Overview:
• The Fayetteville Public Works Commission plans a nearly 5 megawatt solar farm off Ramsey Street
• Efforts by neighbors to stop it have been stymied
• The city council voted 8-1 to approve it
The Fayetteville City Council voted 8-1 on Monday to approve zoning that the Fayetteville Public Works Commission needs to build a solar farm off Ramsey Street.
Neighboring residents and property owners had been trying to stop the solar farm for months. They said it would be a bad fit for the area, increase risks for flooding during major storms, and is contrary to long-term plans to expand Carvers Creek State Park in the community.
The solar farm is to cost about $9.5 million and generate 4.875 megawatts of power, the PWC has previously said. It’s planned for 42 acres on Carvers Falls Road, in north Fayetteville and across the street from the ZipQuest Waterfall & Treetop Adventure Park (whose owners have led the fight against the project). The plans include a 100-foot buffer of trees and additional dense foliage to screen the solar panels and related equipment from view.
Carvers Falls on Carvers Creek, said to be the biggest waterfall in eastern North Carolina, is about 1,200 to 1,300 feet from the border of the solar farm site. The PWC has operated an electrical substation at the site for nearly 13 years.
The solar farm opponents had success in May when the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners rejected a PWC rezoning request for the project.
In August, the PWC negated the county’s decision by persuading the Fayetteville City Council to annex the solar farm site into the city limit. The annexation pulled the property out of the county’s control for land use planning and zoning and into the city’s control. But then the Fayetteville Zoning Commission in a 3-1 vote on Sept. 15 recommended denying the request.
In the city council’s 8-1 vote in favor of the solar farm on Monday, Council Member and mayoral candidate Mario Benavente voted “nay.”
Voting yes: Mayor Mitch Colvin (who is running for reelection); Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Keefe Jensen (who is running for mayor, and the solar farm would be in her district); Council Members Courtney Banks-McLaughlin (who is running for mayor), Brenda McNair, Deno Hondros, D.J. Haire and Derrick Thompson.
Council Member Malik Davis was absent.
PWC’s arguments for solar
“North Carolina back in 2007 established a Renewable Energy Portfolio standard that requires PWC to deliver at least 10% of our energy from renewable sources. And that’s why we’re building this solar at this location,” PWC CEO Tim Bryant told the city council during a public hearing on the zoning request.
The PWC needs 25 megawatts of solar energy generation to meet the state’s renewable energy requirement, he said. It has five solar farms — some planned and some in operation — that will generate 17 megawatts, he said.
Bryant said the farm offers other benefits, including:
- PWC-operated solar farms reduce the utility’s dependence on Duke Energy, saving money for customers. The PWC buys most of its power from Duke and resells it to customers.
- By generating renewable energy with its own solar farms, the PWC won’t need to purchase renewable energy credits from other companies in order to comply with North Carolina’s 10% Renewable Energy Portfolio regulation. “Right now, PWC is spending about $2 million per year to comply with the REP standard because we don’t have enough solar on the ground to meet that 10% threshold,” he said.
- The farm will be eligible for a 30% federal tax credit, worth about $3 million.
- With the farm there for at least 30 years, the property won’t be developed into residential use, and it won’t generate traffic or noise, or nighttime lights. (When the property was still in the county’s jurisdiction, it could have been developed into 261 homes, county documents said.)
Neighbors say ‘no’
Ed Badgett, who lives near the site and operates a golf driving range across the road from it, said he worries that the solar farm will exacerbate the area’s poor drainage, especially during massive rainstorms like those seen during Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
“It’s flat land. It’s just flat as flat can be. There is no runoff. It just hits and stays,” Badgett said. The farm plans include four stormwater retention ponds, which are intended to capture rainwater and mitigate flooding of nearby properties. Badgett said he doesn’t have confidence they will work.
William Vick said he has lived on Carvers Falls Road for 24 years, and he served on a county land use planning committee for the area. The plan calls for the property to be open space, Vick said, so it should be closed to any development.
“You take the land, you keep it in its natural habitat, you don’t do anything with it,” he said.
“This property is rural, residential and recreational,” said Callan Bryan, who co-owns ZipQuest with his brother Russ. “This has been planned to be a green corridor for a long time.”
ZipQuest and Carvers Falls (which is in the ZipQuest park) are a major tourist destination in Cumberland County, Bryan said, “and this project is going to be the first thing that they see when they come in.”
While the PWC has altered its original plans to add screening and buffering, Bryan said he thinks they will be inadequate.
Aftermath
The opponents said they were disappointed by the city council’s vote.
“I think it says a lot negative about a land use plan that a lot of us spent time working on,” Vick said. “It says, ‘We won’t follow that. We’ll do what we want.’”
Bryant, the PWC CEO, issued a statement to CityView via email on Tuesday.
“I want to thank the Mayor and City Council for their action last night in approving the Carvers Falls Solar Farm zoning appeal that directly benefits over 86,000 residents of Fayetteville who are PWC customers,” he said. “Additionally, I would like to thank the Bryan Family and all our neighbors along Carvers Falls Road for communicating their long-standing commitment to conservation.
“PWC will do its part to continue to make this area an eco-friendly tourist destination by buffering the solar farm from passersby in every way. PWC is committed to being a great neighbor, while also keeping rates among some of the lowest in the State and we appreciate the Council supporting our efforts.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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