Louisa County planning commission forwards timeline requirement from proposed solar ordinance, says other provisions lack sufficient information

The Louisa County Planning Commission on Tuesday voted to forward the proposed project-timeline provision from Ordinance 2024-14, a package of land-use changes for solar siting agreements, to the Board of Supervisors with a recommendation of approval while reserving judgment on three other major provisions because commissioners said they lacked background and analytic support.

Commissioners said the county and the committee that drafted the policy had provided insufficient documentation about how key dollar figures and percentages were derived, making it impossible for the commission to provide an informed recommendation on items addressing per-megawatt contributions, the proposed affordable-housing allocation and a per-parcel adjacent-owner payment.

The ordinance package originated with a board-appointed committee and proposes minimum requirements for solar siting agreements. Planning staff told the commission the public hearing was held in December and that the committee supplied citing agreements from eight other localities and a memo, but the commission said that material did not include the calculations or policy rationale…