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ESCANABA -- After countless meetings, hundreds of pages of citizen-led research, a failed annexation attempt, two separate ordinances, and one lost developer, farmers in Escanaba Township may get to lease their land for solar development after all due to a series of bills introduced in the Michigan House and Senate this week.
A total of six bills were introduced in the House Tuesday related to Governor Gretchen Whitmer's "What's Next" address, given in late August, which outlined the governors goals for increasing the state's green energy production in the coming decade. Four of those bills could strip local control over where and how solar and wind energy facilities can operate by giving that power to the state.
"It should be easier to create jobs and build wind and solar projects. Let's permit clean energy projects through the MPSC -- just like all other sources of energy," Whitmer said in her August address.
The four bills effectively lay out two proposals that would give the Michigan Public Service Commission the ability to approve a solar project and to exempt that project from local zoning. House Bill 5120 and HB 5121 -- which are tie-barred, meaning both must pass in order for each to take effect, -- would extend this exemption to wind energy projects as well. HB 5122 and HB 5123 are tie-barred, but would only impact solar development.
On Thursday, the Senate introduced four identical bills, Senate Bill 585 through SB 588, outlining the same proposals. Those bills were immediately referred to the senate's committee on energy and the environment.
Should either proposal become law, giving control to the MPSC means as long as a project meets certain requirements outlined in the bills, a community could not reject a project for being inconsistent with existing or planned land uses or make it subject to the community's own rules for things like screening or setbacks.
Both proposals do include a locally-held public hearing and meetings with local officials, but the decision as to what projects are approved or rejected is ultimately up to the MPSC, not municipalities. Any existing ordinances regulating solar development -- or wind development, if HB 5120 or SB 585 were to become law -- would be moot.
The bills would be a major blow to multiple communities in Delta County that have pushed back against wind and solar over the last decade by passing restrictive ordinances, including both Delta County and the city of Escanaba, which passed ordinances restricting wind turbines after controversy erupted on the Garden Peninsula when Heritage Sustainable Energy constructed a wind farm there. However, most of the recent local controversy over green energy proposals has come from Escanaba Township.
The township has a storied past with solar development going back to 2017 when a group of landowners, including Delta County Commissioner Bob Barron, were approached by Orion Energy, which sought to lease the land of farmers for the creation of a 1,250-acre utility-scale solar facility.
Initially, the township was receptive, calling solar a "goal" or "opportunity" six separate times in its 2019 master plan. It adopted a stand-alone solar ordinance that would have permitted the development, but that ordinance was found to be insufficient by the township's then-attorney, Terry Burkhart.
After a major shift in the make up of the township's board and planning commission, an ad hoc committee that produced a 500-page report on potential solar development and its impacts on the township, and the hire of a new attorney who specialized in solar ordinances, the township approved a 13-page amendment to the zoning ordinance in November of 2022.
The amendment uses an overlay district to restrict utility-scale solar development to less than 400 acres of land bordering Brampton Township, east of the Escanaba River, the vast majority of which is contained in a single parcel. None of the solar farm proposed by Orion included land east of the Escanaba River, and the amendment effectively barred the landowners from using their land to produce solar power.
"You deliberately … regulated this thing out of existence," Barron told Escanaba Township Treasurer Kim Knauf-Wycoff during a county board meeting on June 20.
The township's reluctance to allow solar development prior to the zoning ordinance amendment's adoption also prompted an annexation attempt, spearheaded by Barron, to move roughly 19,000 acres of Escanaba Township to neighboring Cornell Township. Cornell Township is dictated by the county's zoning ordinance and solar regulations -- rules Barron was also involved in writing and adopting.
The annexation, ultimately failed.
While approving or denying projects would rest with the MPSC, the bills do outline certain requirements for the projects.
The two proposals currently in committee in the House would require solar panels and other power generating structures be located 150 feet from the nearest point on the outer wall of an occupied community building or dwelling on properties not participating in the solar development, 50 feet from a public road right-of-way, and 50 feet from the nearest shared property line with a nonparticipating property.
Under the bills, a solar facility must be entirely enclosed in fencing, solar panels may not exceed a maximum height of 25 feet above the ground when the arrays are at full tilt. Solar facilities may also not exceed 55 decibels on an hourly average, modeled at the nearest outer wall of the nearest dwelling located on a nonparticipating property.
The requirements, however, pale in comparison to what Orion offered the township while attempting to get its project off the ground. In a revision to their initial plan made Sept. 5, 2019, Orion reduced the size of the project to 810 acres. They proposed setbacks of 500 feet from primary residences on parcels neighboring the project -- up from the initial proposal of 250 feet -- eliminated any solar equipment within 250 feet of the centerline of a public road, created wildlife pathways, limited solar panels to 12 feet in height, planed to use screening fencing instead of chainlink around the project, and restricted outdoor lighting to 15 motion-detector lights located in key areas around the project.
The township approved a resolution at their Oct. 9 meeting opposing the bills, which had not yet been introduced but had already created a buzz in government and land use planning circles. In addition to the township, the bills are opposed by the Michigan Township Association, Michigan Association of Counties, Michigan Association of Planners, and other groups.
Due to the Democrats thin margin of control in the House -- 56 seats to 54 -- one, if not both, of the proposals are expected to be approved by the House before Nov. 7. Two Democratic representatives, Rep. Lori Stone, of Warren, and Rep. Kevin Coleman, of Westland, have filed to run for mayor of their respective cities. If they win their races, the representatives would be forced to resign their seats, giving up the Democrats' majority control.
The Senate is also currently controlled by Democrats, 20 seats to the Republican's 18, making it likely a plan giving control to the MPSC would be approved to support Whitmer's green energy agenda. The plan would then go to her desk to be signed.
If HB 5120 or SB 585 become law, wind power developments would be subject to their own set of setbacks. Under those bills, turbines must be placed 2.1 times the maximum blade tip height to the nearest point on the outside wall of an occupied community building or residence on a nonparticipating property, 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height to the nearest point on the outside wall of a residence or other building on a participating property, 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height to a nonparticipating property line, 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height to the center line of the public road right of way, and 1.1 times the maximum blade tip height to the center line of the easement containing an overhead communication or electric transmission line that does serve as a utility service line to an individual building. All distances would be measured from the center of the base of the turbine's tower.