Grundy County Board approves special-use permit for Dupont River Solar farm

The Grundy County Board on July 9 approved another solar farm in Norman Township, although the plan didn’t pass unanimously.

The Dupont River Solar farm will be run by Cypress Creek Renewable, and it’ll be placed on 36 acres of land owned by Mark Hansen.

Land Use Director Heidi Miller said Cypress Creek expects that work on the solar farm will start at the end of this year or early in 2025 after completing a storm water review.

“The actual plan itself will be developed under the site development permit review process that follows the County Board approval,” Miller said. “It’s during that time that the engineer looks at the plan, makes sure its compliant, and looks at the value and says it’s accurate. Then the county looks at it after to make sure the actual bond is correct.”

Miller said everything was submitted to government agencies, and Cypress Creek sent a notification to parcel owners within 500 feet. The project received opposition at the June 18 board meeting, but the Zoning Board of Appeals still made a positive recommendation on a split vote, with the majority finding that the project met every requirement to move forward.

Board Chairman Chris Balkema asked Miller whether the project followed the new guidelines created in June, but Miller said the guidelines were developed after the petition was put forth in October. Projects that started before the guidelines were put into place are not required to follow them, although Miller said the project followed all the guidelines in place from the state of Illinois.

“With the new checklists, we have the due diligence portion or the concept portion,” Miller said. “We do ask that petitioners, before they even apply, send to residents within 1,500 feet notice that this is what they are considering, and they talk to the road commissioners, drainage districts and any other government entity that would be affected by the process. That didn’t happen with this, but those government entities are notified prior to the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting, so they did get a chance to oppose or ask questions.”

Miller said the Dupont River Solar farm will be on the 36 acres of land in the corner furthest southeast on an 80-acre lot. Using the northern portion of the land put the project within 1.5 miles of Seneca, and its Village Board filed a resolution of opposition against the solar farm.

Board member Greg Ridenour said he thinks a lot of arguments against solar farms get lost by the time the plans make their way to the County Board.

“I don’t like solar farms,” Ridenour said. “I like crops. I want to see crops in Grundy County. I grew up in Grundy County. There used to be more agriculture in Grundy County, and I wish there was more agriculture today. I don’t like solar farms, but when it gets to us, we’re not voting on whether or not we like solar farms. We’re not voting on whether we think it’s the wave of the future for energy production. Nobody on here does. What we’re voting on really is process and zoning.”

Ridenour said that by the time a proposal gets to the board, the questions involve whether it went through the process and hit the factors that the county has in place.

Board member Caleb Counterman said he believes that the Grundy County Board has done all it could to address the problems with solar farms, and that the larger issues are going to have to be dealt with at a state or federal level.

“I think when we have tried to make this process as best as possible, when we try to reiterate that we are in support of land rights and these types of things, whether or not we agree with solar, we are going through this process and approving some of these things based off of what we are mandated to do on a state level,” Counterman said. “There’s not really much we can do about this.

“We’ve already dealt with this and will continue to deal with this. But I guess it’s frustrating when we spent a lot of time as a solar team, County Board, staff and state’s attorney involved, and [the Grundy County Economic Development Corp. was] involved trying to make a process, and then just to ignore all of that.”

Board member Drew Muffler said the board already has seen how the process goes since its 10-6 vote on the Buffalo Solar Farm in September. Grundy County settled a lawsuit with Buffalo Solar in March through which the solar farm obtained its special-use permit.

Muffler said that in the past, the board has voted against farms and found itself with pending litigation.

State’s Attorney Russ Baker said he’s had three lawsuits, one of which was with Buffalo Solar. The other two lawsuits were filed by US Solar and are being handled by Illinois municipal law firm Ancel Glink.

“Even they’re saying, and they’re experts in this field, that it’s uncharted territory,” Baker said. “The statute mandates a ‘must’ language that we have to grant these things. We’re saying that the Lisa scores and sale factors and the fact that we have a special-use permit, policy and procedure going in that you have the autonomy to vote yes or no on all these projects. You’re balancing all these factors, and that’s going to be vetted.”

Baker said he didn’t believe the Buffalo Solar rejection was defensible, but he thinks the US Solar rejections are, and those are going to trial.

“We’re probably years away from knowing how that statute is going to be looked at in an appeal, but you’re just asking for more lawsuits,” Baker said. “It’s not a rubber stamp, but you also have to have the balancing factors of what Greg was saying, as far as doing our job.”

The Dupont River Solar project passed by nine “yes” votes, two “no” votes and two abstentions.