Planning Commission Regular Meeting   12/13/2022

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome everyone to the Albemarle County Planning Commission.

I'd like to call the meeting to order and establish quorum.

Yes, ma'am.

Ms.

Firehock?

Here.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Quorum is established.

So we'll now move to other matters not listed on the agenda from the public.

This is for items that are not on the agenda for this evening.

My name is Neil Williamson.

I'm with the Free Enterprise Forum, and I have the pleasure of being in these chambers often with you all.

And in December, since about 2016, we have offered poetic remarks regarding the state of Albemarle.

And one of the issues that we often deal with here is a concept that we refer to as NIMBY, not in my backyard.

So without further ado,

We present the NIMBY who stole diversity.

Every planner down in Whoville liked residential diversity a lot, but the NIMBY who lived in an established neighborhood did not.

The NIMBY hated density and the whole housing variety season.

Now please don't ask why, no one knows quite the reason.

The NIMBY remembered quite fondly when his house was new.

He was the first single family home on the old farm in subdivision phase two.

The people who moved in, the roads had no sidewalks, no curbs on the street, just one type of housing spread out and notoriously neat.

The people who moved into Farm Divisions 1, 2, 3, and 4 demographically looked like NIMBY and nothing much more.

The lack of diverse housing types did not appear in NIMBY's sphere.

He was all for apartments, townhomes, and housing affordability, just not near here.

NIMBY was worried, for he knew every planner down in Whoville beneath was busy now imagining a new neighborhood concept.

And they're hanging their zoning maps, he snarled with a snare.

Tomorrow's comp plan day, it's practically here.

Then he growled with his NIMBY fingers, nervously drumming, I must find a way to stop this housing diversity from coming.

For tomorrow, he knew the entire Whoville planning team would wake bright and early and then endorse the housing diversity dream.

And then, oh, the people who don't all look alike, the darn housing variety and the traffic and children, the mixed-use components the planners that fit in.

And the more NIMBY thought of this increased density ring, the more the NIMBY thought, I must stop this whole thing.

Why, a resident for 30 years, I've put up with it now.

But I must stop the density from coming.

But how?

Then he got an idea, an awful idea.

The nimby got a wonderful, awful idea.

I know just what to do.

The nimby laughed in his throat.

And he made a quick Santy Claus hat and a coat.

He chuckled and he clucked.

What a great nimby trick with this coat and this hat.

I look just like St.

Nick.

He loaded some bags and some old empty sacks on a ramshackle sleigh and he hitched up old Max.

Then the NIMBY said giddy up and the sleigh started down toward the county office building where the Hoos lay a sluice in their town.

And all their windows were dark, quiet snow filled the airs.

All the hoop planners were dreaming sweet dreams without care when he came to the first little office on that second floor square.

This is stop number one, old Nimbly Claus hissed, and he walked down toward the office, empty bags in his fist.

Then he slid Charles Rapp's recently retired ID card.

He slid it past the door.

It really wasn't that hard.

He got stuck only once for a moment or two and he stuck his head out into the dim room.

Where the proposed comp plan maps were all hanging in a row, these density maps he grinned were the first things to go.

Then he slithered and slunk with a smile most unpleasant.

Around the whole room he took every colored marker present.

Supervisor Red Dot exercises, focus group notes, internal memos, meeting minutes, action plans, community engagements.

He stuffed them in bags and then the nimby very daft.

He stuffed in the bags one by one down the elevator shaft.

Then he slunk to the staff icebox and he took the planners feast.

On their walls he left nothing but hooks and some wire.

He even took the last tub update from town crier.

Who proved to the who as he was nimbly humming?

They're finding out now their housing density is not coming.

They're just waking up.

I know just what they'll do.

Their wild mouths will hang open for a moment or two.

Then the planners all down in Whoville will cry, boo hoo.

That's a noisy scream the nimby I simply must hear.

So he paused, and the NIMBY put his hand to his ear.

