and recreating the access roow that's you know currently overgrown so these are some of the proposed conditions that Kelly mentioned um I believe there's 19 in total total is that correct um so these are just proposed conditions essentially can if we get approval we will are obligated to comply with these conditions and we have reviewed and put our feedback to Kelly and we agree with all the all the conditions that are proposed I think for the sake of time and let people get to their questions I don't won't go through every one of these but those are listed in the PowerPoint um so here is just a example this is actually the exact letter that we mailed out to uh members of the community some of you may have seen this previously uh and also there was another letter that went out for the public hearing but this is essentially what we do prior to uh kicking off any project we'll send out kind of a mailer of the proposed site location the expected size try and give a little snippet of what the design will look like just so someone can understand where where that's actually going in the community and how it affects them and then just some key benefits as well as contact

information um to get you know we try and get as much feedback as possible we've not gotten much feedback from these mailers as we've seen so happy to hear anything but um we did get two positive responses from the community just saying this is a great project we believe in it we believe in solar so that was exciting to see and also good to know that our our mailers are being received questions but I did want to have Chad come come up here and just give a little more background on kind of the Virginia Community solar program how people can subscribe and uh just some more information on that because I know that's something that's important thank you hi good evening everyone uh my name is Chad Southerland as well mentioned I work for davis hill development just wanted to share a bit more about the shared solar program that Dominion offers and what that actually looks like for their customers so the shared solar program allows people uh that are Dominion customers to take advantage of Solar without actually having to install it on their properties they do this by subscribing to a solar farm through a subscriber organization the subscriber organizations are generally made by the owner and operator of the project that organization is licensed and contracted with the SEC uh which puts rules and regulations on how they can operate um gain subscribers and how they manage those subscribers uh the subscriber organizations go about uh enrolling subscribers a few different ways mainly marketing tactics whether it be social media uh or mailers uh like like this one that would just tell about the project and the potential savings from it uh and those can go Statewide or they can be isolated to specific parts of the state um and to expand on that the subscri if you're a Dominion customer and you can subscribe to a solar farm anywhere in the state which gives you choice on which Farm you're supporting

which developer you're supporting and what price you're getting in the shared solar program um vice versa as a subscriber organization you can Market all across the state to try and get subscribers um so I know there was maybe questions at the last meeting about um you know can we focus origination in this community that's hosting the project and maybe set aside some capacity for uh folks in King George and while it's not you know technically a rule with the SEC that can provide preferential pricing or set aside capacity for a certain Community um it is possible that we could focus our subscription efforts in this community for the initial time period and then move Statewide if we didn't have enough subscribers uh to operate so that is something that we can do um I know billing may have also been a question how does this actually look like uh if I get a bill or Subs uh subscribe to a solar farm there are two ways that Dominion customers can rece receive their bills um if they're subscribed to Shar solar the one is a separate Billing System where they get a bill from the subscriber Organization for their electrical usage and a separate bill from Dominion for their environmental sech charges and transmission fees and really the the bulk of what makes up electricity bills these days uh the other option is a unified bill which uh the information that the subscriber organization has on um you know the energy used at the site is given to dominion and they will give you one bill with your electrical usage at the Shared solar rate plus the fees and search charges and transmission costs um so it's just a matter of do you want to pay it all to Dominion or do you want to pay you know Dominion their part and the subscriber organization their part um it's just a matter of choice and convenience for the customer on that front um so that's really what I had to share about uh the shared solar program and how subscribers are you know brought into the program and managed and and what bills look like and I'm happy to answer any questions on that front thank

you you can stay right here too um yeah we I don't know how the question process goes but okay before before we do move on U with this process I saw um Mr Adam Lynch com into the building um let's let him have his his minute and then we'll we'll proceed forward it sounds great Mr Lynch now have the floor thank you sir for making time for me Adam Lynch community liaison officer with NSA South patomic right here at Naval Support Facility doen I'll be brief uh we had our community relations board meeting last Tuesday uh thank you to supervisor stad and supervisor supervisor Bender for attending that meeting on behalf of the board um some of the topics that came up at our meeting were um an update on Shore nuclear reactors so as you guys know several months ago dogr was shortlisted as a potential candidate for Shore nuclear power generation on BAS base uh we were informed finally officially that we did not make the first round of cuts um and we not selected sort of onto that next level for uh potentially nuclear production small scale nuclear production on base um however we are anticipating uh more emphasis as I've mentioned before on energy resilience and production and look forward to those conversations with higher headquarters we also met Miss Amy South Hall your new Communications and uh Outreach engagement coordinator really happy to have her there and really really enjoying uh how the new energy she's bringing to the uh Cy's departments we have been um hard at work keeping up with the return to work uh sort of a growing pains we've been experiencing on base over the last uh month month and a half we're

experiencing higher than normal volumes of vehicles coming in the gates which is uh some somewhat uh of a a strain on our Staffing Resources and security so we appreciate the community bearing with us as our line backs up longer than it's been for some time also want to give a shout out to sheriff Giles for uh agreeing to put a um electronic sign coming over the hill on 301 to warn drivers as they approach the base in dogr road that there is U frequently a traffic backup onto 301 now that's that's how many vehicles we're accommodating in our morning commutes um there's also uh a lot of chatter out there about uh looming transport or looming uh budget cuts uh affecting the Navy and while I can tell you that I'm getting a lot of the same news you guys are and there's a lot of speculation um what we've known noted so far at least when it comes to the Navy and federal Cuts is most of the immediate job losses uh We've noticed at the Navy level are at the very high and the very low levels including the chief of Naval operations lost her job as a political pointy as well as probationary employees are eligible for layoffs and furlows um so at this point we are um still trying to get to work and and do our jobs to uh press forward with our mission until we get further clarification from higher headquarters however um I I would be remiss to mention that there are not some storm clouds potentially on the horizon when uh looking at whether and how doin will be able to weather future budget cuts um a couple things are working against us one of those is that the base has a disproportionate number of Civilian employees and that is uh so far has been most of the emphasis in the the federal administration's emphasis on emphasis on

uh reduction of force and and and layoffs so far another is uh the particulars of the dogr mission when it comes to research and development and if you're interested in reading and learning more about that I would direct you to a fredicksburg free press article three days ago on March 8th uh for you to uh enrich yourselves I'm not the best Messenger to communicate all this information in detail um but I can tell you I will still showing up show up every month to uh do my job here until they tell me otherwise thank you for your time and attention let we thank we thank you for your attendance and we promise not to shoot the messenger thank you um okay all right so uh we're going to I'm going now open the floor for public hearing on resolution PC 0325 application z-20 24- 00219 davis hill Development Special exception uh please keep in mind to keep your comments to a minimum of three minutes or less um and all right okay all right and if you have a comment about the uh 0-20 24- 00184 other words the Gibson solar project we ask that you hold those comments until uh the next um presentation right okay all right uh first on the list I

have is Don Chandler I miss Chandler uh thank you uh some questions I have is I know that there is a large Wetland back in that area I cannot imagine them putting solar panels down in the Wetland but I just wanted to ensure the Wetland would be preserved and the other question I have is I spoke with u one of the gentlemen earlier and they talked about the concept of having sheep possibly doing the grazing to keep the grass down and I was wondering if that was still the direction they were planning to go and if so how they intend to ensure the Sheep are safe particularly given the coyotes the foxes and uh not having sheep in our yards thank you so just in case everybody is confused there are two solar projects that are on our agenda today we have an applicant that just gave their information that's on Daisy Lane which is over by the Fox Run neighborhood it's 14 acres the second one is the Gibson project which is out in the Shiloh district and I believe they're the ones that are looking at doing the the Sheep grazing and um so it's very it would be much easier for us if you could keep your comments to the open hearing that we're doing now for Daisy Lane and if you're in doubt um you know maybe uh somebody would be able to direct people to which you know if you're not sure which one you're speaking on ask um but for now we're doing um the open comment period for the public hearing on the Daisy Lane project so can we specifically ask the davis hill folks uh do they can you can you

comment to us how you're going to manage the undergrowth and and what you're doing about managing around the around the solar panels for your project and your Wetland project the two that have already come up please yeah happy to um as far as the Wetland that you're referring to we are not impacting that we have uh I'll have to look at the plans it's either 100 foot or 200 foot buffer away from that um we're avoiding it I think well over 200 ft uh we don't anticipate any impact of those wetlands and we are not permitted permitted to do that so that answers that as far as sheep grazing Chad you may have some more insight on this but sheep grazing is definitely something we look at on all our projects I think it's more specific on if we can find a you know local or someone in the area that has that qualification mostly insurance is something that we run into um as far as you know Insurance of the panels and having good enough coverage with those sheep but it's definitely something we look at I don't know if we've spoken someone specifically on this project but it's always one of our first calls as we get closer to construction this would happen obviously once everything's installed once the fencing is up so I think your other question was making sure the Sheep don't go into other people's areas uh they would be inside of the fence yeah so um I was the one who SP spoke with Don a few months ago about the project and we did discuss the idea of sheep grazing it is something that you know longterm we would like to do on the site of our first priority is establishing you know a healthy pollinator habitat under the array and if you've got animals in there grazing that can make it a little bit more difficult so it's something that we see you know maybe two three years into the development of the project uh in the meantime we're planning to use mechanical mowers to manage vegetation under the array uh as far as security for the Sheep if we ever do get to that point uh we will have obviously the the

fence around the array which will either be you know chain link or livestock fencing I don't know if we've uh exactly hammered that point down yet um but it should be capable of keeping animals in I grew up on a goat farm so I know it's not exactly that simple um and there may be some reinforcements and adjustments that have to be made uh as far as their safety generally there will be a livestock Guardian dog on site a lot of the thank you yeah a lot of the um you know grazers that operate in the state of Virginia and this is kind of a a growing economy growing Market of sheep being grazed on solar um they'll kind of tour around the state uh dropping off their flock and a guardian dog hanging out for a week or so and then going on to another site so there's generally a livestock Guardian dog and somebody responsible for the sheep and the dog you know within 30 minutes that would be able to respond if they knew something was going on thank you all right next on the list for public comments I have Mr Mrs Johnny Breeden okay so we we're ask that you wait until that presentation sir okay is there anyone for this uh this presentation that you just seen hold up I'll get you next we can state your name and uh your address James Shaw James Monroe District speaking as a taxpayer um I live in clay Dale and uh we just uh uh the Board of Supervisors just appr the best to be uh installed about 0.9 miles away from my house I can look out my window and see the light on the cell tower beneath which the uh $50

million project of the batteries will be installed and so you know it's it's not one of these not in my backyard kinds of things I can accept these kinds of things um I do like the fact that um this is one of the smaller projects 12 acres uh the Gibson is much larger 800 and some odd out of about 1200 and whatever Acres um I I think it's um uh very well hidden uh it's well thought out in that respect and so I look forward to um uh hearing more from them in the future thank you thank you sir sir raise your hand my name is Kelsey seert I live in the Fox Run neighborhood um that is adjacent to this property um the land intended for this development is residential and the surrounding lots are residential as well this land was expected to remain residential and therefore property owners in the surrounding area did not purchase with the expectation that they would be living next to what I would consider to be an industrial building this doesn't include just Fox run but also Brook Haven kwoods and the residences that are not within a neighborhood uh solar Farms generate noise from the associated equipment such as inverters cooling systems and Transformers and section 108 of the King George County code of ordinances which is our noise ordinance um specifically references our quality of life and preserving that by reducing the amount of noise um from facilities such as this um and just in January of this year in the Hampton's Road Hampton Roads area Virginia a news article was published

about Suffolk Virginia where a solar farm was built right next to a residential neighborhood um and since then they have had to deal with a high pitch noise uh while it does not violate the decibel level because it's measured in hertz which doesn't trans like convert to decb so there's nothing they can really do with their noise ordinance um the solar farm did respond in this article and state that they would put in Hay Bales between the solar farm and the neighborhood but residents are still having issues with the sound and are now unable to sell their properties because of the noise that's plaguing them um a community solar Authority stated that choosing locations far from residential areas helps minimize potential disturbances caused by operational sounds like Transformer HS however this proposed project is in a residential area uh solar Farms also generate heat the University of Maryland did a study on this in 2016 that says that large large scale solar power plants while this might not be as large scale as some they raise local temperatures creating a solar heat island effect similar to that created by Urban or industrial areas which King George County is not and the area that it's going into is not a u Industrial Area to sum all of this up the Berkeley group who works with King George County to submit uh King George County zoning and subdivision ordinance update regarding solar energy facilities specifically says proposed fa facilities adjacent to corporate boundaries public rights of way neighborhoods or recreational or cultural resources are likely to be more controversial than facilities that are well placed away from existing homes have natural buffers and don't change the character of the area while solar energy is a renewable green resource facilities can have environmental impacts impacts on wildlife habitat and storm water

management can be significant due to the large scale of these uses and the resulting extent of land disturbance and unless all equipment is specified for complete removal at the end of the facility's lifespan and this is properly enforced during decommissioning future uses on reclaimed land could be impacted by unknown equipment buried underground all right your time is concluded okay thank you I think yes sir yes sir my name is Glenn Gooden I also live in Fox R States um and I don't have com U comments but I have more questions I hope you can answer um um first one you kind of answered who the main benefactor of the solar farm but second um how are your panels integrating into the existing grid you expect any challenges in the in connecting to the grid because the closest substation is U Arnold's cor then we got a 10kd line that goes down do Road how do you PL in time to the grig overhead or underground lines you know that's a question I need to would like to get answered um what additional infrastructure DC AC converters um your battery storage is all that going to be on site or is it going to be near a substation you have to build another substation for that who pays for that um uh where your Transformers your switching gear all that additional uh infrastructure where is that made how do you get it where does it come from um any SK AI additional Wireless monitoring um uh that's going to be used there any vulnerabilities for security um how do you ensure the solar system will cause or will not cause any disruption to the local grid during peak hours or in the event of a power outage um how your solar panel system affect utility bills for our community uh will any Excess power generated by the solar pan be compensated uh can you explain the process for tracking energy production and consumption Ure for receiving the proper building or credits for the from

the utility company um and will those be publicly available uh and also what is your plan for recyclables and consumables when part start the service uh I ask because my job is I being infrastructure and I see a lot of trend um one of those one big executive order that was just recently signed by our cting cabinet is to get away from Green energy to go back to f f um and so this may affect moving forward you know this type project um uh also um I mentioned baing equipment uh with on allow these what are you supply is thatas all right thank you um do you guys have sure information which they can contact you the general public can contact you at send an email sir I would suggest that you write those questions out send them an email so they can answer you specifically on on all of them serve you that all there any others

my question you guys they inst what prevents the scope of that so that's my primary concern they pres for to be able to come in and back that and going back to com Myer Mohawk dri thank you thank you sir any sir evening my name is Jason from the sh District just a quick comment about the property value both of these solo projects have to get excep has to go through all of you as property owners in the county um think there's been good amount of questions and concerns and a property owner should be able to rely on the comp comprehensive plan and on zoning that's designed for the development of the county a property owner shouldn't have to come to these meetings and review hundreds and hundreds of pages of documents where there are a handful of people who stand to benefit tonight there wasn't one thing said about the benefit to the county of this project there something about Dominion subscription credits not one thing about tax benefits not one thing about the benefit to all of us as uh Property Owners as taxpayers and a person who owns property should be able to rely on the zoning in

