By Tabitha Evans Moore, EDITOR & PUBLISHER

LYNCHBURG — The largest solar project ever announced in the state of Tennessee is happening right here in one of its smallest counties. It’s unprecedented and now Moore County elected and appointed officials must do the heavy lifting of building a framework in which it can move forward.

On Tuesday, the Metro Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to send their solar farm building permit fee recommendation to the Metro Council for feedback. Commission members were tasked with creating the new building permit fee structure in order to accommodate Silicon Ranch’s new 200-megawatt capacity solar farm that will be built in Moore County on land formerly owned by the Cumberland Springs Land Company between Highway 55, Cumberland Springs Road, Cobb Hollow Road, and Motlow Road.

Silicon Ranch announced the project in April 2021 and have been working since then to obtain all the necessary state and local approvals to move forward with the construction phase of the project. {To read our coverage of that announcement, click here.}

Their latest hurdle is at the Metro Planning Commission where members have been attempting to develop a fee structure that is both fair to the corporation building the solar farm but also protects Moore County property owners against unintended, trickle-down infrastructure expenses.

“Obviously, we don’t want to cripple these folks to where they can’t really afford to put up a project,” Planning Commission member Jim Crawford stated. “But on the other hand, we still don’t really have any information to go on.”

Original fee proposed at $25 million

Their first proposed building permit fee was based on $1,500 per every 2,400 square feet of solar panels.  The total estimated footprint of the solar farm is 3,400 acres – 2,000 acres in Moore County and the remaining 1,400 sitting in nearby Coffee County. Of the estimated 2,000 acres footprint located inside our county, Silicon Ranch estimates a total of 1,400 acres will be used for actual solar panels.

Based on those numbers, the building permit fee cost to move forward would come to an estimated $25 million price tag – an amount that Silicon Ranch rebuffed.

During Tuesday’s meeting, new Metro Attorney William Reider explained to commission members that the fee in question could only represent “the actual costs incurred to execute the permit.” This includes attorney’s fee, engineering fees, road inspections, as well as Metro costs for administrative time, and other associated real costs.

“All the costs have to be reasonably related to the building inspection and things of that nature. I found no authority that would let you tie in roads or bonds or that kind of type of, aspect to it,” Reider stated. “This is a new type of project for the county and there is no precedent for it, so the building permit could be substantial. Now, by substantial I’m not meaning the previous $25 million or something like that in the millions of dollars, but it could be a substantial fee.”

Reider also explained to the Commission that they could not require a decommission plan from Silicon Ranch because the Nashville-based corporation owned and not leased the property.

“There is a statute that requires the decommissioning plan but that statute applies for protection of property owners in leases,” Reider added.

In the end, Commission members reduced the original proposed fee to a $350 per acre building permit fee for solar farms in Moore County. With the estimated 1,400 acres of solar farm panels coming to the Moore County side of the project that would put the permit fee at a little less than half a million dollars.

That recommendation will now go to the Metro Council for further discussion and/or approval. They will meet on Monday, August 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the American Legion Building. To be added to the agenda of that meeting to speak during the public comment portion, contact the Mayor’s office at 931-759-7076 or your council person.•

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