And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.

It started in low, and it started to grow.

But the sound wasn't sad.

It sounded very merry.

It couldn't be so, but it was merry, very.

He stared down in Whoville.

The NIMBYs popped his eyes, and then he shook.

What a shocking surprise.

Every Whoville down in Whoville, the tall and the small, were singing the praises of residential density, embracing housing diversity without any maps at all.

He hadn't stopped the density concept from coming.

It came.

Somehow or another, it came just the same.

And the nimby with his nimby feet, ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling.

How could it be so?

It came without red dots.

It came without overlays.

It came without chapters, without charts or minutes galore.

He puzzled three hours until his puzzler was sore.

Then the neighbor thought of something he hadn't before.

Maybe accepting housing diversity and density doesn't come from the planter.

Maybe it comes by everybody working together under a community banner.

And what happened then?

Well, in Whoville, they say, the NIMBY small heart grew three sizes that day.

And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight, he whizzed through his load through the bright morning light.

And he brought back the red dots, the maps, and the minutes, and the food for the feast.

And he, he himself, the NIMBY, carved the roast beast.

Thank you.

Happy holidays to all of you.

All right, we'll now move on.

Is there anyone else from the public who has a matter not on the agenda?

Or a Christmas story?

Okay.

If not, we'll move on.

Or Hanukkah or Festivus, whatever you celebrate.

Good evening.

I'm not Scott Clark.

I'm his understudy.

Rebecca Ragsdale filling in and I have a brief presentation to go over the the characteristics of the district.

Not sure what's

There we go.

Sorry about that.

So as I said, this is the Blue Run district and it is in the northeastern part of the county between Stony Point Road and Gordon'sville Road.

It includes a number of parcels that are in the Southwest Mountains district.

Okay.

It's about 4,244 acres and includes a significant amount of wooded areas and parcels that are of important agricultural soils, which we included in the report that Scott provided you.

As I mentioned, this is the required 10 year review of the district and there have been no withdrawal requests to date.

The item was before the Agricultural and Forestal District Committee on November 9th, and they recommended approval unanimously to renew the district for a 10 year period.

And there weren't any members of the public in attendance.

So we have recommended that you all after your discussion and questions, move to recommend removal of the district as well.

and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

All right.

All right.

Well, hearing no questions from our very clear application, we'll move on to the public comment.

If anyone from the public would like to comment on this particular application.

Carolyn, is there anyone online?

No, ma'am, there isn't.

Okay, we'll end the public comment period on this and bring it back to the commission for discussion.

Is there any discussion on this particular application?

So I didn't see there, thank you for filling Rebecca, thank you, that's most appreciated.

Yeah, I don't think he included the entire development rights tally.

I think he indicated it was about 4,244 acres.

But he didn't give, I thought there was the tally in there.

It's about

So I would share, I would like that noted that the work, so I don't have a sense of what we're talking about as far as land use issues here, except for somebody wanting to put it, a group of people wanting to keep it in ag forest to renew it.

So the other question I had, the other question I had is that I'm trying to understand why the soils were called out.

when it's only about they're not the lion's share of the soils there are not particular as it's noted here particularly important for agriculture as is something which is in our comp plan so it's it's a small amount of soils which are there but yet it's identified so I'd actually want to know what the other you know everybody knows how I am so if you tell me like something that's 30 percent is is important and I want to know what the 67 percent or the 60 percent was and why that wasn't identified so that's also something that I

I would have hoped that they would not include sub-par swales.

Well, it says it's particularly important.

So I know I'm, I know I'm worth sniffing on this one, but I want to be clear about it.

That has to do usually with row crops.

You could graze your animals on

Soils that were not great, but it could still be OK for grazing.

And I appreciate that.

I'm just saying I'm hoping to see because this is really just hoping to see more detail because this brings me kind of to my to what I'm what I'm coming at here.

So it also says that the majority of the land here is in conservation easement.

and I understand councilman, I understand their value to the community.