which they purchase the property unless there's a good reason that's going to benefit the entire County for making an exception to that zone and so I just encourage you one last thing um for Fier County I think my timing might be off forgive me I'll have it for the next comment but faier County's Planning Commission just voted five to nothing to reject Davis in in a project that's similar to these two projects um so no is the easiest answer in the English language and there's no obligation on your part to just step aside and let projects come in here and change the zoning plan of the county there's no obligation to do that and either faier County did more homework than we have or they just missed something and we didn't we get lucky and I kind of that that gives me pause I'm not going to lie so please consider that and realize that a no is very simple thank you thank you sir yes sir good evening sir my name is Gary sitman and um my wife and I live in South Stafford We own land in King George I guess maybe over 20 years I'm very much in favor of solar I'm sure there are some issues that need to be resolved however I believe it's a step forward thank you thank you sir there any

others ladies and gentlemen thank you my name is Bob beard I'm 15316 Kings Highway in Shallow District I wanted to say that uh this is a controversial issue you're discussing here tonight uh I have several thoughts on the issue first I'm firm believer in property rights so the people that own the property or trying to develop property have a right to improve the property as they see fit on the other hand as long as it does not necessarily impede the rights of their neighbors so you've been very right in asking for accommodations and set facts and separation between products of this type and the uh uh join neighbors been a lot of work done there they've been very concerned about environment effects very concerns there a whole lot of issues been addressed in the uh fine print and I think it's 19 different conditions you mentioned I have a couple things I wanted to ask first I have not seen what accommodations are being made to protect PE Intruders into the site from getting shocked this a rural area there's people in the woods whether be uh kids uh adults that want to do things that might want to climb the fence and get involved with the equipment what's uh will prevent people from getting shocked what will protect the equipment from people trying to shoot at the equipment what is being done for protection to the equipment and to the others around it question I have also is what accommodation is being made to ensure continuity of safety during construction of the equipment who's going to do the inspection who's going to pay for the inspectors for that equipment then who's going to uh do the inspection and

maintenance of that equipment on ongoing basis once the equipment has been developed thank you thank you sir are there any others seeing that there are none this uh public hearing uh for the davis hill Development Special except is now closed uh the floor is open to the Planning Commission s dear you recognized for the floor um I'd like to invite davis hill to address um any of the concerns that were raised um I would like to inquire of Staff um the current Zoning for this property is and our ordinance allows Community does does not does or does not allow Community scale solar in residen does not allow for any check your M on but the battery um the ordinance allows for solar of a medium scale and utility scale in the agricultural districts with a specialist exception but not residential that was my recollection as well yes um another question has a revenue analysis been conducted on this project for the county they weren't required to do a full-blown Revenue analysis but I would ask them if they've got some preliminary numbers they might be able to share we will get taxes from the equipment did they pay business tax business license tax oh thank you I would like to invite Davis Group to respond to Dave if you if you

wish excuse just a minute um sir you have a question well I'd like to make a statement before they before they speak Mr Krick has the floor all right um we've had a lot of questions from you know citizens in the county rather than have them just off the top of their head address them here and now now this project is the first time we've seen it second pardon me okay I was not at last month's meeting so um I'm G to be honest with you from my point of view and you guys can challenge me on this since I wasn't here last month but it still seems a little immature I mean I'm seeing a PowerPoint presentation which says a lot of positive things but I haven't seen a proper statement have does the county have a proper statement I'm not sure what you mean so special exceptions are passed with conditions not propers so the draft condition statement is what's before you tonight so that's going to be legally binding if something happens okay and I can address the question from before about the spreading of it beyond the 14 acres the conditions are specifically tied to the 14 acres if by chance they would want to expand the project they would have to come back and go through the process again if the conditions are adequate from a legal standpoint that's fine I and I get that and I understand that okay um I guess there're just still questions at least I have I didn't know if it would be better to give these gentlemen a chance to address the comments that came out of the you know the public hearing and come back again later rather than having them jump in it now

so just for the sake of time and and accuracy on their part so I don't know how the rest of them feel but um I I'm gonna give d as Heil a chance to response and then we'll we'll come back yeah I was just gonna say I I mean I didn't get all the there's a lot of questions obviously I didn't get them all down and I don't know if I'll be able to answer every single one of them uh to the best of my abilities but I think there's a couple blanket statements that we could just address right now that I would think would give people some comfortability and if you want us to address each question you know line by line at a later date happy to do that but I think there's a couple you know things that could be cleared up right now that would give people a little more Comfort just my two cents okay if you wish to give your blanket statement at this time uh you have Flor perfect um I know sir you had a bunch of questions uh just trying to tie them into a few others but as far as grid reliability and who's paying for it just trying to address all that so just so everybody knows before we you know long before we get to this stage we're at right now we submit a bunch of information to Dominion the utility uh they do three to four different study periods which go over the course of about a year and a half so we're essentially giving them all the information on the project all the voltage they go through like I said three different phases of study processes basically showing what is what the grid can handle at this point if they do certain upgrades how much capacity will be created Etc so the capacity that we have for this project and the upgrades that we have are specific to this project and the grid and how it relies on that so

essentially we this kind of ties into your question we can't expand beyond having to come in front of the the planning board to expand if we wanted to expand the acreage we can expand the project size without going through the whole other process with the minion as far as year and a half worth of studies then their Full Construction process which is about two years essentially we don't have capacity to create the project and make it bigger um feel like I didn't answer some of your questions chat if you do you want to take any of p i can try certainly I know there's a lot of questions about we're resourcing our opponents from and it's a little bit of all over I don't think we're getting anything from China currently um you know you had several questions that I'd love to address you got my card so you might have to follow up on that uh I know there was a comment about uh fakier County which is not a county that we've ever developed a project in so um just to get rid of any confusion there they didn't ni 5 that was maybe a different company with a similar name I I know you said you want to know who was putting the bill for all this we we pay for all the upgrades with the utility that doesn't come from any taxpayer fund okay all right uh Planning Commission do you anyone have any question please be recognized before speaking Mr Mr chair you have the floor sir thank you I I have kind of two topics that I'd like to hear a little bit more information about if you can you can do it later or you can do it now however you please uh one is uh related to a question that the gentleman asked earlier I didn't see any diagrams here at least that I could quickly look at that gave me an idea of what the transmission line or dist or distribution line whichever it is whatever upgrades you have in whose property those upgrades and changes have

to go on so that we could see where those transmission lines are whose property they're they're traversing over and whether they know that they have potentially more energy coming across there I know some people are very concerned about high voltage transmission lines and the electromagnetic fields that come off of them so I could go into that but I won't uh my other my other topic along with getting more information of transmission lines is I made a comment last time youall were here I'm a little concerned that we saw nothing about the company taking responsibility for any particular impact to State Road specifically uh Ernest Ellis Lane right during your construction if your trucks coming in and out of there building a solar panel destroy that State Road our taxpayer dollars have to fix that so that's a big concern to me about what's going to happen to that road in and out of that subdivision that they travel constantly and if that gets torn up I saw no no statement from you all about taking responsibility these are my two big topics for this I think you done a fine job with the wet lens and RPA and you're fencing it and all that is just fine for me you're not going to produce traffic so it's not a real impact that it's the roads and the transmission line rways pleas yeah so for the the transmission lines this would be distribution line to clarify but um I know you were looking for more of a you know laid out diagram of exactly where those polls are going unfortunately Dominion is who puts those plans together uh and that is further along in the construction process I wish I had a better answer can you give us an idea of what line you're tying into so we can get a general idea of how far away that is from your facility and your you know

your your inverters and your you know your Transformers and all that yes so layouts of those I think they might be in your diagram but I can't quite blow it up enough to really do they they are in the diagram but we also have clear written instructions from Dominion of the exact up up grades which poles they're tying into Etc we can share that with you I think it' just be easier to read that as opposed to me calling it out right now just because it's very specific to each polls but essentially we're putting three new poles at the project site and then it ties into at Fox Run I believe those are underground lines it'll tie into those underground lines and then it pops out at doen road to tie into the existing or upgrading the single phase to three phase at doen Road and like I said I can provide you the description with each poll and numbers that that makes it a little more understanding but that's that's lame in terms as I can be on I'm not concerned about that level of detail it's more of you know on your overall lay down where's where generally do you expect these these lines to go I don't need poll numbers and Heights and and that level of detail yeah it's not our not our perview to get into the Dominion Energy Design project sorry and I know you were talking about damage to the road uh we have not engaged B dot yet but I would imagine they would have some sort of stipulation uh about damage to the road I I don't know the answer to that off the top of my head so I'll get some more research back to you on that but also if we need to put some sort of bond in place to to have language that repair the road if damage we're happy to do that Miss flat you've been identified you now have the floor um well Mr nicely caught most of what I was going to ask I just want to uh confirm there's no new Transformers or um big utility uh Network that's in the fences that's going to be out in front of someone's house I think that

was part of the question is you're not adding anything uh Transformer wise or anything like that correct we're yeah we're just upgrading the existing infrastructure so it shouldn't be new polls it would be a or would not be a new pole location but it could be an upgraded pole if that makes sense does that just mean a bigger Pole or more wires on the same pole but yeah most likely it would be upgrading the single phase to three phase so it would just be you know three across as opposed to the single line that makes sense I I do want to add that there will be um some new Transformers and Equipment you know associated with the project on the actual Arnold's Corner substation that will making upgrades to increasing its capacity so there is a new new Transformer on that end um and then we will have kind of a centralized area on the Daisy Lane site with our inverters and such U that's accessible for maintenance and that sort of thing inside in inside the fence area can you say again the location of your of your other Transformer modifications substation modification you said it was on Arnold's corner I believe the Arnold's Corner substation is what that um three-phase circuit along doen Road connects to and so that is the uh substation you know that's feeling the impact of the power we're exporting to the grid we do have to make upgrades to okay so it's a it's a power handling capacity you have to change so there still a three-phase line that comes down through there it's just increasing the capacity thank you any other panels members questions haveone um can you speak to the sound that this equipment will generate yeah so I sorry I did forget to address that I'm sorry uh the our inverters like we have inverter specifications and Equipment specifications that have the decel levels on all of them I don't want to misquote this but I believe our current

inverter is 65 Debs I'll go back and confirm that either way the location the central location of that inverter compared to you know the abutters and the closest neighbor there is no chance that someone could hear that and we can you know send over any analysis that shows that but I think it's like a that decibel level is like 100 feet and we're well well beyond that Mr you recognize have the floor um Mr chairman based upon the young lady's comments about the the we went back a dou che generally speaking almost without exception any business anybody has to comply with there's a really weird little provision under miscellaneous new ordinance I would add a that says the project shall be in compliance at all times with County and I will tell you we're finding we're finding stuff as we go along that ordinance was adopted as you all know and we're making a list of things thank you sir Mr car you recognize you have the floor um yes Revenue what's the revenue forecast and can staff give us an idea of what kind of Revenue we're realizing property in it's undeveloped State um let me also ask about the terrain and store Norm Water Management

especially during construction will this require Retention Ponds uh no not currently but there is a storm a Swip storm water pollution prevention plan that calls out why why that's not necessary for the flow and are these panels tilt capable in a heavy rainfall will they be able to rotate 90 degrees yes and the land use for the remainder of the property is it going to be native or un unmanaged or um that's yeah you're just talking about the remainder of the parcel as far as what get managed uh that is a great question I don't we'll have to address that with the ler obviously we're not going to let it just go to go to crap around us but I don't know the the real obligations there on who's handling that so well maintaining the agricultural character of the county is is a considerable uh concern and revenue yeah I I don't have the exact tax dollars in front of me right now or in my head so I don't want to misquote that at the time but we all have that in a model happy to send that over I can send it over in like an hour I just don't don't have that off the top of my head what is the value of the equipment purchase value like Allin equipment price I think it's like 6.2 million that gives us a order of magnitude thanks gotcha yeah and I can confirm those numbers too but I think it's six to seven Mr chairman we sir um so if we're going to make some amendments like uh Mr Stewart said with regards to the noise ordinance I'd recommend we put something in for roads as well once we approve this as it is um and there's damage to the roads if there's no Provisions in

this application that would allow for or require rather the applicant to fix any damage than it is on the tax Paradigm and the other residents would have to to live with that is my understanding so if we're going to update those we might want to include that as well just to make sure that we've covered our bases because I don't believe that that would be any kind of um anything we could go back on after the fact yes ma'am thank you sir um just want to draw your attention to conditions 15 and conditions 17 those specifically relate to roads and Road improvements so just want to read through that before you guys decide to make any more changes really we can take this offline but I've just ReRe you said there was 15 and 17 you thought covered that contitions 15 and 17 yeah yeah I see that road 15 says they have to come up with the plan for the access roads and they have to follow V Dot standards I see nothing about dealing with yeah condition y 17 it IT addresses if there's any damage

done did you page seven of the staff report okay yeah k Mr chairman it says plant she address traffic control measures a pre and post construction road evaluation and any necessary repairs to the public road that are required as a result of damage from the project thank you sir are any other questions or any concerns Mr Kendrick you have the floor question Mr Kendrick has the floor all right I apologize if you said this because I did this last month's meeting but questions you're not changing any topography there's no grading or anything just scrubbing and getting rid of the brush and under undergrowth correct yeah no grading the only I say no grading the only grading that could potentially occur would be the access road just gravel grading but on uh within the array no grading the sports for the actual solar collectors are being driven right they're not being dug correct driven piles okay you made a comment earlier tonight uh stating that uh limited tree clearing you know out of the site that you're planning on putting the the actual collectors on how many how many acres of trees are you actually getting rid of I don't um I'll get the the reason I say I don't it's because some are it's tough to consider what a mature tree a lot of it is grubbed you know overgrown you know noxious weeds but so just just looking at an overhead photo there's a couple areas in the in the area where you're planning on putting stuff but I have I haven't been on the property it's private property but you know if that's that's it for the limitation you're not

planning on going into the existing tree line around your site any are correct we would just be using the existing tree line as our shade or coverage shading for other outside parties so visual shading but we're not clearing the outside perimeter what kind of clearing do you have from your actual collectors you know how many feet that is I don't I can get I can get you an answer on that I just don't know top of my head so okay okay yeah so those inside that okay all right on it at that point is there is that still there is it going or is it going with the project or what what's happening with that yeah so there is a a manufactured home on the North End of the property uh it's currently vacant not really being used uh but the land owner has requested that it stay in place in case she wants to use it in the future so uh it'll remain with the project and we'll make sure there's an access road available to get back there but the project shouldn't impact it at all okay not part of our not part of our lease option not part of the you know array inside the fencing that helps okay so I I would think things that I would have on the list is one some type of Revenue project and I didn't see in the draft conditions the outside of the fence remains Green Space except for the manufactured home if that's if that's still there I don't

