Board keeps 'public utility' definition unchanged, approves 3 MW Burkes Junction solar project

Nottoway County supervisors on Tuesday voted 5-0 to accept the Planning Commission's recommendation not to amend the county zoning definition of "public utilities" to explicitly add the word "solar," and separately approved a special-exception permit for a 3-megawatt Burkes Junction solar facility with conditions but excluding a Planning Commission-requested written-waiver requirement from adjacent landowners.

The Planning Commission earlier had voted unanimously to reject a text amendment that would have inserted the word solar into the county's public-utilities definition. At the board's public hearing, Brian Thomas, a member of the Planning Commission, told supervisors that "solar facilities and battery storage facilities are not public utilities by definition" and argued that the county's existing reference to electricity already covers generation without adding specific fuel types.

Greg Zote, county planning staff, told the board the commission's unanimous vote reflected that existing ordinance language "already alludes to being an energy generating…