Washington County planning commissioners workshop proposed solar ordinance; focus on setbacks, slope, decommissioning and water safeguards

Washington County Planning Commission members spent a February workshop reviewing a draft solar energy ordinance and agreed on a set of edits and implementation steps to bring to the Board of Supervisors.

The commission, chaired by Chairman Reifas, framed the session as a workshop rather than a public hearing and walked through the existing ordinance, a recently proposed draft, and public comments received in advance. The discussion focused on how the ordinance should treat agricultural properties, how to measure and manage stormwater and slope, decommissioning and contamination protections, battery storage and PFAS, noise from inverters, and vegetative screening and setbacks.

Why it matters: commissioners said the county must balance farmland protection, view‑sheds and property rights against state environmental requirements and the practicalities of safe solar installations. Several changes the commission favored could limit where and how utility‑scale projects develop, while other decisions steer the county to defer technical stormwater and slope standards to state regulators.

Planning staff explained that a Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) memorandum changes how solar projects are treated for stormwater: "those panels are impervious surfaces," Mr. Richardson told the commission, explaining that projects without an interconnection approval by the end of 2024 must meet the memorandum's requirements. He added that meeting DEQ's quality and quantity standards likely will require professional design and, in some cases, purchase of water‑quality credits.

Commissioners agreed to remove a sentence from the draft that could be interpreted as broadly exempting "solar energy projects for agricultural…