know just to create a spot where we wouldn't have anything else being put in that area since we I I I think the thing that makes this project palatable is you're using 12 acres of an 80 acre piece if we can keep a significant about a green space I think that makes me feel a lot better about it Mr nicely you've been recognized you have the floor thank you um just going back to the road issue again just for a second um if I understand it correctly and staff please correct me if I'm wrong uh Ernest Ellis is a is a public road maintained by V Dot but Davis Daisy Lane is a private road that goes through two other private properties before it gets to their property I think I asked this question before we don't need need to know the details we don't need to get into it but have you have you addressed access through Daisy Lane for your construction through two other people's private properties you have easement agreements yes there's an existing uh right away access and utility easement in place and that covers you for the construction correct okay thank you chairman Williams I got one Mr Park head the floor uh with regards to the roads going back to that and I just just wanted to dovetail on that a little bit more um so I'm reading 17 I apologize I skimmed over that but are we in order to in order to enforce any sort of damage are we going to require the developer to post a bond or how will we go back to requiring them to to fix anything we certainly can yeah we can tie it to any construction plan that they would have to turn in for the road improvements okay so that should probably be incorporated then into any revisions as well I would take it's in the zoning ordinance under site plans but we could okay doesn't hurt okay is the car you've been recognized you have the floor

yeah can I I have that second sir yes sir another quick question how you how you planning on cleaning these collectors I asked because are you going to be needing Wells or groundwater extraction for cleaning Chad was just saying there is a well on site but no we don't need any uh access to water so we have a onm crew operations maintenance crew that we have a separate on andm agreement with um I can't remember if that was part of the application process I'll check but essentially details out how we plan to to operate and use maintenance of the facility but there's a asset management group that comes out cleans the panels I I don't know specifically which one this would use but some are using some robot Technologies others are just by hand we uh so yes they'll be cleaned uh no we will not need access to public water all rightless do a Bernie Mr you've been recognize you have the floor this is a lease Arrangement or a purchase lease and the term and years um is indefinite or no there there is a a time limit on the lease so once the project is operating it's for an initial 25 years yes ma'am um it's the lease is for an initial 25 years with two 10year extensions out to 45 years at that point we have no longer any claim to the property is there a decommissioning um amendment to this lease with the land owner there is a there is a decommissioning section both in our lease option our commitment to the land owner but also in our our

application to the county yeah all right lady and gentlemen and this we have a burning question I am going to close uh our comment session um gentlemen thank you so much for your presentation your time and your willingness to answer those questions um think that's all right so what we're going to do before the next uh public hearing we're going to take a five minut actually we're going to take seven don't ask me why I picked seven we're going to take a seven minute break can I get a motion for that I'm sorry need to take some sort of action on this one you guys ah okay um I'm not sure exactly how to how to word it Mr chairman but I think hopefully Kelly has captured most of the questions I suggest that we get a list of those questions in a concise fashion to get it to the applicants and give them an opportunity to respond to those questions I think we're getting close there's just a few outstanding issues that we can come back and we can make a decision I am not at this point inclined to make a motion without respecte I agree with that David are you are you in uh agreement to that I did I do believe if it's not public hearing is now closed second time David said do you have any objections to what was has been proposed been said so not not an approval and not based on the conditions this is uh basically

responding to the questions coming back to following meeting uh displaying our answers and then going through this process again and you guys make a decision whether you'd like to approve or not approved once you hear those answers and have sufficient data there there may or may not depending on how this goes there may or may not be some changes to the conditions got it works for me okay all right so um I need a someone make a motion for that to be motion is to place this uh vote in abeyance until such time that the terms and conditions and questions are met that we've posted tonight correct okay not really can't figure out how to make it work but I'll pretend um I think the motion there we go okay all right I make a motion that we defer ruling on resolution number PC 0325 until the next meeting so what the next regular regularly scheduled meeting motion has been made and seconded all in approval short of hands any oppose passes unanimously um to present on the next scheduled meeting thank you thank you very much the section is now closed and we are going to take a again seven minute break um if I can get a motion for that motion take a second minute break motion been made and seconded um s minute break

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e e applic application z- 2024 00184 Gibson solar special exception this is an application this application is for a utility scale solar facility with a Liv stock operation on multiple Parcels in the shallow Med whatever that is District thank all right thank you sir um once again I'm just going to give a very brief overview especially since you've heard this one a few times uh representatives from openroad Renewables and Gibson solar have applied for a special exception permit to construct a utility scale solar energy facility combined with a sheep grazing operation on approximately 890 Acres of private land made up of 48 Parcels in the Shiloh District the subject property also lies within the rural development areas as designated in the comprehensive plan a major goal of the comp plan is to preserve encourage and sustain the rural character of kingor county in the non-primary settlement areas a goal for utilities within the county is laid out in the comprad plan is to research and develop strategies to attract and

support green energy such as solar and wind while balancing preservation of environment resources one of the land use policies listed in the comp plan is to ensure that all new industrial type uses provide adequate protection of adjacent existing land uses through techniques such as setbacks Landscaping screening noise lighting controls and access control the performance standards for these utility scale solar facilities incorporated into the zoning ordinance as well as the conditions are the methods by which this policy will be achieved the applicant have given multiple presentations to both the Planning Commission and also the Board of Supervisors and have hosted several community outreach meetings the applicants have been working with County staff to address any comments that they had through the review process as well as emergency planning and training needs for fire and rescue staff has received 18 emails and letters of support for this project they're all included in your packets the draft permit conditions document is included in resolution pc-01 d25 for your consideration and draft motions are included at the end of your staff report and I'll turn it over to Ryan Gil Crest with Open Road

good evening Mr chair thank you for making the time for us this evening my name is Ryan Gilchrist I'm at the open road Renewables and I'll be presenting on the Gib solar project um open road's been active in the Commonwealth for nearly a decade we're mostly focused on utility scale solar projects and we've developed a few battery storage projects as well we spent a lot of time on the ground as is the case here meeting community members so that we can continuously Lear the conditions uh and the design of the project oh thank you great so Gibson as proposed is a 134 megawatt solar facility in the Shiloh District we prospected for the transmission line in 2019 confirmed that it had Headroom on it to accept the power and then began reaching out to the land owners underneath the line one of the uh parts of the project I'd like to highlight is that 70% of it would be put into a permanent conservation easement if it goes forward and the land use will be continued as agriculture through a livestock operation and it's been cited so that it can be well screened from the public this is the view along Big Timber Road at planting after installation um you can see that the ordinance that you all passed a couple years ago did a really nice job of requiring quite a bit of screening probably the the strictest we've seen which is great every hundred feet it translates to about a hundred trees shrubs or tree plugs um so that that'll

make it easy easier to screen and there's a shity that backs up all the the plantings and in case you know some of the trees don't make it there's the shity bond in place to replace those trees during the next growing season this is the view after 5 years growth you can see it's a mix of deciduous and evergreen trees and um they as you can see they'll screen the the panels well it it compares to sorry no that me you you may have driven by some solar facilities throughout the state that look out of place they have maybe one or two rows of evergreen trees looks almost like an out ofpl Christmas tree farm because of the ordinance that you all crafted this will look much better so this is the main section of the project what I'd like to highlight here is that out of the property roughly half of the area is the buffer area so those pink areas are the vegetative screening and uh just open areas that are left in place so only about half the property is actually inside the fence line and within those fence lines roughly a third of the property uh is actually underpanel so it's a large property but only about a sixth of it is is actually under panel and this is the full extent of the project extends east and west from that Central area and that same ratio stays in place so roughly half in the buffers half in the fence line and then only a third of the area within the fence line covered in panels This map shows the overlay of the land that we'd be putting into this permanent conservation easement we're purchasing all this land which is why we can do this we can control what happens to the land after decommissioning so if the project moves forward that's 1300 Acres that would be put into a permanent easement what we are proposing to do underneath and amongst the solar arrays

is to graze hundred hundreds of head of sheep um you'll hear from Kelsey trainer Brown later in the hearing and we partnered with her she's a local farmer who's been raising Livestock in the Tri County Area for most of her life and uh she's been helping us through the preliminary design making sure that the solar and the sheep can work well together the way it works is the herd of sheep would rotationally graze the site so 10 to 15 Acres at a time they move every few days and it's a compelling business case for the farmer because in addition to the revenue from selling lamb into the market there's also a salary paid for the vegetative Management Services that they're providing to the solar farm we also would maintain the fences of the project so so um it this really solves the issue of land access that a lot of young farmers face when they want to get into the business but they have not inherited land for example one question that comes up is the scale of the project so this is 890 Acres we're aware of another project that's being proposed in the 150 to 200 acre range and what you'll notice is that these smaller projects are not proposing these on-site livestock operations um if if there's any livestock proposed it's probably shipped in for a couple days here and there this would be a working farm because the same scale applies to agriculture you need a certain acreage for it to make sense to have the startup costs and the ongoing costs of the agriculture operation they need to sell a certain head each year similarly with utility scale solar you need to produce a certain amount of power to be able to sell it into the Grid at the wholesale rate so there's that commonality between the two that works here we been active in the community in about five for about five years the first three years or so was securing all the real estate while the utility completed their interconnection studies and we also were performing our

Environmental Studies on the land once we got to a point where we could speak uh confidently about the project to the neighbors we started knocking on all the doors and this was about two years ago and started meeting with various stakeholder groups giving presentations to groups like Friends of the ranic in Northern neckl Conservancy did a s sidewalk with Soil and Water Conservation ation District we've held three community community meetings so far and we're holding a fourth one actually right next door at the library on March 27th so if any of the public I I encourage you to come from 4:30 to 7:30 it'll be an open house on Thursday March 27th coming up and through all this engagement we're able to understand the questions and concerns of the public and we use that to continuously update the design of the project and improve the conditions that The Binding special exception conditions for example the visual aspect comes up so we limited the height of the panels to 12 feet below the 15 feet allowed in the ordinance um and there's that shity bond in place to make sure that the trees uh stay healthy storm waterers uh management during construction is important so there's very specific conditions in the packet in front of you having to do with phasing of construction and robust inspections during construction decommissioning there's a shity bond in place for the entire cost of the decommissioning for the lifetime of the project solar panel quality and safety is is very important so the commitments made there are twofold one is to choose panels only from the tier one list that's published every year and also the panels that are chosen must pass the appropriate EPA testing such as this toxic characteristic leeching protocol test which ensures that there are no toxic chemicals that could leech a few more so uh soils longterm what we're doing uh for the the equipment we're choosing for the racking system is that terrain following type so

you follow the Contours of the land which means you don't have to move the the dirt and so any top soil that would be moved would be because of the storm water basins that top soil would be stockpiled and then redistributed following construction but the array itself is designed so that these racking systems are driven into the ground and follow the Contours of the land with no grading and we've met with Emergency Services a couple of times we've we've developed the right Cadence of trainings and emergency response plan updates working with them so in in closing the project will be decommissioned it's temporary you will not be able to see it from public right ways and the benefits to the county include a $24 million contribution to the tax base over 40 years permanently preserving a large swath of land and the grid needs more electrons we're seeing unprecedented load growth at the same time we're seeing power plants like Birchwood retire we're seeing small modular nuclear take longer to roll out than we had anticipated so these new energy generation facilities are designed to fill that Gap so uh as as as your job is to find the most well-sited and well-designed projects we're continuing to hone the the project to meet the needs of the community improving the conditions and the design and we hope that all those improvements will check all the boxes for you all so I'll be here to answer questions all right uh p uh committee before we have any questions for them I'm going to allow the uh public to have theirs their say um so at this time I am going to uh open uh open up for public hearing uh for pc01 d25 application z-20 24- 00184 Gibson solar special

exception um to the general public uh I ask that you please uh adhere to the thre minute per person um time that you are being afforded uh and with that being said first on the uh list is Miss Rose G pay I'm short sure if you can state your name and uh your rose pan 15123 hazelnut Lane my farm Cameron is 235 acres and across the road is 42 and we had to make a hard choice because for some reason I'm not getting any younger and neither is my son and we don't have any younger pains coming along to run the cattle we still have cattle there and yes we're still doing that but when we were approached by this company we looked at the possible benefits for the county as well as for us the one thing we did not want to see happen to Cameron was development there's already one subdivision right across from us and we didn't want to see another one on that land so the big benefit for us was it's going to be in agricultural it'll still have some connection to my family because that sheep herder is is the granddaughter of my sister Jean trainer that worked in the courthouse for years so that's a connection for us that really is a positive then when you look at what this won't affect the county it won't impact our schools it won't impact the water system which I'm on and it won't bring traffic like we

have on Owens Drive where I live and Route three is is crazy with traffic so it won't do that to the county it's going to bring Revenue it's going to bring energy and if I'm correct I think it's 15,000 homes possibly and another thing that encouraged my sons because they're going to inherit everything I own and they were part of this decision is the fact that in my H town sealston before I came down here there was a power plant that has been been abolished for the data center so of course my son said this is another form of energy that we've lost so I think there are positives and it was a hard sell for me because I love the cattle but we had to make a choice for the future and I have gotten to know Ryan and when I've known that one of the neighbors had a concern I asked him to go and talk to and we've had Community meetings and he's been transparent and answered any question and you all know me because I've been before this before and you know the history of Cameron so I didn't have to tell you that but I do want you to know it wasn't an easy decision but I do support this for the county and I hope it will be a yes vote vote so this Pro process can keep going because I've been in this going on four years now so I hope you will see the benefits and passes for the county thank you for allowing this me this time to speak ma'am thank you Miss Rose thank you um next uh to uh speak is Mr Al Hils Mr HS I want you to know I did receive your letter pardon me I did receive your

letter oh good thank you well thank you for the opportunity to speak um my name is Al haes I live at 7115 kitchen Point Road in King George uh as as you all know the uh the county passed a vision statement a couple months ago and just to remind everyone the vision statement is to promote General Welfare by maintaining a rural County where all citizens can enjoy freedom and prosperity with limited government intrusion I think that's a worthwhile objective and uh I think the the votes on this special exception will will kind of put that to the test in particular I think the the limiting government intrusion um you we all want to maintain the the rural nature of the county and the beauty of the county um but we also need to defend our our rights our property rights to use our land as we see fit particularly if it doesn't have any impact on the public or any neighbors if it's just our own decision on how to use our property I think Gibson so has gone to Great Lengths to assure that this project would have minimal impact on adjacent Property Owners or the public you know the Sheep grazing the the the buffers the the road improvements and in particular the uh uh the conservation easements in the future um I think all those uh you know are great benefits to the county I own 160 acres in the Sho District that's slated to be part of this project uh currently that that 160 acres is a a certified tree farm it was clear-cut seven years ago it'll be

thinned in seven or eight years and it'll be harvested 20 years after that and you know potentially replant it um no no part of that property no part of that 160 Acres can be seen from any any road or any adjacent home there's no home that can see any part of that 160 Acres um and and I can't conceive of any reason why the county should have the right to dictate how I use that 160 Acres so long as it has no impact on adjacent Property Owners or the public and I think to dictate such a restriction or such a limitation would be an example of the kind of government intrusion that the vision statement resolved to avoid thank you thank you Miss Tes right next uh on the list is uh Mr Ryan mcel Mr Miguel I received your letter as well thank you Ryan Miguel one 2477 Clover Leaf Way King George um when I first heard about this project it was when I was pulling in my driveway coming home with my father who was in town visiting from Cleveland there's this guy coming out of my property I'm like what's what's going on here I live pretty far off the road and he stops and he talks to me and he's telling me who who he is and what he wants to do when with the solar project I'm like great that was my first reaction I had a ton of questions from that point on I attended all three meetings that they've put on um I've watched every time that he's come most of the time because I'm at work and I can't be here in person uh but I've watched him be come before you and the board and I want to just speak