I understand that the owner of the land has the ability either to offset his or her taxes by the easement or in this particular jurisdiction in the state of Virginia, I can actually sell my conservation easement tax credits to somebody else and somebody else can take advantage of that.

And I'm fully for that.

I have no problem with that.

Why do we have it all?

Why do we have both agricultural and forestry distance, plus land use, plus the ability for somebody to give to have conservation easements?

I'm fine with all of them.

I just, when we start looking at our ordinances again, Cher, I would like to have a robust conversation about the use of the ag-forestal district when we look at overlay districts, and also about the use of those particular benefits.

And the reason I say that,

I'm a full fan and full supporter of farms, of family farms and those kinds of things.

I think that's a place that our county has a strong strength at.

But what I also want to have a sense of is that those farms and those credits are actually being used for people who are engaged in that business, whether or not it's hay or it's grapes or it's a whole host of, or cattle or chickens, the whole various things that happen here.

And that they're not being used as a means

to reduce a person's tax burden.

I'm all for putting everything in place, anything that we can do to strengthen family farms in our community, or even not family, but the larger farm.

So is the root of your question what is the significance or the benefit of having all of these properties in an Ag 4 district if they're also under easement?

I mean the Ag 4 district brings with it other benefits and as a county level review and

regulation.

So there may be things that aren't covered in easements.

Easements are widely different, but it does bring with it the benefits of not developing to a more intensive use.

There's over 4,000 acres.

The report didn't indicate there were only 38 existing dwellings, but we realize you'd like more information about

Development Rights and the significance of why it's agriculturally and forestally significant.

It does, you know, the report did say particularly important soils, but that typically means, you know, when Scott does the analysis, prime soils.

So there are a number of characteristics of the district that are important, and we think it's important to have that county level program with the Ag Four districts.

It does bring with it some benefits to landowners also.

not just the tax benefits, but we mentioned development to a higher intensive use.

If there are uses that are going to happen within the district or adjacent to the district, as you know, then we review that with a higher level of degree.

So that's why we we think that's some of the other benefits.

while we have it.

As always, Ms.

Ragsdale has sort of explained where I was going on this, and that's my point, that I think as we go through this whole period of looking at our ordinances, that we should look at those things that have, and since we have very little land that can be done in soft commercial, soft industry,

and that we have a deep commitment to family farming and to medium-sized farmings in our community.

I want to make sure that those decisions, what we make with our ordinances, that they're in fact supporting the general community good and not simply a way for people who have got sophisticated attorneys and tax advisors and wealth advisors helping them to make decisions about large parcels of land that never would have been a farm.

Well, just to remind everyone, the Ag Forest District is a body that has spent considerable time reviewing this, so this is not the only view that this is receiving.

The other point, just for the general public listening, is that an Ag Forest District is not just about development rights, it's about having a certain amount of surety that if you start your farm operation, that the other people around you are going to continue in farming for at least a certain period of time.

so that if you need someone to help you fire a field, buy hay from, you know.

large animal vets are still in business because there's enough people with cattle that it makes sense.

So it is something that helps a small farmer be sure that if they farm there, that they can continue in that business.

I would suggest that the conversation about the best tools for rural land conservation and agriculture perhaps should start with a comprehensive plan.

And so as we talk about rural land conservation,

the giant rural area of the county.

That's the time to maybe start the conversation.

And some people like to misquote me, so I did not say that we were opening up the rural area to massive developments.

Every time I say anything about the rural area, someone says I'm off to develop it and puts it in their press release.

Lonnie?

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that I reached out to staff before this meeting to get some more information.

One of the changes that was made to these four districts was it used to be that they had properties in here that had no development rights left and that would have not otherwise qualified.

So positive change that the Board of Supervisors did make

was that they disqualified properties that wouldn't have qualified under agriculture and had no development rights left.

That was helpful.

Thank you.

