Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Zoning And Land Use topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lee County board forwards five zoning petitions to Zoning Board of Appeals, sends tech-overlay proposal to Planning Commission
Summary
The Lee County Board voted to move five property petitions — including several community solar project requests and a mini-storage plan — to the Zoning Board of Appeals and sent a proposed technology overlay district to the Planning Commission. An ordinance to replace the Zoning Board of Appeals with a zoning hearing officer was tabled.
LEE COUNTY — The Lee County Board voted to send five land-use petitions to the Zoning Board of Appeals and to forward a proposed technology overlay district to the county Planning Commission at its meeting.
The most immediate items were five separate petitions filed with the Lee County zoning office: a request from Clay and Elizabeth Partington to build mini-warehouse storage units at 601 Rock Island Road (petition 25P1641) and four petitions from Pivot Energy subsidiaries seeking special-use permits for community solar facilities (petitions 25P1642, 25P1643, 25P1644) located along the south side of Rock Island Road in Nelson Township. The board also moved a variance request from the Compton Community Fire Protection District (petition 25P1645) seeking relief from setback requirements to build a new fire station.
The board voted, by voice, to move each petition to the Zoning Board of Appeals for further review. Mr. Pearson moved to forward petition 25P1641; Nancy seconded. Similar motions and voice approvals were taken for the Pivot Energy petitions and the Compton Fire District variance.
Separately, the board voted to send petition 25PC79 — a county-initiated text amendment to Title 10, Chapter 8 of the Lee County Code that would create standards for a technology overlay district — to the Planning Commission for study and recommendation. Mr. Norberg moved the referral and Mr. Friel seconded; the motion passed by voice vote.
The board also considered ordinance petition 25PC78, which would replace the Zoning Board of Appeals with a zoning hearing officer. Because the county has not yet filled a zoning hearing officer position, the board voted to table that petition. Nancy moved to table 25PC78 and Mr. Hudson seconded; the motion carried by voice vote.
Why it matters: Moving these petitions to the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Planning Commission starts the formal review process, including public hearings, staff reports and recommendations. For the solar proposals, the special-use process will examine site plans, setbacks, decommissioning plans and other conditions that affect agricultural land and neighboring properties.
What was said: The county chairman read each petition into the record, described parcel identifiers and zoning designations, and solicited motions to send them to the Zoning Board of Appeals. The board used voice votes; no roll-call tallies were provided in the transcript. The petitions for the solar projects were described in the meeting packet as community-scale facilities with capacities listed in petitions as 3.5 megawatts, 4.5 megawatts and 3.75 megawatts respectively and total acreage noted in the packet as 85.37 acres for the combined parcels.
Next steps: Each petition will appear on the Zoning Board of Appeals' agenda for public hearing and staff review. The technology overlay text amendment will be reviewed by the Planning Commission, which will make a recommendation back to the county board.
Ending: The board took no final approvals on land use at the meeting; it only referred petitions for further review and tabled the ordinance replacing the Zoning Board of Appeals until a hearing officer is in place.
