Staff outlines solar-siting choices and mitigation fund committee; developers and state role flagged

Greg (planning staff) told commissioners the county faces a choices menu for implementing newly adopted state solar-siting standards and that staff will return with a more detailed recommendation. "We have three options," Greg said, describing either keeping existing county standards, adopting the state's new standards, or undertaking a goal-5 style process to inventory and designate solar-suitable lands across the county.

Staff flagged differences in scale and review: some state standards address very large projects ("the really big ones are 2,500 acres," Greg said), while smaller projects have different review paths. Greg warned that mitigation arrangements approved locally may not substitute for the state Siting Councils Goal 3 exception process: "FSEC might not honor a mitigation program that we have," he said.

Staff also described a mitigation‑funding committee approach used by other projects. Planning staff described a prior process in which the county and stakeholders formed a committee to allocate mitigation funds from a developer and said those funds could be substantial: "What we do is we name a committee that includes county commission that's gonna decide how to divide up $911,000,000 in mitigation funds," Greg said. Staff said membership could include county commissioners, OSU Extension, SWCD, NRCS and other stakeholders; staff also noted the state siting body (FSEC) may require participants to ensure funds are used for mitigation-related purposes.

Next steps: Greg said staff will prepare a focused work session on the solar siting options and may invite developers and attorneys who participated in the rulemaking to advise the board on tradeoffs and likely impacts of each approach.

Ending: Staff will bring back a clearer recommendation and invited commissioner input on whether to schedule developer engagement as part of the next work session.