County’s first utility-scale solar project heads to BZA vote with recommendation for approval

Questions still loom ahead of crucial hearing Wednesday for Rainbow Trout Solar, looking to take in 1,700 acres in western Tippecanoe County. Nearly 400 pages of objections filed by neighbors, others

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COUNTY’S FIRST UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR PROJECT HEADS TO BZA VOTE WITH RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL

Rainbow Trout Solar Project, a 1,700-acre proposal that would be Tippecanoe County’s first industrial-scale solar installation, will go to the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals this week with a recommendation from the county’s planning staff that the 120-megawatt arrays and a decommissioning plan that could be 40 years away meet the technical tests of county zoning codes written in 2021.

Even then, the project from developers Geenex and RWE Clean Energy came with a few conditions and caveats about the sheer scope of the solar project and what a win for the companies would be, in a staff report released Friday by the Area Plan Commission ahead of a pivotal and controversial vote Wednesday night.

(Photo: Unsplash)

“This is the first project of this scale in the county; no other single project has encompassed this much acreage,” the APC staff report said, laying out that Rainbow Trout’s agriculturally zoned property represented 0.77% of Tippecanoe County’s 222,136 total acres.

“It is possible to also argue that should this project be successful, other solar projects would be interested in locating in the county, taking further land out of crop production,” the APC staff report read. “At what point would we reach an untenable level of non-tillable land? While staff does not believe this project would tip those scales, BZA members should take this into consideration as we contemplate this and additional requests.”

That said, the staff report also concluded: “If climate science is to be believed, the time to invest in renewable energy was more than a decade ago. As a nation, indeed as stewards of this planet, we must look further ahead than the next 5-10 years. Some sacrifices now, i.e. cropland, will have a much longer-term positive impact to the world in the future by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.”

The documents released Friday also do more than hint at the protest swelling against the special zoning exception that is among the requirements for construction of the project that stretches for miles from near Division Road to close to Montmorenci, along Jackson Highway.

Nearly 400 pages of letters – two writers in favor and 70 against – give a preview of some of the arguments the neighbors opposing the project have said they plan to lay out in detail during Wednesday’s BZA hearing.

A decision on whether the Rainbow Trout project qualifies for a special zoning exception that allows it to move closer to construction will be up to the Board of Zoning Appeals, a seven-member, quasi-judicial body appointed by Lafayette, West Lafayette and county officials to review matters ranging from variances on setback requirements for sheds, limits on building heights and conditions for transient guest houses/Airbnbs.