to a couple things that I felt were important that kind of made me feel better about this project and actually won my support for the project um the big thing that I hit him with from the get go was the financial impact to the county that it had to be a benefit to the county that the county had to receive something from this um and I believe working with the county attorney and uh staff they're working on the sighting agreement uh as you saw up to $24 million over 40 years that's pretty significant uh the second thing that I hit him with was the First Responders I'm a firefighter paramedic not in this jurisdiction but that's a big thing for me he's worked they've worked with uh the fire department to ensure that they're going to receive the proper training uh the new farming opportunity it's very costly for new folks to get into farming the conservation easement meaning that this land won't be developed adding to the strain of our public safeties and our school is huge uh the road improvements I don't think Ryan talked about that but one of the concerns in the other uh presentation was the roads being damaged and I believe they've agreed to actually upgrade the roads in the area at the end of the the project uh noise the young lady that spoke about the noise when I read that same article I sent him a message and he he explained to me how they're moving their inverters into the center of the project to help so that won't even be an issue because I back up to one of it and then the last thing uh one of the gentlemen up here I watched asked a lot of questions about the RPA I think it might have been you sir that's my property that you were speaking of back there that was one of the huge concerns that I had because the migratory fall the the the ponds back there everything so Ryan listened to my concern and he worked actually to secure easements to avoid that whole area because originally they were going to go right through that RPA area they now

have the ability to avoid that RPA and not disturb those Wetlands so uh they have met and exceeded everything that every question every time that I've hit them up which my wife told me to stop stop bugging that man in her words um they've been able to address so so I support the project now thank you for your comments Mr mcel next we have on uh the list is Barbara Robertson Miss Robertson and I received your letter as well oh good thank you um you might uh hear few more of the comments that I made in my email to you last month or so anyway my name is Barbara Robertson and I live at 340 mccardy road which is actually in Stafford County my husband and I um we have the largest I think the largest parcel there consists of this project consists of 383 Acres my husband and I bought the property years ago because we both enjoyed being outdoors and he was an avid Hunter and we saw this as an investment to help support us in the future and possibly build a home in the center of all of this so at the time we weren't looking for land but the prospect presented itself while a friend of ours was surveying the land as it was going up for sale they already had a contract on the land but the purchaser ultimately defaulted on the loan after he had it all cleared off and uh we found out that it had gone up for sale again and um that's when we purchased like 242 acres and then when we went around to introduce ourselves to all the adjoining land owners um they all wanted us they all there was four different um parties there wanted us or asked us to buy their land too so that's how we ended up with 383 Acres um so we

spent a lot of time on the property cleaning it up putting um locks on gated locks um with the agreement of all the adjoining property owners and that was to prevent people from dumping furniture and trash and going out there because where our land is it's out in the middle of nowhere um so um so of course and then of course too my husband was hunting at the whole time with a small group of family and friends over the years so my point is that um we were good we've been good stewards of the lands we loved it out there but unfortunately my husband passed away from cancer in 2016 and so I don't spend much time there anymore because certainly not going to go out there by myself my grandson and some of um our family friends they they still hunt it um ride four-wheelers on it use it for um she ski shooting and um but um from from my perspective you know I'm really not going out there much anymore um I had been thinking about selling the property and in fact um Ryan had approached me several times I think maybe for a few years and every time I'd say well no I don't think you want to get your panels all shot up so um and then one day he knocked at my door and I said well you know maybe the time is right now and this was what a couple years ago and and um so but I had right before then started thinking about selling my property perhaps to a developer or even an outdoor weapons training facility because it's out in the middle of nowhere and would um wouldn't be too noisy for neighborhoods so but then when this property came into me in the form of Open Road Renewables for the for the solar project and I thought well this this is probably the best thing for me um I felt like God had led my husband and me to this land and he's now given me the opportunity to sell it um for a purpose that will preserve the land for wild wildlife

habitation instead of residential development I'm excited about this project it's the perfect way to keep the land from being developed while still leaving a lot of the trees left standing to support the wildlife so since open road Renewables proposed plan includes bonded decommissioning and site restoration protocols the project will ensure the responsible use of the land over its 40-year lifespan and the continued agricultural use of the land with livestock ring under your time has expired well anyway I I I hope that um you approve the project thank you thank you very much thank you right next on the list is Dennis brag Mr brag I received your letter as well thank you um I live at 13436 Maddox Drive King George right off Pig Timber Road my property backs out up to the 42 Acres that The paines Have and first time I'd heard about it is I was talking with David he said hey you want to give you a heads up we talking about selling the property of course my wife and I looked at each other and said you know that's not what we want to hear we bought the 10 acres we have it's there our home butts right up to that we just have a small tree line goes down between that the power line and then the 42 Acres that sits on that side of the road where it's all cut for hay every year a little after that this young man over here Ryan Gilchrist comes knocking on the door we have an opportunity to sit down and chat and I can tell you I had a negative view right off the bat because I was not looking to have anything like that happen my wife has sit there and she said nope nope we can't do this we continue to talk we talked to the neighbors I have a couple of the other neighbors that are here

with us Mr rh's here his property on the other side comes up to the other side of that field and we have found by working with open roads our questions uh our concerns sometimes slight deviation as far as moving an inverter somewhere within us because of noise as far as more uh vegetation to keep us for line of sight to have to deal with that all that stuff has been addressed and it's been addressed very amiably and as far as working with our neighbors as you saw on the list here even going back because we are on a private Road off of madx about taking coming in say you know we can actually come in as we do Big Timber to redo that we could actually come in and do something to help your community that's right there at the same time they've been nothing but good neighbors so far with everything we've dealt with and there's no expectation that they wouldn't be anything but that I'm not a big proponent of green energy as far as you know with everything running around we have to have electric cars not that's that's not my deal but I will say the one thing I don't want to see in this county is what I've seen in other places is more residential Farms turned into residential neighborhoods that's not what we purchased that's not what we looked at for in here in King George County and it's unfortunate because you go down roads like edland Road and things of that nature places that Farms are now communities that are sitting in there so very much in support they've been extremely good there's no reason in the world to expect that open roads and uh and Gibson wouldn't be supportive and do everything they've said and keep it agricultural as they stated as a farm thank you thank you Mr brag next on the list is uh Donnie Donna and Johnny Breeden

good afternoon good evening my name's Donna Breen I am a King George resident on Round Hill Road my issue is Health there's no way I had three friends my husband can tell you we had three friends die of brain tumors in their head from solar farms and electrical Farms I don't want to see that for my my co-residents on the roundhill road and it's right in front of my [Music] house I vote no thank you thank you ma'am next on the list is Joseph Buckley oh I'm sorry I apologize please yeah we moved to King George about 80 years ago when we moved here we was understanding that that was a residential area right down roundhill Road and people I know Liv there 100 years 75 years it just always been a residential area that's not the main point I'm I'm concerned about the power I worked in Metro they kept us we worked in traction Powers AC sweet they thought go in there and get get get get the hell out quick as we could get our work done okay CU it can affect the electrical impulses in your brain can cause brain T I've had people friends of mine live Brown power substations even we lived in uh Maryland there had a little substation uing uh grocery store and all the green vegetation around the little pine trees strawberries and all turn and

die that all that electricity is detrimental to human health animals and plant life and we was just down southa Charles southa anything was 75 years old remain the same and that's always been a residential area right there around and we're going to had right across the street from us I'm not too happy with so I'm voting no too thank you thank you sir for your comments All Right Next is uh Mr Joseph Buckley Joseph Buckley been a resident of this County for 63 years I've seen a lot of changes the things I got against it it seems like it's taking a lot of real estate away from good people and the second thing is is not giv any jobs I'm like Walmart and all that people in King George got a job I had to make a living but I had to go up the road to make a living and I don't think that's fair for people in King George okay thank you sir next uh on the agenda on the list is Bob b I do believe right yes thank you thank you Mr chair so a couple points I want to make for Stars One is I think that uh this proposal definitely takes into account the desires of the land out owners that are trying to sell the land they're doing the best they can with the land they have they have the right to do

what they land secondly this proposal does provide electrical generation that will benefit the county it'll provide sources of farm products Lambs for the county and will provide construction jobs during construction so the are benefits they're provided as well as a tax income on the equipment uh being paid to the county so as environmental impacts are concerned a lot of concerns have been expressed and uh open roads has tried to make sure that the sites is buffered that uh Provisions are made to avoid runoff that uh Provisions are going to be made for site Reclamation and Provisions for equipment disposal at the end of life have been provided all that is included also people have expressed concern about the psychological impact of having a major uh utility station on on site like this on the other hand it was pointed out earlier this situation is totally buffered from the surrounding uh properties and will not be visible from the surrounding properties so there should not be any issues there two issues I have that I wanted to raise one as I raised earlier I'm concerned about protection of incidental contact with the inverts and with solar cells by people intruding into the property how is how is the property going to be protected is it going to be unsupervised how are you going to protect the equipment uh from people intruding upon it for the safety the people and the safety of the equipment itself last thing I will uh make a comment personal experience there was concern expressed about the uh tumors uh arising from exposure to electricity I'd encourage that people are concerned and they wish to consider reports that have

been prepared by the national electrical manufacturers Association several years ago about uh radiation from 600 HZ power in power lines uh that refutes some of that concerns for your information thank you thank you sir next on the list we have Helen Kuran that am I saying that correctly ma'am coron thank you hi thank you I'm um Helen karun live in Wilmington Delaware so I'm not not local right now my grandfather Harvey jany bought the land in this area um in the 50s for timber for a lumber business that is in Fredericksburg Virginia and over the years I have lots of cousins from all ages all areas of the country and when we are figuring out um what's the best way to get Revenue but also keep Land Conservancy this property was one that was kind of always out there and when Ryan gilchrest approached our family he answered all the questions just like Mrs Payne said my grandfather and my mother were huge in Land Conservancy and he was able to answer all of the questions we had the revenue that it would bring for the county the agriculture part the the Sheep everything seemed to help give us an a solution rather than have to feel pressure to sell to a developer down the line with so many different interests in our family so we wholeheartedly support it I completely

understand all the different questions people have but I really think they've been answered for a couple of years by this group thank you very much thank you ma'am next on the list is James sha James Shaw James Monroe District speaking as a taxpayer I read much about this particular project on social media both for and against I've seen the materials presented and um quizzed both the um uh Ryan and Kelsey uh the uh developer and the Grazer if approved we will see this land underneath those solar panels improve as the Sheep do what sheep do um 20 or 40 years from now the panels will be remove the poles will be pulled up and you will have some a land that uh can be used for that purpose again but will be much more productive and fertile I look forward to seeing the um progress as the uh Grazer and the Sheep work their magic regenerating the land 800 plus acres dedicated to a solar and grazing um uh perspective uh it should also be noted that um uh last night at the um uh joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the school board School Board gave uh some rather uh challenging figures uh their uh energy usage cost is

going to increase in one year 40% and that's because all the data centers and all the electrical usage that's going on uh Virginia's becoming a net uh importer of electricity and that costs money uh this would be a way solar to um help in that though uh I I think there's other ways to do that and um uh I'll just leave it at that thank you thank you sir uh next on the list is Melissa Miner you waving okay wav to decline all right and after that it's Mr Sam selo my name is Sam Stell 14151 Marshall place I live right behind the Jersey post office and I share property line with about 300 acres of this solar panels directly across from the post office there's another huge solar panel project going in um I had a lot of environmental questions when this was first proposed to me and I worked with um with Gibson and worked through all of my my questions but I had one that was really kind of nagging at me I I did my internet search and found studies that said that the Solar projects would not cause electromagnetic interference now if you no one else has talked about that but potentially you could have interference with your television your radios your Internet satellite Communications and so it was a concern for me especially since I'm a ham radio

operator and I spent a lot of money on radios and equipment so two of us in the club King George amateur radio operators packed up several radios and antennas and we drove over to Spotsylvania on the assumption that whatever they put in in Spotsylvania would be kind of similar to what they're going to put here in King George and we tested three different locations we got as close as maybe 200 ft just outside the uh the fence workor and we tested everywhere from 3.5 mahz all the way up to 450 megahertz which was the range of our radios we couldn't check the whole Spectrum we just spot checked it where the ham radio bands which gives a pretty good distribution and and we couldn't hear a peep from the solar panels and that made us very very happy so at this point I have no objections to the solar project thank you sir before I um ask of anyone within the crowd I'm going to read um some letters that were requested to be read um know that I did receive numerous amounts of letters but these two particular individuals asked that they be read uh in the meeting so the first of these letters uh comes from uh ter Morgan who lives at 14523 Kings Highway located in the shallow district and it reads I am a general citizen of King George I do not favor this project in the last two weeks I have poured over hundreds of meetings papers and over all project papers I only had two weeks due to the fact that although I live in the v vicinity of the project I was never

contacted by the company I will attempt to relay my three greatest concerns first reason I am against this project is due to the business practices and ethics of Gibson solar open road Renewables I do not feel that the company has tried to engage ethically in their paperwork or in meetings one example among many contradictions I have read in the meetings minutes is their statements that they have contacted the citizens living in their vicinity Not only was I not contacted I have spoken with land owners on both Prime Road and Big Timber uh campsite Road adjoining properties who have also not been contacted secondly I do not think that this project is in accordance with the County's overall comprehensive plan for the rap handic River South Rural Development Area this project should have been refed us and turned down on the merits of it not meeting the comprehensive plan thereby requiring this request for a special exemp exemption this area of King George has always been an area I have been able to enjoy both up close and back connecting properties throughout my life this this area has some of the best crops and farm areas in King George it has also kept the rural look as we are the gateway to the Northern Neck this area is also part of the bomic river settlement area there are important creeks in the area the M the madx creek and the Kings Mill Creek and many others this project will interfere with these waterways and of course the land disturbances from not just timbering but racking the land for grade after timbering it's something of which we have no idea of the long-term environmental impacts lastly by appointing the special exemptions we open a can of worms as other companies coming into King George will want these exemptions we already know that between the November 12th meeting and the paperwork for the February 11th planning meeting more Parcels were added this is

an example that no land is sacred to company like like this one this type of action shows that they do not care about the farms in the area or the wildlife this area is Rich with the American bald eagle deer Fox and even more small game I have even seen an Albano uh owl on our conservation land located less than 50 yards from the project I am saddened and disheartened that was a community would be willing to bend the knee to a company that would destroy the land which is so rich in early American history and agriculture history if we de deviate from our purpose as a county then we surely trade a dangerous Trade A D dangerous path James Madison once said temporary uh deviations from fundamental principles are always more or less dangerous when the first uh PR PR practice fails those who become interested in prolonging the evil will rarely be at a loss for other uh pretexts we should vote no to the project and not allow the company to come back with uh counters unless they are willing to put this project in the industrial sector of King George as outlined in our overall comprehensive plan and not pillage our farmland next letter comes from Heather Hall and it reads good afternoon chairman Williams I am writing in opposition to the proposed solar farm known as Gibson solar I would like my opposition to be read aloud and meor memorialized in the meeting minutes as I am unable to attend a person uh tonight I live on roundhill Road in the shallow District this application is applied for under a special exception perit request this request should be re reviewed on a caseby Case basis the special exception

