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Planning board recommends comp‑plan change to list solar and 'resiliency' facilities as permitted uses
Summary
At its April 15 meeting the Nassau County Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of comprehensive plan amendment CPA 25‑004 to add solar energy facilities to agricultural land‑use categories and to list statutorily defined "resiliency facilities" as permitted in commercial, industrial and manufacturing categories.
At its April 15 meeting the Nassau County Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval of comprehensive plan amendment CPA 25‑004 to amend the future land‑use element and bring the county plan into alignment with state law.
Planning Department staff member Elizabeth Beck told the board the amendment would list solar energy facilities as permitted uses within agricultural land‑use categories and would list "resiliency facilities" as permitted uses in commercial, industrial and manufacturing categories, changes the staff said are required by recent legislation that took effect July 1, 2024.
Beck said a resiliency facility is "a facility owned and operated by a public utility for the purposes of assembling, creating, holding, securing, or deploying natural gas reserves for temporary use during a system outage or natural disaster." Staff recommended approval, finding the amendment consistent with applicable Florida statutes and the Nassau County Comprehensive Plan.
Board members sought clarification about scope. Several members raised concern that the way the amendment is worded in the comp plan could cause readers to conflate resiliency facilities (statutorily defined and tied to natural gas reserve storage) with solar farms. One board member suggested the county add the statutory definition to the land development code so future readers would not misinterpret the term; staff said definitions are normally added in the land development code and indicated it would return with appropriate language.
Board member Fending moved to recommend approval of CPA 25‑004; board member Erickson seconded. The board voted to recommend approval; the recommendation will be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners for final action.
What happens next: staff will transmit the board's recommendation to the county commission; any land‑development‑code changes needed to mirror statutory definitions were discussed as a follow‑up step and not made a precondition to the comp‑plan recommendation.
