By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

The Metro Planning & Zoning Commission will meet on Tuesday with an agenda that looks both forward and backward — backward at Silicon Ranch’s rocky road and enforcement gaps, and forward at ordinances designed to keep the county from getting caught flat-footed again.

Representatives from Silicon Ranch and LPL Solar will be on hand to give a progress report on the solar farm currently being constructed along Highway 55 in between Lynchburg and Tullahoma. At the June meeting, representatives reported that they anticipate all panels to be in place by the end of July with construction to end in November.

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Aid of Construction Coordination with MUD

When developers come into Moore County, often their projects require infrastructure such as new sewer or water lines. Contributions in Aid of Construction (CIAC), often shortened to Aid of Construction, is an agreement between private developers and utilities that ensures developers and not ratepayers finance the capital costs. It guarantees that expanding service to new customers or new locations doesn’t unfairly burden a utility’s existing customers — growth is supposed to pay for growth, not existing ratepayers.

An example would be the water and sewer lines under construction by the Retreat at Whiskey Creek that will eventually become part of the Metro Utility Department infrastructure. Retreat officials will build those lines and, once they pass MUD inspection, they’ll turn those assets over to local officials.

The Commission will discuss adding an Aid of Construction requirement to new projects at the July 7 meeting. It’s an attempt to formalize a rule that developers must pay for or build the water/sewer infrastructure their projects require before getting plat approval and an opportunity for more collaboration between the Planning Commission and MUD officials.

Finalizing the cease-and-desist letter

With no building inspector, Metro Moore County often struggles with enforcing the laws of their own zoning ordinance. On Tuesday, they will again discuss a new “cease-and-desist” letter intended to give the Metro Codes Office a little more teeth. In the June meeting, the Commission discussed revoking building permits for those who don’t abide by written warnings. Commission members sent a draft of the proposed letter to Metro Attorney Bill Reider to allow him to add language with additional consequences.

Language of the current document includes injunctive relief, civil penalties per day, as well as recovery of court costs and legal fees.

Discussing county fire protection

Moore County has a fire hydrant problem in some rural areas. At June’s meeting, Chair Dexter Golden discussed his concern that hydrants in communities like Hasty Hollow currently sitting dry while other areas like the Majors Cemetery community lack hydrants at all. Golden suggested that Planning and MUD should partner to develop best practices — especially in the higher density areas of the county.

Wind energy ordinance discussion

Moore County currently has no ordinance governing wind energy development — and the state law that blocks large turbines from Tennessee’s mountain ridges almost certainly doesn’t apply here. On Tuesday, the Metro Planning Commission will begin developing a wind farm ordinance before any project interest arrives in the county, an attempt to avoid repeating the Silicon Ranch experience. When the company bought property along Highway 55 to develop its solar farm, Moore County officials got caught without any existing ordinance to guide the development — which is why it’s been a somewhat rocky road.

Here’s why the county’s terrain matters. Tennessee has a specific statutory regime for wind facilities: the Tennessee Public Utility Commission must issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity before local permitting, and certificates cannot be issued for facilities taller than 350 feet on mountain ridges above 2,500 feet mean sea level or 500 feet above the adjacent valley floor.

Moore County clears neither trigger. The highest named summit in the county, located in the Buckeye area, sits at 338 meters — right at 1,109 feet — with Chestnut Ridge a close second at 337 meters. That leaves the county’s hills roughly 1,400 feet short of the first threshold and, with valley floors around Lynchburg running 700 to 800 feet, short of the second as well.

The practical upshot: a developer could theoretically propose turbines with tip heights of 700 feet on the Highland Rim plateau, and the only regulatory hurdles would be the TPUC certificate — which applies statewide regardless of terrain — and whatever local regulations exist. In Moore County, that’s currently none. Without an ordinance, the county would be negotiating from a standing start if a land agent ever showed up.

The pressure isn’t hypothetical forever. Alternative energy projects pop up consistently across the U.S. and the American South. People continue to flood into Tennessee, and with the increased energy demand associated with that growth, TVA continues to eye large-scale projects to keep up. New “tall wind” turbine technology — the same 700-foot machines the ridge law was written to keep off East Tennessee’s mountaintops — is precisely what’s making flatter Southern terrain viable for wind development for the first time.

Currently, there is only one utility-scale wind farm in the state: Buffalo Mountain in Anderson County, near Oak Ridge, built in 2000 on a former strip mine. It was the first commercial wind facility in the entire Southeast. That ridge-protection law is essentially why no second one has followed — it locks modern turbines out of the East Tennessee terrain with the best wind, while leaving plateau counties like Moore untouched by state height limits.

Rezoning requests

The Commission will also consider three rezoning requests including a minor division along Woosley Road on property currently owned by Kaycee and Steven Edwards, a rezoning request from agricultural (A-1) to residential (R-2) by Joe Denby for development of 27 acres along Tanyard Hill Road currently owned by John and Joyce Sparks, as well as a rezoning request by Rodney and Jennifer Ervin as well as Bret Fanning for 2.35 acres located near Jiffy Mart from residential to commercial for the construction of an RV storage facility.

Property owners at 51 Daniel Hollow Road off Five Points Road have also asked to speak to the commission. According to state records, the 1.4 acres currently belongs to Melodie and Aldalet Cikmaz.

The Metro Planning Commission currently meets on the first Tuesday of each month. Meetings take place at the County Building located at 241 Main Street in Lynchburg. They are open to the public and there is a public comment section at the beginning of each meeting. •

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