Mar 23, 2025 By Zach Petroff 2 min read

The Fayette County commissioners held a public hearing to take comment on a proposed zoning amendment dealing with utility scale solar farms.

“The proposed amendment addresses definition, solar facility application and produces, general design and installation standards, decommissioning, coordination of local emergency services among other requirements,” said Sara Harvey, director of the county’s department of planning, zoning and community development.

The commissioners held the hearing to get input before they vote on the ordinance in April.

If adopted, the ordinance will impact 31 of the county’s 42 municipalities. The 11 that will not be governed by the ordinance have their own zoning codes.

Commercial-sized solar farms have been a contentious topic throughout the county as residents have raised concerns about declining property values, safety, and the environmental impact these farms have as developers buy rural land for solar projects.

Since 2024, Harvey said, the zoning board has listened to a combined 68 hours of testimony related to petitions for solar farms. Two of those have been denied, 10 have been approved with conditions and a decision is pending on five others. Seven more petitions are awaiting a hearing, she said.

Thursday’s public hearing mostly dealt with the setback regulation, which would require all solar farms to be at least 500 feet from perimeter property lines.

Jason Yaple, a project manager for a solar energy equipment supplier near Philadelphia, asked the commissioners to delay adopting the ordinance until changes were made to the setback requirement.

“The blanket 500-foot-setback from all property boundaries restricts property owners’ ability to utilize their land and will exclude the potential for development and hinder Fayette County’s growth and economic opportunities,” Yaple said.

L.C. Otto, German Township supervisor and chief of Adah Volunteer Fire Department, said he was concerned about what might happen when solar farms are decommissioned.

“We just need to make sure whatever’s in the ordinance protest the municipality that (solar farms) are going to. (F)rom the text I read, it falls back on the municipality, which we can’t incur any additional cost. We need to protect our taxpayers,” Otto said.

Quinn Weinberger, an associate developer at Colorado-based Bear Peak Power, took umbrage with the language of the ordinance, stating she did not think the timeline to obtain permits was long enough.

“It would be possible if we just needed to obtain standard permits, but many of these projects will acquire additional permitting,” she said.