conditions as you know are legally binding and run with the life of the land this application is only as good as the conditions set forth in the special exception permit and the King George County zoning ordinance it should be carefully considered as this will be the first of many applications tonight you set the stands standards in which King George is willing to accept now and in the future uh King George zoning section 7-7 -10 solar energy utility scale e land disturbances quote the clearing grading and overall site disturbance is limited to only that which is necessary super fluous clearing and Grading is not permitted in order to retain existing trees and other Ground Covers 890 Acres of solar panels this project is not utilizing only Open Fields to install their solar panels I cannot find in the application our special exception conditions how many acres of for forested land will be disturbed to put in the industrial solar project this is a vital piece of information for you to make an education educated decision on which this is a good project that qualifies for a special exception the Planning Commission spent a great deal of time discussing the specific requirements during the ordinance over overhaul excuse me ordinance overhaul it was clear C that the intentions of the King George um Planning Commission was not to allow large uh acreage of land and forested areas to be removed for the purpose of installing solar forms comprehensive plan chapter three land use cultural and natural resources B policies and land use culture and natural resources within the county land use plan repeatedly encourages that the protection of for forested land and the need to support the habitat for wildlife how does disturbing 100 hundreds of Acres unnecessary

protect unnecessarily protect our fored land how does it how does that comply with the comp plan the staff report refers to the industrial policies and Implement uh strategies of the comp plan however nowhere in the rural development areas of the comprehensive plan does it encourage industrial uses such as utility scale solar outside of the settlement areas in layman's term utility scale solar does not belong in Shallow District which is the most rural area of the county our comprehensive plan repeatedly states that preservation of rural development as one of the is as one of the key goals of the county industrial policies should only be referenced in the statement areas I'm sure the appli applicant will highlight the acreage they intend to conserve rather than directly answer the question of how many acres are to be disturbed with the project how much of the proposed conserved areas are already unusable because of RPA steep slopes Etc is this really conservation if this area is already preserved by Ence I think so I think okay so I've read uh the two letters that I had requested read aloud meeting who wish to speak the gentlemen in the blue and then we'll go to the gentlemen uh in the bay sir thank you my name is Wade beum I live at 12276 Jersey Road um as those two letters are hard to follow but it sounds like that they're disgruntled because they're not involved in this project and getting compensated for their land so just want to make sure you you take that in in mind because one of my biggest fears of where I live I have a peach workship on Jersey Road I

planted three years ago when to be in business this year selling my peaches and Mr Hill has the property directly behind me I live right in front of his property and when I bought that property back in 2020 one of my biggest well I wasn't like losing sleep but I was worried that that I didn't know before I knew him that the landowner could probably sell to like Dave Weston who built my house which is nothing against him I'm saying a developer and go in there and buy that property and put like 15 20 30 homes back there and that is not what I wanted or this County needs because we already have the eight years I've been here I've already seen the congestion increasing big time so one way the county benefits with keeping congestion and building and sprawling down is by keeping the Farmland occupied or in with solar panels to keep it Rural and agriculture like they've been discussing and it also at the same time gives you uh tax revenue without increasing the population and traffic in this County um I was Ryan Gilcrest and open road there are good people I've been talking to them they've been my wife my wife and I been talking with them and I was concerned at first was it is it going to harm my peach orchard you know cuz I put a lot of time and work in that Orchard and uh y'all more welcome to driveby it's going to be flowering here soon at the end of March I'm going to be like having it's going to be like cherry blossoms here in King George except it's going to be peaches of course but um anyway I was concerned would it affect the orchard because you know peaches needs a certain amount of chill hours to set the buds for the next year you know

for the next year crops you know next year's peaches and would a heat a heat island effect with that causing you know what that happen and from all the research I've done that is it will up close you will feel some heat of course but what once you get out from 100 feet of that solar uh that solar farm you the heat dissipates and it does not affect any microclimate heat changes on other people's property including and I'm going to be like um we said it was about 200 yards I'm be in front of yours yeah so yeah no negative effects no I mean no negative effects on our property and it protects people um Farmland being sold and developed like they did over in Hopyard you know you drive by that place people talk about isource oh they're going to be the farm is gonna be an isore all right so your time is up well that's say aore out there but you know because this houses everywhere no trees to cover thank you than you all right I think the gentleman in the back um had raised his hand Gary sitzman again still live in Stafford County we own property in King George for about 20 plus years we're basically land investors part of our land is adjacent to the proposed project we're talking about here it's not that much but it might be significant I've been to the meetings that Ryan has had at the liary here and read the material that he provided he's answered some of the fundamental questions I'm sure he's answered a hundred

times the one thing I like about Ryan is that he doesn't come with an Entourage of attorneys or experts he talks to you one onone which is unusual in this kind of arrangement as far as the risk associated with the solar Farms when I drive down to Warsaw on Route three I see an existing solar farm just south of um Manos it's been there for probably 3 to maybe 10 years when I cross the river and come back up from tapah hanic on 177 I see another solar farm that's been there for multiple years I would suggest if anyone has any concerns about solar Farms they might talk to the planning office either in Essex County and or west Morland County I'm sure they've gone through a similar exercise we're doing here overall my comp my position is the same as it was on the previous project I feel it's in generally in everyone best interest and it's considered progress as a footnote I'd like to say that I don't see new houses as evil as some people seem to associate them with they've had many positive aspects associated with the county anyone who's lived here thank you thank you sir I think there was a young lady on to my right yes ma'am good evening Kelsey trainer Pas panzi um thank you for this opportunity

to speak with you all tonight um I'm proud to serve as a contracted sheep Grazer um on this facility I farmed in King George most of my life and I've always dreamed of coming back home after College married family and being able to farm full-time but the harsh reality of what that looks like in 2025 is scary about two years ago I was looking for lease land to cut hay on and well there wasn't any um and then when I really started to think about it and totaling the cost between new equipment and the cost of the operation um it wasn't going to be very profitable right um and that was honestly really discouraging and then something came along and it was this opportunity and I went for it as a young agriculturalist with the lifelong dream of farming full-time this project represents not only a personal Milestone but also a transformative moment for our community and our industry the integration of renewable energy with agriculture Agra voltaics has opened a pathway where the solar facility and livestock grazing work together to Foster sustainability efficiency and economic growth the groundbreaking work done by open roads renewable and planning this facility around grazing op around the grazing operation has truly set a new standard for what is possible when an industry when industry leaders collaborate with local agriculture they have ensured that every aspect of this project is designed to protect the land promote responsible energy production and provide a tangible opportunity for those of us who dream of cultivating the Earth while advancing renewable Technologies this Innovative

this is innovative an Innovative Beacon um for creating a bridge between renewable energy and traditional agriculture a connection that when executed correctly can yield significant economic benefit for both our community and our agriculture industry at large this project is more than just a solar facility it is a living laboratory for production agriculture with access to land that would otherwise remain underutilized I now have a chance to deepen my practical farming experience while contributing to a model that Champions sustainable practices moreover the Innovative um the initiative opens doors to collaborative research opportunities with cooperative extension Paving a way for advances and aggrav voltaics that could benefit Farms Nationwide it also promises to provide invaluable Hands-On learning experiences for our youth through farm tours work-based learning programs and AGR tourism initiatives thereby inspiring the next generation of farmers and innovators thank you ma'am thank you yes sir my name is Don Saunders I live at 3827 Longfield Road question y'all are not asking is what percent of the time will this not be used what percent of the time will the facility just be cut off and not feeding power into the grid so I'm speaking to you today in opposition of this uh solar facility this solar facility is being proposed on property adjacent to my land land that I live on and land that will absolutely not be part of this proposed solar facility people are saying at least it's not homes or Housing Development and my argument against that is most of the

land is being leased and there is no guarantee it would ever become a Housing Development most of the land owners enlisted in this agreement with Gibson solar are not residents of King George County I read Gibson solar's application and it is full of half truths which are lies in that application they State they are preserving the land which I disagree with but they say they are preserving the land within the rural development area and then states that it is industrial land use so which is it rural development or industrial use I will answer that question it is industrial use the comprehensive plan States industrial use should be done within defined industrial use areas and the area in question is nowhere close to that application continues that they are preserving environmental resources at least four pieces of land are forested and you look at the uh you look at the map you can see how much of that land is forested full of trees they left this part out in the presentation to the Board of Supervisors Gibson solar's plan is to remove the trees roots and allil remove the top soil and set it aside this isn't preserving environmental resources this is construction they're removing top soil and setting it aside to be put back after removal of the panel that's not how this works have you ever dug a hole and tried to fill it back in they are permanently altering the soil composition studies show that after 7 years of solar facility decommissioning the soil composition is not even close to its original state what happens if there's a fire Gibson solar claims First Responders will be educated by materials education and or training they can send out a pamphlet and be done that doesn't make me feel safe let's talk about the parcel behind my house house this parcel is 20 minutes away from the nearest King George fire

station that does not include two gates that need to be unlocked for the fire First Responders to get back there and it does not include the path leading back to the site which has two Creeks which watch out the road on regular basis the Gibson me mentioned that several of the parcels are on the King George West Morland line that they send pamphlets to the West Morland fire department because they will likely get called too this brings up another point the Gibson make arrangements with West Morland County because one parcel can only be accessed through West Morland County what about that part of the traffic your time is expired okay thank you yes sir give me just a second okay I'm Jason Greenwood Shiloh District um the topic at hand is is whether or not this commission should recommend approval of a special use exe exception to our zoning ordinance so basically the law right that's that's the topic and the conserv I I'll give credit to a lot of the speakers the conservation easement attractive to me too so I'm a property owner in Shiloh right I think that's great um provisions and concessions and that Gibson solar and open roads Renewables are great guys yeah that's not the topic and what they're doing is they're following the law and they're doing whatever they need to do to get this project off the ground and I don't fault them for that they're entrepreneurs and they they exist to make money what Mr beard and Mr Hill said and a lot of the property owners said I respect and I honor your rights as Property Owners I absolutely do I believe in them

okay but the bottom line is there's a handful of property owners and a couple of companies that aren't from Virginia that stand to profit extraordinarily right and then there's everybody else the tax income is minuscule $600,000 a year when you do the math that's nothing it's absolutely nothing faier voted five to nothing the Planning Commission to deny after reviewing a project by the same company since 2023 that was half the size with a complete comprehensive plan done to analyze the project so again either faul year was out to lunch and we're the lucky County or there's more homework that should be done energy generation is not the duty of this commission planning and stewardship is by approving the project it's not like we're going to go home and turn on our lights and our light bulbs are going to burn brighter so again I think that there are a lot of things being talked about that have nothing to do with what's happening here um I think traffic will increase at least for a time that that Road's dangerous already I'm worried about my underground aquafer well and let's call it and I respect all of you okay this is a handful of property owners and a couple of companies that are going to profit and it's at a special exception to the law of this County and maybe my wife and our family just came to shallow District too late because everybody that's talked benefited from the agricultural zoning from farming to tax depreciation to all the things that weren't said here for 40 years and 50 years maybe we bought our 3.5 Acres too late and we were too small but we moved to Shiloh expecting it to remain Agricultural and just like there's nothing wrong with you all selling there's nothing wrong with

wanting that to remain either and I respect you thank you for your time thank you sir yes ma'am I think she spoke I think you've already spoken ma'am you're you're three minutes up ma'am I I apologize you do not the four I just want to say that's no no ma'am no ma'am no ma'am no ma'am are there any others yes ma'am wasn't going to come up Melissa Miner um I came to King George to start a 30 acre Agri tourism Farm I'm not for or against what's going on I'm still confused by it I've dropped pretty much my life savings on the 30 Acre Farm that's going to be next to a small portion of it I've seen concerns I've seen both sides of it but to me there's still misinformation what is it going to do to the county what's it going to do to property values I came here in hopes to build something to bring people to my farm are they still going to want to come to my farm if this is next door I don't know that answer but I know I've dropped my life savings in it so I think as a community we need to look at all the Avenues and make sure we're making the right decision like I'm not from Virginia but I chose to move here because I chose this community so to dropped my life savings into something and now it's I guess controversy on what's going on I wasn't I didn't buy my property knowing that a solar farm was coming next to it I'm not against it I'm not

against subdivisions I'm not against all that I just think that what's being in place sometimes looks a little too good to be true which does concern me but then I look at the other side I agree everybody has a right to do with what they want with their property I just say look at the big picture and make the best decision that's for this community thank you ma'am are there any others seeing there are none uh the public hearing session is now closed uh I want at this time to Grant uh Gibson Sol an opportunity if you if you wish uh to yield the floor to you to answer any questions that were uh uh presented Mr chairman Mike fuli on behalf of Gibson solar working in concert with Ryan Gilchrist um I'd like to First mention on the two public comments that were read into the record uh Mr Gilchrist connected I believe it was with Miss Terry Morgan after that letter was read into the record by the Board of Supervisors last week and he spoke with her as recently as was it yesterday you spoke with her so we are in conversations with her and I can't say that all of her concerns have been addressed but there is an open dialogue going along with that in response to miss Hall's concerns we've been working with her since we first met her after the November presentation and her specific concern was the phasing of the construction and following that we've proposed a 200 acre phasing limitation we also in resp respon to commissioner mait's question about the mafit I'm sorry um mafit the number of Acres that are in Timber that will be cleared we provided a table either in December or January that has that information the last thing I'd like to

point your attention to was the concern about the soils that Mr Saunders brought up you brought up a lot of great points so the net capacity factor of the array will be 24% which means that on 800 76 8,760 hours per year on average the facility will be producing electricity 24% of the time we know that that's not what's actually going to happen it's only going to be producing during sunlight hours you said the question that's not being asked is how much will it be utilized it will be utilized 24% of the time at Max output that is what the net capacity factor is the concern about the soils and what will happen with the grubbing and stumping of the timbered parcels it's a great question and I understand where the concern is coming from in the conditions that have been proposed there are many different things that address top so but the one that I'd like to draw your attention to is number 5A with regards to soil testing to paint the picture for the public at a high level what this says is that the applicant shall test the souls prior to construction and take a baseline on the chemical physical and biological attributes of the soil at multiple different locations across the site and then every 5 years the soil will continue to be tested and as part of the bond to decommissioning obligation the soils will be as good or better than they were prior to construction how can we make that commitment with such a high degree of confidence the answer is because of the way that the Dee rooted native vegetation will support the RO soil Rejuvenation along with the rotational grazing uh the last thing I think it was Mr Greenwood uh spoke um about faier County I presented a faier county and he's asking the question why was it a 50 no 50 no vote I would say that they don't have the same interest in the fiscal benefits and permanent a

