Franklin County commissioners deny special-use permit for commercial solar project at 3800 Montana Road

Franklin County commissioners on April 9 upheld the Planning Commission’s recommendation and denied a special-use permit that would have allowed a commercial solar energy conversion system at 3800 Montana Road, about one mile north of Ottawa.

The application proposed panels on a reclaimed quarry pond and adjacent land: the applicant said the project would include roughly 1,180 floating panels on the pond and about 7,500 ground-mounted panels on the surrounding land, plus two-axis trackers. Pat Toth, Franklin County planning and building director, summarized the Planning Commission record, saying the Planning Commission held two public hearings and a study session and unanimously recommended denial, citing “insufficient information required in articles 3 section 3-3.01(v)(3)(f) and 3-3.01(v)(3)(b) of the county zoning regulations.”

Applicant Jason Edwards and several technical witnesses described the project in detail and answered commissioners’ questions. Edwards said he had prepared a tabbed binder of materials aligning application responses to county code and that he has worked on the proposal for roughly two years. He described using reclaimed quarry land and said he planned to connect to a nearby…