Zoning Commission clouds outlook for north Fayetteville solar farm

Prospects for a north Fayetteville solar farm off Ramsey Street brightened in August with a city council vote in its favor, then dimmed again on Monday night when the city’s Zoning Commission rejected a rezoning request for the project.

But the Fayetteville City Council could save the controversial project by voting for it next Monday after a public hearing.

The Fayetteville Public Works Commission wants to build a 4.875-megawatt solar farm at 430 Carvers Falls Road. The site is near the interchange of Ramsey Street and Interstate 295, and across the street from the ZipQuest Waterfall & Treetop Adventure Park.

The PWC — the city-owned electric utility that provides power to Fayetteville and surrounding areas — says the solar farm would help it generate some of its own electricity instead of purchasing it. The PWC buys most of its power from Duke Energy Progress, and it also has to meet a government mandate to obtain some power from solar sources, engineer David Deschamps told the Zoning Commission on Monday.

If the PWC doesn’t generate its own solar power, it has to buy it from the open market, he said, which would be more expensive for the utility and its customers.

This solar farm would supply about 1% of the city’s demand for electricity, Deschamps said.

Neighboring property owners are trying to stop the Carvers Falls Road solar farm. Among them are the Bryan family, which owns ZipQuest.

The Bryans and other neighbors said the solar farm would be a bad fit for the community and incompatible with long-term plans for Carvers Creek State Park to expand nearby.

“This area has been envisioned as the crown jewel of all three parts of that state park,” said Callan Bryan.

The opponents asserted the solar farm’s equipment would generate unpleasant sound. They also said the removal of trees and installation of solar panels will cause rainwater to run off the property, exacerbating flooding during major storms.

Resident Ed Badgett said the PWC should build solar farms elsewhere, such as at the PWC’s headquarters on Old Wilmington Road.

“Why don’t you put the solar panels on top of the buildings, not destroy any land?” he said. He suggested putting solar panels over parking lots to provide covered parking. 

The PWC is not allowed to build the solar farm until the city sets a zoning classification on the land that permits solar farms.

The Zoning Commission voted 3-1 against the PWC’s request. Commissioners Kevin Hight, Roger Shah and Justin Herbe voted against the solar farm; Commissioner Phillip McCorquodale voted in favor.

The Zoning Commission’s decisions are not final, and are passed along as recommendations to the Fayetteville City Council. The city council has scheduled its own hearing on the matter for this coming Monday.

The PWC is tracking the situation.

“We are currently reviewing the decision of the zoning commission and will consider all options to move forward with this important renewable energy project that will help reduce the amount of energy we need to purchase while also meeting state mandates,” Chief Communications Officer Tyler C. Patton said in an email on Wednesday.

Back-and-forth battle

The PWC opened its first solar farm in October 2019 next to its natural gas powered electricity generation plant in the Eastover area. The PWC has since built two more solar farms in Cumberland County. The Carvers Falls Road farm would be its fourth.

Plans for the Carvers Falls Road solar farm hit a major setback in May when the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners in a 3-3 vote, with one commissioner absent, failed to approve a rezoning request that the PWC needed to build the farm.

While the property already belongs to the city, it was outside the city limits.

To circumvent the county commissioners, the PWC in August persuaded the Fayetteville City Council to annex the 40.54-acre site. The city council vote was 7-0, with three of the 10 council members absent. This took the property out of the county’s zoning jurisdiction and into the city’s.

But the property still doesn’t have a zoning classification that will allow the solar farm. The PWC has asked the city to set a conditional community commercial zoning classification, with mandates that it would only be used for a major utility, and that it would be surrounded by a 100-foot buffer of trees.

Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.

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