preservation this community may also when he talks about this project being an exception to the law I may be I'm not an attorney but I see it slightly differently I see it as a permitted use so long as there are sufficient conditions that mitigate the impacts that when I think of what a special exception use is it is a permitted use on that zoning designation provided that the 50 some odd conditions that are being proposed sufficiently mitigate the impact so thank you for the opportunity happy to answer any questions thank you sir all right uh I'm going to open the floor for the Commissioners to discuss please speak upon recognition from the chair do I have one Mr Carter you have the floor thank you Mr J um I see this as a um agricultural project with a photo built ta component um the conservation and preservation of This Land is Our highest priority because various economic reasons we are unable to support an adequate Land Bank in order to preserve the am amount of land we need to now because every year we have less um this particular site is very heavily um acidic sulfate soil lousy pasture can't row crop it can't barely grow trees on it and it's also extremely sensitive if disturbed no we don't want to be dumping you see this soil for as you drive down 64 I mean this site has a lot of it it's acid soil acid sulfate soil look it

up 30 years of grazing on that property will essentially reclaim it this land has been abused in the 100 years leading up to its current state um this is conserving preserving restoring that soil and frankly the shade cover will will help establishing uh the ground cover and I urge um the developers to be extremely sensitive to their soil disturbance um uh which is the primary cause of non-compliance with Wetland management is not getting cover back on top of where you've Disturbed um you know the big Retention Ponds are of concern um I I haven't walked all the land but the land that I've walked is just that soil type to get grass on that and pasture and 40 Years of grazing will be a gift to our grandchildren I would rather have the 40 acre I would rather have the 450 acres in conservation 40 years from now um than what we have today um the uh young farmer getting into agriculture is going to take this kind of integration with industry and technology and Innovative land use um you know we as County cannot do the Investments we need to develop an agricultural industry I would love to have green houses all the way up and down uh Kings Highway like the Dutch have um I I I agree with folkier county in the sense a a a cap on total acreage for a single use should be a

consideration we don't want to be a data center County we don't want to be a solar farm County but if if we have to have a solar farm this is the kind of project I think fits King George um and I look forward to uh King George mutton I think we should brand it and have King George mutton Queen and have a mutton festival and and you know you can only get it here you know teroa um I'm very excited about the agricultural opportunity I mean you can grow hay corn and beans then houses or we can grow higher value products and grow them longer thank you Mr chair thank you Mr chairman yes sir um if if you don't mind I have a couple other questions for for Gibson uh and how we how we address those we'll let the we'll let the chair decide there were there were questions and and just so we get the data out to people there were questions about the electromagnetic you know interference and the electromagnetic energy and causing Cancers and all of those things and as an electrical engineer I'm not going to go into it but if you could at least please give us some some data for the for the audience about how far away your Transformer and your substations and the connection you know to the distribution lines right there's there's one point of what's what's going on with the electrical energy and the panels and that's pretty low voltage stuff and not a whole lot of energy but it's those substations and inverter stations all that where really the electromet electromagnetic energy is being created can you give us a distance to the property lines from those points yes um commissioner nicely thank you for the question

the National Institute of Health is the subject matter expert on the topic EMF is the vernacular that's used for the concern what we know about EMF is there's logarithmic decline in EMF such that for every 2 48 16 ft it significantly reduces the uh measurement is in Miga in terms of the EMF measurement and I have a paper with me that I can share with you guys that says that the amount of EMF at the fence line of the solar array will be 1 1,000th of the level that presents a concern for people with pacemakers so this concern is completely taken off the line off the uh off the table if there was a credible concern NIH would identify that and we wouldn't have bulk transmission lines we wouldn't have distribution lines we wouldn't have cell phones we wouldn't have this lecturn right here so so I'm happy to share the uh document with you if you'd like it I would love to have it as an engineer I'd love to have it and I will tell you I have passed on buying property here because of transmission line so I am certainly aware and and and you know conscious of the concerns that people have I'll share it with you my second question is um you went through it pretty quickly can you describe what you were talking about is a 200 acre phasing plan yes sir I was going to ask about if you all have a a construction phasing plan that you could we do it's show people about which uh in the in the draft conditions i' uh reference uh 4K yes sir thank you condition 4K land disturbance comprised of installation of Rion sediment control measures storm water management measures PR Landscaping within the site site clearing grading road construction other civil work conducted to prepare the site for the installation of equipment shall not

exceed 200 Acres at any time this condition came from a concern that Miss Hall raised following the November meeting and subsequent to that we proposed this phasing limitation so do you have a phasing plan of which sections of this overall project how they plan to be phased in construction we don't but that'll be part of the final site plan and the reason we don't yet is because all the storm water design work is driven by final equipment selection so the final wattage of the modules the final racking equipment the final inverter size will drive the storm water pollution prevention plan permitting and from that that will establish the volume size location of all the civil bmps and uh the phasing plan will come from that one thing that we know on the storm water side is that in 2024 DEQ updated their regulations and the postd development flow must be 20% lower than the preconstruction flow so there's tremendous amount of work that's been done on the Civil storm water side of it the phasing plan will go hand inand with the erosion settlement control and the Swip and that will come if we're successful in the discretionary special exception permit in coordination with County staff DEQ and then concurrence with the agencies with the submission of the final site plan approval thank you yeah I you the floor to uh Mr Parker so y um thank you mother um Commissioners for their comments I I kind of disagree on a lot of points to me this is a special exception to a special exception um it it does not fit in any way within the comp plan this is a this is a utility scale power generating project in a rural development area which is completely counter to our comp plan

um and it goes against all the all the special exception language that exception language excuse me that we put in there with regards to clear ing land um understand I go e Echo the last speaker's comments that it sounds like they've done a good job of of ingratiating themselves with the with the locality and I I commend them for that but this just doesn't fit and the bigger picture that we need to consider before we vote on this thing is they've done a good job but we we approve this we have absolutely zero ground for not approving anything else that comes before us because it doesn't fit the special exception language at all like not anyway to me this this application should never have seen the light of day and it's just I mean there are huge repercussions to this if we vote it and pass it because it's just it's it's big let's keep in mind we've had zero success with solar farms in King George zero% none not a single solar Farms ever follow followed through on any applications permits die so we're going to jump in at 1300 Acres and just say have at it I mean to me that's it's just it's too much of a risk it's not a farm it's just it's a power generating plant it's not pres preserving land I take I'm sorry Mr dord but it's not I mean it's not it's not preserving the land you're putting solar panels on it and that's I mean it's it's just not a preservation element I'm just fundamentally opposed to this whole project again I don't think it should ever have seen light a day yeah so Mr Mr Krick you have the floor all right um so I mean I've I've heard a lot of pros and cons and and all and most of them make all the sense in the world and I can understand the property

owners desire to see this project go through it's in their financial best interest and and I I appreciate that um but I keep coming back to the idea that we're going to according to the comp plan we're supposed to be trying to preserve the rural character of the county that's a very primary rural area of the county and we're going to preserve it by turning it into a 1900 indust 19 acre 1900 acre industrial park because let's face it it's an industrial level solar farm it it's equipment is what you're going to see you're not going to see the ground very often I I and I look at it on on the site map and it's it's huge and it's not contiguous it's spread over the site there's 48 Parcels according to the documents I have I went through and just sort of did a quick count of the individual little sites and it's more like 20 to 25 depending upon how you look at them so it's it's not one solar farm it's it's almost it's almost like having 25 solar Farms we're approving here I I just I just can't see the logic of it and I come back to the idea that it's not in compliance with a comprehensive plan so I'm just not in favor of it uh I think Mr darta you you wanted the floor the floor is now yield to you thank you Mr chair I'm very sympathetic to what I'm hearing um it's not I I don't to dispute or argue about something when we agree on it um the idea that if we have to have one of these the only place we can put them is A1 A2 A1

and A2 the I'm sorry we don't have any A1 A2 in our industrial park but so why do we need a solar farm yeah I don't think we do unless we're getting power from it or it's integrated into other systems you know but but it's it's a reality power generation is is distributed this particular lot I've seen Thousand Acre fenced in locks and the wildlife can't get around it this is wildlife Corridor it's it's its segmentation is its superpower what doesn't make it a continuous massive you know Southwestern range um the fact that a land will be returned to us in better shape than they got it is crucially important in terms of soil Health in terms of keeping the Predators away the human Predators the two-legged Predators um the opportunity for AGR tourism and spin out Industries um is there if we want to exploit those right now having tree farms on that site isn't delivering the kind of value to the county that I think we should it I find it absolutely consistent with the comp plan in preserving the agricultural character of the county you have livestock you've got grazing you've got agricultural activity and and the two activities grazing and solar Farms are pretty benign I wouldn't want a power plant I mean I mean a Tannery or a chemical plant or a paper plant or

anything like that on that land I don't see it as industrial it is passive it is benign it's not emissive it is not odorous it's well um that is preserving the agricultural character Rel relative to other development Alternatives relative to those Alternatives is how we have to evaluate it not this mythical status quo that is going away that's all yes sir you Flor to you I'd just like to say that um you know I hear both sides out there and um there's some things that we should consider you know our landfill is filling up and that's um that's going to have to be the funds from that are going to have to be replenished some way and $600,000 uh Dollar in tax revenue is important um the only place you can put a solar farm in King George County is A1 A2 or industrial and it's by special exception uh there is very little industrial land uh relative to A2 and A1 um I will say that if if you wait 45 years on this land it's almost certainly going to be sub divisions if you if you track what the developers are doing so in a way we're putting this land in a bank that will be available for use in 45 years and um I I really appreciate that they're still going to do some farming and they've gone out of their way to answer every question and bend to everybody in the community and you know the fundamental thing here is property rights you know you all own property here and the same ones that are saying we don't want somebody to do this you know they're you know they could make the same argument you don't want it put

a shed on your neighbor's property you know it's it's your right you know that's why we pay for land and to me that's very important and I'm definitely in favor of this project and I think they've done a good job uh Miss ni you've been recognized you have the floor thank you I have one question for Council and a couple more questions for you guys um are uh zoning ordinance for utility scale solar energy section 7710 I additional setbacks and location standards says that no utility scale solar facility shall be located within 2 miles of another existing or permitted utility scale solar facility unless they are part of a continuous solar farm understand this is contiguous but I was wondering if you know what the justification for that addition and our ordinance was Mr chairman I do not um this was developed by the Berkeley group as I understand it uh and adopted and um I can't give you justification for why they did what they did I assume they took public comment but I I was not the County Attorney at the time I would assume that they took public comment that they talked to you all that they talked to the board members citizens and they came up with this but I can't I have no personal knowledge or or could know why they phrased it that way okay does I don't know if anybody else remembers I don't either but because this is parceled out into different Parcels I wanted to refer back to this to try to understand if there was some consequences of you know that I'm not thinking about the Justified why we put that in there um and then the other questions I have are uh who inspects the

site to make sure that the environmental regulations are being followed thank you for the question uh I'd like to direct you to uh condition 4J um the primary environmental considerations during construction and operation are going to revolve around storm water run off if you have storm water runoff that's an environmental contaminant into the Chesapeake Watershed and almost verbatim the conditions in 4J came from Walnut solar that we developed in King Queen County on the middle Peninsula because they have a RPA area as well if you take a step back in the Solar industry in Essex County Circa 2019 there was a 20 megawatt facility that was under construction when there was a large storm event and there was a bunch of runoff ever since then there have been updates to the way that DEQ has been administering the Swifts and the rosan sediment control handbook has been the governing document but the developers that really care about environmental compliance will do belt and suspenders where they'll codify The Binding commit uh commitments in the conditions alongside the regulations that are in the erosion siment control handbook and the DEQ rigs condition 4J talks about the requirement for us funding onsite uh inspector a qualified inspector so you someone that you pay will inspect to be sure that you're following all of the requirements with DEQ yeah let's let's I think it's it would be helpful for the public to read it because you guys have consent on selecting uh who that party is but the funding comes from us would it would it be okay if I read condition 4J okay uh condition 4J erosion sediment control monitoring and Reporting the

applicant shall have one responsible land disturber an rld and at least one Virginia DEQ certified erosion control inspector in ECI per land disturbing activity area who shall be retained at applicant's expense during the development of the project these positions shall remain in place from the commencement of land disturbance until stabilization the county shall be consulted during the process of the selecting the rld and ECI and and shall have the right to approve the professionals selected by the applicant which should now be unreasonably withheld the rld and ECI shall both be knowledgeable about environmental permit compliance requirements and be experienced in erosion settlement control and storm water management best practices installation Etc the rld shall keep a daily log of activity documenting all relative activities and shall upload it to a FTP site which county shall be provided access post post rainfall event inspection shall be required for any runoff producing event equal to or greater than 1 qu of an inch of rain within a 24-hour period and shall be maintained onsite and logged in an e report at the FTP it goes on I'm not going to bore everybody with the details but this has been very thoughtfully constructed in response to the question okay I have some followon questions that is for the construction phase yeah um what I was trying to educate myself uh today as much as I can about um how this Supply to our comprehensive plan um and in our uh agricultural districts you know it states that we're supposed to minimize the amount of impervious uh uh development and um so after construction um solar panels obviously are impervious so what are are there any water management uh practices that are used after construction how much water you going have question yeah

so so let's talk about this so the panels themselves are impervious however there's a minimum of at least 12 feet when they're perfectly horizontal between the rows and the importance from a runoff perspective is first the temporary stabilization which following any disturbance you see inst straw and then you have the erosion and sediment control of bmps that catch any of the runoff and then once the site is permanently stabilized which means that the permanent vegetation has taken the temporary erosion sediment control basins are converted to permanent storm water features so the the concern about sheet flow off of the panels because of the concern that they're impervious is addressed by the discharge length between the rows of panels and the fact that you have permanent stabilization of Dee rooted vegetation between it such that it will fully absorb the rainfall in addition at all of the low spots you'll have the temporary erosion sediment control Provisions during construction and then once temporary stabilization has been established as approved by DEQ in the county you then convert those temporary sediment basins to permanent storm water uh discharge areas so part of my thought process in this is if you have a large amount of water that's being held in storm water um you know after construction this is water that's not going where it naturally would have gone and so I'm a little concerned about what the consequences some of these are are very small Creeks um if that water is not getting to where it used to get uh what are the environmental consequences of that yeah it's a great question um all of the sediment basins from a civil storm water perspective are at the low spots within the disturbance areas so the water will naturally continue to flow where it otherwise would flow but during construction when there's disturbance you have a catch Basin that's a a civil BMP that once it fills up a quarter of the way with sediment

you come in and scoop it out and then the water will flow out of a tube the top once the permanent stabilization has taken and all the Deep rooted vegetation come in it'll be like at least a year after commercial operation that sediment Basin will be converted to a storm water runoff path into the creek where it otherwise would go you'll put rip wrap at the bottom of it and this is what the erosion sediment control and DEQ uh Provisions mandate and this is all part of all the design work that would take place and then it has to be followed to a te per this condition during construction C operation thank you very much thank you all right m z any other the questions yes sir Mr M so generally speaking I like everything about this but the major concern I have is the same one Mr Parker has which has also come up in casual conversation with other members which is if this is a exception to exception what does that do to the County's power long term in terms of controlling applications that don't fit into the count plan so I guess the question I have is for our counselor which is do you see any longterm pitfalls here for the county in controlling the overall growth per the top plan if we do approve an exception to an exception um Mr chairman the reason you the reason the ordinance requires a special exception is so that you all can take each one of these on a Case by case basis so that you can if you decide it

