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Planning panel recommends denial of 69 MW Boxwood solar permit after hours of divided testimony
Summary
After a packed public hearing in Halifax County, the Planning Commission found the Boxwood 69‑megawatt solar project largely consistent with the comprehensive plan but voted 5–1 to recommend denial of the conditional‑use permit; commissioners nonetheless recommended the county accept a separate voluntary siting agreement that would deliver $1.7 million in payments over the project's life.
The Halifax County Planning Commission recommended denial of a conditional‑use permit for the proposed 69‑megawatt Boxwood solar facility on June 16 after an evening of presentations and sustained public comment.
County planner Dietri introduced the application, which the developer C Solar and its consultants described as a project with about 955 acres under option, roughly 578 fenced acres and approximately 432 acres under panels. C Solar senior project manager Rob Propes told officials the site “is clearly a very rural, out‑of‑sight hidden project” and that the project meets the county’s solar ordinance, including setbacks, vegetative buffers and a required decommissioning bond.
Propes and company director Don Gizich said the construction cost is about $154 million and estimated local economic benefits and tax revenues over the life of the project. Gizich said the company negotiated voluntary payments to the county totaling about $1.7 million (including $174,000 for Edmonds Park playground equipment and $10,000 to the Liberty Volunteer Fire Department) in addition to property taxes the company estimated at roughly $7.7 million over the project life.
Board members and planning commissioners pressed C Solar on finances and technical points. Commissioners and supervisors asked whether the company would rely on tax credits, renewable‑energy credits and long‑term power contracts. Propes said projects generate revenue from energy sales and other elements of the “revenue stack,” and that operators and lenders back obligations to landowners even if the facility experiences weather damage.
The night’s public comment was lengthy and sharply divided. Opponents—many identifying themselves as long‑time residents of Hajes/Chisum Trail, Crystal Hill and Liberty—urged the board to protect farmland, wetlands and wildlife corridors, and to consider traffic and safety on narrow rural roads. “We are permanently evicting the next generation of possible farmers,” said resident Stacy Long, whose remarks framed a number of speakers’ concerns about farmland loss and absentee landowners. Several speakers said construction traffic and heavy trucks already have damaged local roads in earlier projects and worried the county’s volunteer fire departments and narrow roads were not ready for a year of heavy construction activity.
Other residents, local business groups and some landowners supported the project. Sandra Town of the South Central Virginia Business Alliance told the board earlier regional solar projects directed millions of dollars into local supply chains and urged officials to weigh the construction‑period and operational economic benefits to small local contractors. Local landowner Blake Hall said a long‑term lease could allow families to keep land in their ownership.
After the public hearing the Planning Commission moved through statutorily required determinations. The panel first found the project’s general location “substantially in accord” with Halifax’s comprehensive plan, but on the conditional‑use permit question voted 5–1 to recommend denial. Separately, commissioners voted to forward the voluntary siting agreement (the proposed $1.7 million in payments and related agreements) to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration.
County staff said the siting agreement is a statutorily permitted way for the county to receive voluntary payments from utility‑scale projects; staff also noted state code constraints on how siting agreement proceeds may be used and said the county had supplied C Solar a list of capital improvement priorities from which the developer chose Edmonds Park as the recipient.
The Boxwood application will now go to the full Board of Supervisors, which will consider both the Planning Commission’s recommendation on the conditional‑use permit and the siting agreement. The board had several related items on the agenda, including a separate public hearing on a countywide battery‑energy‑storage zoning amendment and a briefing by consultants on county finance controls.
