A plan by the Fayetteville Public Works Commission to place a 5-megawatt solar farm off Ramsey Street was stymied on Monday when the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners rejected a rezoning request.
The PWC wants to build its fourth solar farm on 45 acres at 430 Carvers Falls Road, near the Zipquest Waterfall & Treetop Adventure Park. Although the City of Fayetteville owns the property, it is just outside the city limit.
The PWC, which is owned by the City of Fayetteville, provides electricity to more than 83,000 homes, businesses and other customers in Fayetteville and the surrounding area. It buys most of its electricity wholesale from Duke Energy Progress and resells the power to its customers. It also generates electricity from its solar farms and from a natural gas powered plant just outside of Eastover on the east side of the Cape Fear River.
“We are disappointed by the County Commissioner’s vote last night,” Tyler C. Patton, the PWC’s chief communications officer, said in an email to CityView on Tuesday. “With additional communication, commissioner concerns could have been resolved BEFORE a final vote was taken. Most importantly, the Commissioner’s vote means potential higher power costs and rates for all our electric customers.”
The PWC is reviewing its options on what to do next, Patton said.
Construction of the $9.5 million project would have employed more than 100 people, he said, and the PWC was going to hire a local contractor and subcontractors. “Delaying the project so that it’s completed after 2025 will risk the ability of PWC to leverage federal tax credits that are up to 30% of construction costs,” he said.
Neighboring property owner opposes the solar farm
The land for the proposed solar farm is zoned “PND,” or “planned neighborhood development.” Under that classification, up to 261 homes could be built on the site, but a solar farm is not allowed, according to the county zoning code and documentation attached to the PWC’s request.
The PWC requested the land be changed to “A1,” an agricultural classification. Solar farms are allowed on land with an A1 zoning designation, the zoning code says.
The property already has an electrical substation, David Deschamps, the PWC’s director of engineering, told the commissioners during a public hearing on the rezoning request.
The solar farm would help the PWC meet regulations to reduce air pollution, he said, and it would help the PWC mitigate future electricity rate increases.
Trees and shrubbery planted around the site would hide the solar farm from view from the surrounding streets, said engineer Bradley Martin of Booth & Associates, the PWC’s consulting engineering firm for the project. The PWC planned to complete construction and start using the solar farm in January, he said.
Zipquest owner Russ Bryan, whose family also owns land across the street from the proposed solar farm site, spoke against the PWC’s request. His family preserved Carver’s Falls, he said, a waterfall on the Zipquest property that is a natural feature and attraction in Cumberland County.
The solar farm site is across the road from property that is intended to become state park property, Bryan said.
“Zipquest and my family have preserved that land for over 65 years,” he said. “To clear-cut 45 acres of trees to power another 800 homes — maybe 1,000 if it’s sunny — it’s not a lot, right? And it’s a lot of trees that are gonna go down.”
The trees soak up rainwater, Bryan said, and he predicted that if they are removed, rainwater will run off the PWC’s land onto his land.
Deschamps and Martin disagreed. They said the site would be engineered so less water would run off.
“There’s going to be a 20% reduction in water runoffs,” Deschamps said.
Patton with the PWC told CityView on Tuesday that the project would have a dry retention pond to capture rainwater runoff.
Bryan asserted that electrical equipment associated with the solar panels would be noisy.
Martin said the noise level at one of the PWC’s other solar farms (which began operating in April) is 51 decibels. According to the Environmental Health and Safety office at Yale University, a household refrigerator generates about 55 decibels.
Patton told CityView the equipment makes a low hum, and there have been no noise complaints at its other solar operations.
Two votes to reject the solar farm
Commissioner Pavan Patel made a motion to approve the PWC’s solar farm zoning request.
It failed on a 3-4 vote. Commissioners Patel, Henry Tyson and Marshall Faircloth voted in favor. Commissioners Chair Kirk deViere, Vice Chair Veronica Jones, and Commissioners Glenn Adams and Jeannette Council voted against the solar farm.
Adams then made a motion to deny the PWC’s request. He said the solar farm will not fit with the county’s land use plan for that area, there would be issues with noise, and the plans shown to the commissioners did not include a retention pond to capture stormwater.
Adams’ motion passed 5-2, with Faircloth switching sides for this vote from approving the solar farm rezoning to disapproving it.
Adams, Faircloth, deViere, Council and Jones voted to reject the solar farm. Tyson and Patel voted not to reject it.
Tyson and Patel are Republicans. DeViere, Council, Jones, Adams and Faircloth are Democrats.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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