has Merit you can add conditions to mitigate anything that you think should be mitigated um it it actually is the absolute function and the purpose of a special exception so you have categories of land use that says you can do this by right and they don't have to come to the county and ask any permission for it then you have categories of land use where you have a special exception um special use permit that's what this falls under and it's under your A1 or A2 because those are your largest Parcels of land um that you potentially would utilize so in terms of setting a precedent the only the only thing I can see in terms of setting a precedent would be buffers um things like that stream Crossings the the actual mechanics and the the conditions and I mean I would tell you these are some of the best conditions I've ever seen and I've seen quite a few of these in the years that they've been doing them now and they they really have gone to Great l to to draft pretty stiff conditions yeah yeah it's it's I feel uh and just as as uh County attorney has said you know um an exception can be made it doesn't mean that that has to be done for the next applicant or that it has to be you take it Case by case uh the comprehensive plan is the only concern that I have regarding that but that was kind of an answer however I see nothing uh in their presentation that would warrant a denial that's just my feeling um and my thoughts on it um yes chairman Mr niely yes sir I'm just going to make a comment about the the concerns with

the special exceptions if we didn't want utility scale solar Farms to be in agricultural areas why did we allow them to even have a special exception in the table that says that they can apply for it we should have decided what we wanted to be allowed in these areas and not even give them the opportunity to go after a special exception if we did not want them in those areas we've kind of already cracked the door open with our ordinance that says these things you can come before this board to get a special exception in these areas if we don't want them we shouldn't have allowed that in the ordinance do not it you like the floor sir sure um M I think Mr mys was first then we'll go with Mr when just to speak on that comment when this came up there was a lot of talk this wasn't an easy like okay let's do it this was a okay if it really makes sense and it's very compelling I think our first look tonight to me was because I I'm not big on the solar farm idea it's marginal for the county taxwise it's marginal for the really the landowner is the one that's gaining and the company that's putting the solar farm in there there are tax breaks there it's very marginal for the county when you get down to it and and and so there was a yes and I think the first case tonight hey there's a there's a lot of land around it if they're not using that land around it I think I can do that this to me is is as Mr Kendrick said it's 24 solar Farms that we're approving that by the way have

transmission lines crisscrossing all over getting the Grid in between them and have neighbors all around them although the neighbor all of them does don't come out to the meetings we we have meetings about a lot of stuff some stuff hits a button and you get a lot of people some doesn't but you you have 24 solar firms you have a lot of land this is a huge project that we're looking at we look at runoff there is a disturbance to runoff and there will be a disturbance I it doesn't matter what you do you can log the property and you're going to have a disturbance in a lot of cases but they are not only are they logging it they're disturbing it for the for the for the solar farm also and in our when we made that exception we clearly said we don't want a clearcut land to put solar farms in that was a clear like that's a nogo there's we're not going to do it and now we're making an an exception to the noo and the exception and that's why that's why I said it was an exception to an exception to an exception in the beginning is because we had a noo in there and they have the no-o in there and they're they're saying don't worry about that we're going to continue to go um the runoff um the two miles was so we didn't have these things popping up on every piece of you know you go down Route three and every piece of property has a solar farm this is within two miles but we're considering it all one project so it's not it's separate pieces of land not connected to each other that are solar Farms within two miles which is another exception to the exception so you have that there was an uh somebody said something about poor soil the part of this that doesn't have trees on it a lot of had cattle on it for 50 years so I don't know what difference sheep are going to make compared to cattle I don't

know if there's something different in them but I don't see any difference so for for that I think there's enough for me to say this is a huge project I just I think we should start up with something like we did the first project and see what that does we've approved other projects nobody's ever built nobody's ever built you the to Mr Kendrick and then to miss um Denise okay couple of comments in an earlier presentation we were told that this project covered an area of approximately 19900 Acres um 890 of It Solar collectors out of that 890 590 Acres were going to be clear-cut in order to put the solar collectors in that's not an insignificant amount of forest that are area I don't care if it's scrub forest or anything else it's it's living trees that we're talking about cutting down and a question for our County attorney so question was raised why did we put industrial size solar Farms into our ordinance to begin with can we legally say no we're not having them in this County you got the floor sir I doubt it well that's probably more of a political question I I would not recommend that you come out with an absolute moratorium I don't think that would benefit anybody years years ago we were asked we we were asked by the Board of Supervisors to address adult facilities and we were told then that we could not say no to them but that we could write the ordinance in such a way that it would

make it difficult for one to come into the county I'm guessing and you're the lawyer here is that we couldn't have put into our ordinance that we will not allow an industrial size you know facility solar farm facility in the county I'm just guessing that with what little I know so that's why it's in there but we don't have to have a solar farm at all we in my opinion should what I heard the earlier comment start a little bit smaller get a little bit smarter just like we tried to do with the solar I mean the uh the data centers okay this one is just frakin huge it's not continuous it's it's just you know there's there's dipping your toe in and then there's diving into the ocean that's what I feel like we're doing herey you have the Floor come back to the idea that it is not consistent with our current comprehensive plan now if we want to rewrite the comprehensive plan which we're scheduled to do an update on here soon we can certainly address it then miss FL you have the floor okay so first of all this is probably one of the hardest decisions that I feel that have come across my plate and that is because it's the essence of of Planning Commission and Zoning is balancing what's best for the community balancing the rights of the land owners looking for economic development in our County and um but at the end of the day the number one thing that I think we put on every statement that we make is to preserve the rural character I think solar Farms are a little bit of a a unicorn because they're not entirely agricultural but they're not entirely uh industrial um my concern is that

the Shiloh district is our most rural District uh preserving that in its uh agricultural as in farming and and Forestry and hunting and fishing State uh is the most important part for me and that would override some of the other goals that we have for our County um the uh effect that this has on the surrounding Parcels are extremely numerous because there are so many connecting parcels and that sprawls out in a very disorganized way disorganized is another word that's used in our comprehensive plan we want our our development to be organized um I think that the percent of the land that's going to be grazed at any moment in time uh 5 to 10 acres I think it was no I'm sorry but the the percentage of the what's going to be grazed at one point in time is a small percentage of the entire uh project which makes it less agricultural in my mind um the people that want to do their Peach farming and their Agri tourism are directly affected by what it looks like to look at a field full of solar Farms um if I was go to a winery or a brewery or up in the mountains and I want to enjoy nature that's not what I want to look at so um although there's has been really hard and I think that the land owners have uh an opportunity here and I think if the project does go forward I think that um Ryan has been great and the the they're looking at some really important things but my conscience says that I would not be in favor you had the floor

sir development I'm sorry thank you um the the amount of canopy that has to be removed to affect this was my biggest objection I mean it just just you know scary amount of property and I think open road has come long ways in in pacing this out and um the recent study which I don't know if everyone has seen or understands um specifies how that how the phasing how much of that is Timber which would would be um cut anyway um and maybe replanted maybe not replanted or or maybe to to scrub I know Hunters use that land now but there's no shortage of huntable land out there um it's you know the fact that it is remote you know if if this was the last one we ever approved I'd be happy as could be I'd be fine unless we did something with the municipality um but if we're going to do one Dominion could buy that land and do it tomorrow we cannot ban utility scale solar we cannot ban utilities they can put a transmission line pretty much wherever they want they could buy a thousand acres and put up a thing I was part of the ordinance writing committee to address a specific issue is to give us a case by case

alternative not the set a precedent so that it wasn't by right so it would be a fight for anybody to come here and put in a clearcut project and that was one of the examples of what we did not want you know we didn't want a massive block a thousand you know 2,000 acre pot where you had to drive around and there's no fire trck path and we knew the things we didn't want um and as far as you know viewscape that was my second consideration it's not a widely viewed area it's not a a recreation destination it's not a BNB place um I think it can be and should be for AG Agri tourism um have you been to Vermont and seen the solar panels in The Hills Have You Been to Martha's Vineyard and see the the solar panels in the next million doll dnbs and Yacht Harbor um you you begin to not see them after a while you know you see the lamps um so you know I think it's consistent with with the comp plan um absolutely it's got concerns uh you know this is the last one we approve um that'd be fine by me but I I recommend approval thank you Mr car for your comments at this time I think we all have voiced our opinions our feel ings our views upon this project um um so at this point I'm going to close close you have the floor so I said generally speaking earlier the other part I don't like with aside from writing a foul account plan um though I do recognize why we put the

special exceptions in is the revenue that it generates to Mr Myers's point but if you look at and know what I pay in taxes right I I have three and a half ages not a ton of land um it would only take 300 homes to to generate that right [Music] so if we want to preserve the county in that area while guaranteeing Revenue we're kind of doing it with this type of project so that's all I have to say thank you sir all right the floor is now CL the uh comment our discussion period is now closed um I um I see no need uh to extend any any prolonged meetings any any longer meeting having them come back to present I I feel like we're ready for a vote um so I don't care where the motion comes from whether it be for or against but I need a motion and I need to be seconded Mr chairman yes sir I move that application z202 4184 Gibson solar special exception be denied motion's been made I second motion been seconded those are in favor by a show of hands approve this is in favor this is in favor in favor of the motion I'm sorry those who are in favor of denial raise your hand show off hands those in favor those in favor those opposed opposed I apologize opposed all

right all right what do we have no no no it didn't it was four to five yes that motion failed approv yes um for therefore it's approved no the motion for denial failed so now the right thing would be for someone to make a motion in the other way it is I make a motion to approve the solar Gibson I mean the solar uh project please use okay there's specific language in the motion where is it yep I move to adopt resolution number pc01 d25 to forward application z-2 24- 00184 to the King George County Board of Supervisors with a favorable recommendation a further move that the Planning Commission finds a project to be in substantial Accord with the comprehensive plan motion's been made motion's been seconded those who are in agreements with that motion show up hands hands down those who oppose motion's been made and it carries thank you okay

yeah but I get the thing gets me as people get them just a minute this gonna look like the thing gets me as people nobody here lives in a geological so it's just aous argum say I don't want to e uh we have any have any no business next is new business so it's a presentation application for z-20 24- 00239 tww TRW Marine uh Whitaker resoning application your wishes come contri good evening and thank you uh my name is Taylor Whitaker I'm joined tonight uh by Larry Wellford he's my engineer on the project um so obviously I don't have much time but I'll give you a quick

overview um so I just retired from the Navy uh Commander uh retired this summer after 23 years and I've always been a huge fisherman uh I love I love being in the outdoors I love angling um and I have um put my savings into a piece of property that's right outside the dog gate if this works here we go we're almost there um I'll keep going me in the business so uh service disabled venerate owned um over the past three years I've been making um fishing tackle with my boys I have two sons I have one that's 14 and one that's 11 um and we live we liveed in presidential Lakes over behind the uh well behind the fire department and uh yeah they helped me make fishing tackle and we sell it at the local farmers market we lived here since about 2019 we moved here from overseas um and I I'm from San Diego but I really fell in love with this land between the two rivers and so I spread my roots here um this is where I want to finish where I can raising my boys let them go to college and uh you know hopefully God will and grow old here um but this is this is an investment opportunity for me for me is what I'm trying to express um I've sunk what I have into this property and uh it's a chance for me to pursue my passion um I love boats um boats is kind of you know it's for some people you know they're they're big motorcycle lovers and they're really into their but I'm really into my votes uh don't get me wrong I'm really into tackle too but um I really like boats a lot um right now I have a a verbal with um with Yamaha Motors Yamaha actually owns skeer boats so it's actually the same company um in

this area there's not a whole lot of Yamaha representation everything's Mercury out here Mercury outwards um if you look at May um and a lot of the places that are over at Lake Anna it's all Mercury out here don't get me wrong uh I have mercury right now I've had actually three of them my last Motors were all Mercury um but there's I do in the military we had Yamahas and I actually really like y um not the point point is um this is an opportunity for me to do what I love and and to make a living doing it and hopefully pass it on to my kids um just a few pictures there um on the far right that that is the type of boat I'm looking to sell um these are bass boats these are um yes it's a luxury item kind of a um they're expensive um but the size range typically between uh maybe 18 feet up to probably the biggest would be about 21 feet they're freshwater intended uh they're not really salt watercraft um they move fast they look good and uh and they're they're fun to fun to Tinker with um so some orientation here parcel number SE nine Tac 76 so what you're seeing there in the in the bottom right that's um it's obviously part of doen benan road is bate um across the street from bate you have a sheets and then you have the new new Ford dealership that is a cross 301 from me um the site I forgive me I could have made this a little bigger um I'm going to go ahead and hit that uh once I hit these points so the site acreage is 2.39 Acres it's currently R1 it is in the commercial development forgive me I'm probably Butch butchering that but it's in the comprehensive plan it's in a Development Area uh commercial Development Area um we're looking to go C2 with it so that

we can do equipment sales um some light repair for boats and then um retail I think I've covered everything on that all right this is a little bit better um so I've got two roads that go kind of sandwich my property um James medicon Parkway 301 and uh pomac drive that goes right to the now barricaded off um vgate in the mornings well from 9: to 5 um I'm looking to do two two buildings there one is a flex commercial space that can serve two purposes I'm not sure which one I want to go with really um but it'll either serve as a um multi-use like Flex office space for perhaps a contract company that's coming into doen that needs a space that's right next to a gate um ideal location for a contract company bringing its employees employees in that win a contract or um um turning that into retail space um so five individual retail stores um what I mean by Flex commercial space is it's not rigid and bricked in um it's it's modular you could you can move around how you need to if if a facility wants two of the spaces they could take two right it's not completely walled off um and then the other location or the other building on there is a boat showroom with uh some service BAS the rest would be parking and uh storm water management which is right sort of behind the flex commercial space box there's a storm water management area um where have we gone from this uh with this I app I got with my Engineers back in um in the fall of

