Surry planners consider 7% land cap for large solar projects, ask for updated GIS and comp-plan alignment

Chair Brock opened discussion of a draft solar ordinance amendment that the zoning subcommittee has been developing, and Planning Director Horace Wade said the group focused its recommendation on utility-scale and community-scale projects rather than distributed rooftop systems. "This is only for utility scale or some of the larger projects right now," Wade said, noting the subcommittee met at a recent conference to compare peer counties and bring back lessons for Surry County.

The subcommittee recommended a cap of 7% of developed county acreage for utility/community-scale projects; staff and commissioners debated the figure and whether it should be expressed on a parcel basis or as project acreage. Commissioner (speaker 6) noted that other counties commonly set 2–3% caps and that comp-plan consistency matters. Chair Brock asked staff to verify current acreage calculations: staff cited a prior estimate near 5.41% (and suggested 5.20% was another figure seen) but said corrected GIS layers could change that number. Commissioners agreed to hold the cap discussion pending updated maps and, if necessary, a companion update to the comprehensive plan so the ordinance and plan use the same baseline.