2023 right just before I got out of the military um in April of 2024 we did our um informal meeting uh to discuss the project and we learned we had an issue with the dot um they own both the roads and anyways long story short took about a year but V do gave us an exception um so that we can have the 301 entrance because of the closure on ptoc drive that wasn't going to let my customers come between nine and five when I'm open so we were able to get a an exemption for that um and right now um the latest um wouldn't wouldn't really call it an ISS an issue but it was more of an awareness thing that needed to be discussed was with uh Mr Young and it was regarding the um the current status of the dogr water supply line out there uh he was saying there there's some issues with u being able to provide you the water that you would need and I I told him I I completely understand that thank you for letting me know but when I get close to a site plan proposal I I think that'll be really relevant right now not so much the case um like I said I've already dumped my life savings into this um it's going to be a little bit before I can afford buildings to go up on this so this is where you know my my second job now Contracting is definitely saving money to be able to to find a down payment for services here and and get things built um gentlemen that's all I have for you floor is open for your questions for me and uh I'm going to be quiet all right uh the floor has opened I think um Miss flattery has requested the floor you you done the floor ma' just one quick question remind me how

that Road is closed and what hours and what direction my only concern I think is that some people are going to use your parking lot to try to go around traffic so let me go back a slide adjacent to me um to um if you go up and to the right there's two buildings right there I believe one is a Century 21 and another one is Lakeside title um they actually have two exits out onto the 301 and one entrance off of pomac drive and that is before the barricade yes that's going into to the gate so I understand your concern but I don't necessarily think they would have to choose mine um they have some other options yeah I could see how that would maybe be an issue um that's maybe something I can discuss with V Dot but I don't know that's much I was just trying to get a refresher on my memory about how that closure would affect you and also obviously not wanting people to uh to just use the cut through I don't I don't think you're saying that there's already a cut through is that what that dotted lines are I go I go through there all the time and so if you go down the pomac road towards bate the the the base has put a gate that blocks you from going towards bate you can turn at the stoplight turn like you're going to bate and turn a right and come back towards his his property but you cannot go the other other way and it's only during the base hours I think it's from 6: to 5 but don't quote me on exactly those hours there's a oh here there

is okay 5:30 a.m to 5:00 P PM I was close and he's correct they already cut through that other parking lot between the title company and the uh real estate so my question is would you your your lot would most likely have some type of barrier or some type of fence around it for security to to protect your $100,000 boats am I correct absolutely okay that's what I figure um and um I just want to ask you look a couple questions about your product because I am a fisherman as well okay go ahead um SK sker boats sker boats okay no not not Ranger right no no uh so allh River Marine Group um um boats so you're talking your Rangers your Nitros um I believe they own Triton as well and they've got a whole bunch of other names that they that all fall under White River M they don't want to induce their own internal competition and there's a lot of places out here that sell White River Marine Group boats so if you're within I wanted to say if you're within 50 miles it's a I'm not even cons it no yeah because we already have people there selling our product yeah you you've got Bass Pro and unfortunately no Ranger Ranger makes a nice boat my buddy just bought a 21f footer and it is gorgeous aluminum aluminum boat as well so and the aluminums yep yeah all right sure you have the floor sir before before us is just to rezone the property to C2 it's not to approve a site plan or anything or particular use it's just make it to that's what you're asking that's what I'm asking and this is the proposed PL sir when are you anticipating actually starting construction if it's

reson um I couldn't answer that right now I I can tell you what my um my income is right now but I'd rather not um it's unfortunately it it's a little bit of a slow process all ballar wasin a year maybe probably looking more like it's it's I would love it if we could break Ed two years but we're probably looking at a 5year plan okay all right I was honest that's a little urgent in your mind to accomplish this resoning for it's certainly a first step um so e even talking with um trying to get a verbal agreement with Yamaha um when I explained the the property that I do own that I project to be a usable footprint for Yamaha Services uh if if it's residential it's um I I haven't even begun the process if you know what I mean so in if I may yes sir I'm generally not a real big fan of rezoning in advance of something and if he if he was really serious about starting in the next year wouldn't have a big issue here but I wouldn't question it serious once we rezone it anything can go in there yeah yeah I agree with that I wouldn't question it seriousness I think he's he's as he said he's dumped his his life savings into it um but it's it's like um you have I think what my my fellow commissioner saying is um when you're a little more ready would we be uh more in position to to consider uh the reone is that fair to say please may yes sir I just and I'm Larry

wford just just for perspective I work with a lot of clients that that do this what's very unique about Taylor is that he already owns this property it's bought it's bought and it's in his name most clients that are trying to do speculative resoning they don't own it they buy it after it's rezoned he's already done it he's got a huge commitment in this prop property because it's the right location to sell what he wants to sell and there aren't any other locations along here that that really work very well for him so I would say that's one thing the other is and I would suggest conditions usually um one of the restrictions is that it has to be developed in accordance with the generalized development plan so when the resoning comes through there's a GDP is that a condition that you generally put in you could offer that as a profer since this is a rezoning not a special exception right so when you do that that should take away your concerns because then it has to be developed in general conformance with that plan or the plan that you approved and Al also sir once we reone C can we reone and have restrictions on it so that it reverts back for inance two years is a long time and and I appreciate what he's trying to do but you know if things don't go the way he expects you know we live in a weird world right now all right do we have a concern that that's an area that we don't want to be commercial wait a minute anyway a comprehensive plan right below the parking lot that strip is all residential running down that what's no no actually I'm looking

at gentlemen just a minute um I think you had a question or you want you making a point no I was just curious to you know there's there's four Lots there that are joined to 301 in the middle of things that are already zoned commercial I don't I don't have an issue with that okay I'm just saying is that you know as a general practice and I'm only speaking for myself here as a general practice you know if you give up the Zone rezoning if you give up the power of rezoning you don't have any control over what happens to the property he owns it now let's say 18 months from now something horrible happens to his finances and he decides to sell the property if we've already rezoned it does it carry it does yes will we can't once it's reson we can't just go in and say oh no you can't sell it cuz he'll own a piece of commercial property then I own commercial property in the county that I never plan to have because it's well it's already commercial he's asking us to to reone it I in an area that's in an area in an area that our comprehensive plan is supposed to be commercial so um Kelly if if you if you don't mind asking the question the question question which is is there any provision that we could put in to say hey we'll reone it under the conditions that it's developed within this certain amount of time and it goes back to um C2 no once it's changed they'd have to come back to have it changed again in the same process of public hearings whether it's up Zone down Zone zoning is very well okay all right I I have a couple of questions the interpersonal connector

by the sign that says entrance location is that a house that goes to no um yes sir it is it is a house okay yeah sorry maybe I don't answer is yes it is and the reason that's there is because vot is not going to allow any more entrances till they go another 400 feet so we have to make access provision to those sites that you're talking about that will eventually develop commercially they will have to share our entrance okay what's currently on the location what's vacant it's vacant it was a house that's been removed okay what's the Box in front of the parking lot it was intended to be boat display okay okay like a a boat dealership with boats out your the street but it it is going next to a house and it was a house that those people thought a house was next door when they purchased it I'm sorry I said the the in parcel connector does go to a house and the person that owns that house had a house next door when they purchased the property correct okay I presume that's the house the house by entrance location is vacant the house that was remov yes there was a house next door I think it's oh no my house not on so you got sanitary District's got a that's right then if you go down next all right so so for tonight's purpose I think this was just more informational if I'm correct okay all right so um we've got plenty of time um between uh an actual

request and any action taken on our on our part is that correct well as far as um their Readiness for public hearing and this is something I can talk to them about um separately it's ready it could go at any time so their application's been complete it's been reviewed um it could possibly be scheduled for your next meeting so can discuss that and I we you and we can discuss that okay all right uh is there any other burning questions from the um committee Mr chair yes sir you have the floor uh I just want to say I am very supportive of non-fr franchise operated businesses run by County residents um we great deal of support for that and good luck to you in your in your project thank you sir all right thank you all right with that I am thank you sir thank you so much appreciate all of you thank you all right that will close and conclude any all new business uh next is the staff reports by director uh if you have anything Kelly we have an action required for this at all no sir No not tonight just schedule a public hearing or anything yes sir that's St to my discre thank you thank you yes ma'am yeah if you have any questions just let me know it's the same director's report edited after tonight's meeting okay all right so uh next is the um committee reports um Sean do you have any any any the report nope okay uh first 19th okay very well all right M com the zoning ordinance text amendments yeah formed formed a special committee

yeah so all right next is uh the the commission reports the only thing that um I uh have to report or or request or recommend is that we do a review of the um um I'm trying to say here compant thank you um so uh we need to come up with a a date I guess uh as to what would be convenient for us to do this uh so the floor is open any suggestions So Paid consultant we could have some direction beforehand um so I think basically we're asking who is uh available and committed to meeting between meetings it is so are we putting the cart before the horse because what we've done and again what we've done in the past is we've held public meetings comments from the res of the county what do they want yeah this is a heavy lift and then we come in and we sort through that and then we start based on their input to us start formulating comprehensive plan I think I think it's more so it's not for us to look to make a lot of changes with it it's more to un I think um to review it and understand it and to know what's in it um because I think it's only been what one two three four of us who sit on the board who developed it to where it is now everyone else is new everybody have a copy of it yeah yeah so that I think that is the

the intent of it now correct me if I'm wrong or if I'm I'm way off so we so we want to then meet to deep dive into it to see what what is it that we want to do so I think to do a preliminary review okay before any changes are made okay so that we can identify beforehand what we think because first of all the comp plan has to doesn't have to be changed every 5 years has to be reviewed so if we start reviewing it uh with the intent that one once we find some things that we think would be beneficial to change then we would have the professionals to come in and help with uh the public uh input and stuff like that sell sell it I but I'm not saying sell our idea but I'm saying that we would be able to have some some Focus points before this Consultants come in that we know that we think are important gives us the chance to lead do we solicit do we solicit the public to come to I don't no generally there's Community meetings scheduled multiple ones around the county different areas different times yeah the contractor in the past has collected all that data given it given it to us and then we sort of decide how to proceed on it if you want to just get together and have a discussion about maybe what are some of the areas that have snagged Us in the last couple of years and maybe are open to change but you know I've done three of them I think now and basically they tend to roll with minor

changes not huge on had some they redid the development areas pretty significantly you know so I mean I don't have a problem with that I think I think we're in a weak position it's mandated that we review it every five years so I think we're in a weak position to try to defend the current plan when it hasn't been reviewed within five years so maybe a logical thing would be to renew the plan and guess I just don't understand what we're renw not review renew just say okay we've we reviewed it we look at it and there's no change it's approved that way next year in the budget we get the contractors and we then we we do overhaul next year so I missed some of that it was the the there's just nothing in the budget to contract out for this but we knew it was coming well there wasn't a full-blown comp plan update I think that was thought about um the last couple years budgets um to review it every five years wouldn't cost us anything so if out of the review come changes that yall want to start making that's when we would have to put in the budget to have some help with it want to a meeting with the Board of Supervisors to hear their comments before we review it in my mind I don't know how much the whole thing needs to be revamped but we obviously have new um infrastructure going in I think it's important to include that infrastructure and figure out what we're going to do with it what we can't do with it um I think that you know we have some ideas and goals to preserve uh the rural character we can

do some of that with the comp plan it doesn't have to be um done you know with uh be minor tweaks yeah minor tweaks so I think to have a consensus of what's important to us and whether maybe we're going to sit down and decide whether or not it needs to be changed or it just needs to be reviewed um I I feel like it needs to be updated with uh because if we are already changing it through the last Data Center and the next project that wants us to change it then I think it needs to be looked at reviewed and possibly updated chair yes sir you have the floor yeah I agree with with the vice um the the key issues that need to be updated are the settlement areas the now that the utility laay down is becoming clearer in the future plans for utility in the settlement areas we also have a strong anti- density bias in the existing um plan that I think needs to be Revisited um yeah get together and you want to get together and discuss the individual things that we all have little issues with no no we get a list of of issues that we've identified of possible concern which we bring to consultants if we use them or the board or our own homegrown public meetings and put questions to the public I mean to invite the public say talk to me about comp plan how many of them have I mean you know what what major Direction changes are we

contemplating or or it gives us a chance to validate whether it's a an issue or not that I bet a lot of them don't think about key settlement areas if they're not landholders or developers but the traffic I mean how 's Drive got to be 's Drive yeah intervention is just insane Okay so so at this point on at this point I think um it's just a matter of proposing a date uh we will send out the invite if you feel that strongly that you don't want to participate I mean I I can't force anyone to come um but I want to at least propose that date um um and I'm I'm open for any dates or any recommendations for those no no no this is just a working session uh and and and we will limit it to two hours does it have to be public we can't we can't preclude two three or more are together it's a meeting so what you would be doing per your bylaws and setting a special a special meeting aside from your regular meetings to discuss the comprehensive plan okay can we put a time limit oh sure sure right yeah two hours is is that or hour and a half and we can even decide it later I mean unless you want to right now but is a motion required or is this just a a decision that we're making say again is a motion required if you're going to have a special meeting yes yep okay um do we have to know the date and time for a motion I would think so yes then you want have to make another one what's available yeah I'm assum you'd want to do it here um it would have to be at

nighttime probably I assume I mean we can put out a poll or something to what's available like the when the room's available not off hand no I'd have to look this I don't think it's an urgent matter uh yeah you could throw out some ideas for me to look at you know within the next two months I mean with this other subcommittee we got come and that's going to be another meeting too look at sometime in um April so since we can't email each other could you throw some dates out to us please a great idea y I can buy and copy everyone okay perfect that's good any days of the week you want to either avoid or not Friday that would be good okay one of the mid one of the middays Tuesday Wednesday Thursday THS okay okay all right in April got it all right guys thank you all right um other future business um April 8th public hearing items this is going to be part of our meeting that we'll have um to discuss these for sure and there but right now what we do have available uh under old business for April 8th we're going to have to take action on the davis hill special exception from tonight we already had the public hearing for public hearing we can take um the public hearing up for Mr Whitaker's project that he just it's ready so whether or not they're in a big hurry or not we can ask them and then I I can tell you that the green energy Ventures data center is ready to go so they would like their public Hearing in April which I'm Sor which one is that is that the one 301 or the one on Route three the one on Route three okay yes so that'd be

three public hearing in one meeting well that's the thing yeah it would be action on Old business which is not a public hearing so that could be relatively quick that's for the for the first solar project we heard tonight and then for possible public hearings the green energy Ventures and the TRW Marine resoning from tonight say again yeah I think it depends on the amount of public you know public comment too but yeah I mean I wouldn't want to put anything else maybe not even those three or those two public hearings I mean we can think about that for sure can we not have a presentation that night if can we just do PR like hearings and not have a information session on anything yeah yep it would be yet one old business item and possibly two public hearings yeah I agree Chris it' be nice to just get just what are the changes since the last time you presented you know the data center fol have been here multiple times right they're tired of presenting to us just say did you make any changes we'll get public comments we'll take of action yeah and and and as long as we're not coming up with multiple question or new questions you know um I think we'll be fine as long as they can address the ones that we've already presented right yeah all right tiny side okay one point of order I don't know if this makes sense to anybody else but that PDF file is so big when it gets emailed it's very difficult to handle at least on this Chromebook that I got would it like if we get like presentations from them could we just break those out or does it have to be in one file or do you guys agree even on my I can't use this one anymore it's like I want one like you well that's my own yeah I'm getting one yeah I if if there is a suggestion there was a tremendous amount of

information in the packet today that was really really detailed minutia that we never went through maybe we maybe we separate that information from the actual presentation files to so that they're more manageable file sizes this was 350 Pages wor right because I couldn't I couldn't even open it I couldn't even open it I mean I eventually came it eventually came but yeah presentations and your minutes and the agenda and the primary things that we see could be I think that's how I got it and then supporting data might be a second file okay since we're not going to go over it in the meeting that's before we come to the meeting reading yeah let me I will talk to the it about a better way to get it out I mean I know we have to put it all out there for the public through two files yeah and then it's manageable here in the meeting okay seen Year all right uh Mr chair yes sir can I make a motion to adjourn absolutely Mo motion has been made and seconded meeting's adjourned we got to vote all in favor oh all in favor there you go congratulations thank you good man good contact I'm just