I mean I will add though that I have questioned just the general policy that people within the district can take their property rights down to nothing

while being in the district.

And I think that's something that could merit further discussion.

I didn't hear you.

I'm sorry.

Could you repeat that?

Oh, I was just saying that I think in the future, an item that could be worthy of discussion is is how people that are in the conservation district that they can for districts can take their property rights down to they can utilize all their their development rights while they're in the district.

Yeah, I think we talked about that last time that it's certain circumstances, family divisions only would be allowed to utilize development rights.

Sure, and again, I also think as we get ready to update the comprehensive plan, we can, all of our rural land protection policies should be revisited and just, you know, understood are they working how we intended?

Are they doing the job we want?

Yes, no, why not, et cetera.

Sure, I'll be glad to make the motion.

I move to recommend renewal of the Blue Run district for a 10-year period.

Is there a second?

Seconded.

Any further discussion?

All right, Carolyn, would you call the roll, please?

Yes.

Ms.

Firehock?

Aye.

Thank you.

All right, the motion passes unanimously to move this on to the Board of Supervisors.

All right, we're going on to the next item in our agenda for this evening.

We have two items next, SP-2022-00014 Woodbridge Solar Substation and SP-2022-00015 Woodbridge Solar

All right, and we do have some people who've signed up to testify, but before we, so we are now in the mode of talking about this, but I just wanted to bring up that rather than having two public hearings, one on the solar substation and one on the solar application that we combine it into one staff report and that we have one public hearing.

One of the things, though, that sometimes people have concern about is that we are now shortening the amount of time that they wanted to talk.

So one thing that our Board of Supervisors has done in this instance is to provide 50% more time per speaker.

So you would get more than the three minutes, you'd get 4.5, I guess.

So, but I cannot unanimously unilaterally make that decision.

Okay.

Is anyone good with that?

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you.

For the public's benefit, that does not mean you should speak for four minutes and 30 seconds, if you could say it in two.

But with that, and I'll say more about public comment instructions when we get to that part of the hearing.

And I'm not going to increase my time in the presentation either.

So you've already given the names of this application.

I just want to give some background real quick.

County has reviewed three applications and approved three applications for solar facilities to date.

We are constantly learning more and updating our reviews.

To that end, the Board of Supervisors has directed staff to hire a consultant.

We're in final stages of that.

And any work the consultant does between now and the time the Board of Supervisors reviews this application can be incorporated into the board's review.

and this could also include language for a siting agreement between the Board of Supervisors and the applicant.

So I just want to give that background.

So there are two applications that are before you tonight.

The staff report actually has three applications in it.

You're only required to take action on two of those.

There are two special use permits.

One is for an electrical substation.

The other is for the solar energy system.

And I will keep calling that a solar farm and solar facility, but that's what I mean.

And there's a special exception for disturbance of critical slopes.

The Planning Commission may provide comments if you like.

You're not required to provide comments to the Board of Supervisors.

There have been two community meetings for this project, one virtual, one in person.

Concerns about visual impacts, property value impacts, stormwater impacts, fire safety, decommissioning, recycling of decommissioned materials were all things that were brought up in those meetings.

Just to orient you as to where this property is, it's in the southeastern part of the county, fairly close to the Fluvanna County line.

This area is very rural with a lower population density than most other parts of the county.

This is just one sheet from the plan, and as you can see, the project's very large.

We're talking over 2,000 acres for the property and over 600 acres.

within the developed portion of the property.

This includes the panels, cleared areas, stormwater access, and the like.

You can also see that the area is largely wooded with scattered fields and residential development.

To help orient you a little bit, that's Secretary's Road, Jefferson Mill, and that's the power line that crosses the property.

There is a special exception on this property.

Staff is recommending approval of the special exception, except for these areas.

And I put them together in a single snapshot because it actually crosses two plans, kind of hard to read.

But those areas, the way we did the review was basically looked at them as if they were managed versus preserved slopes.

and felt that these had characteristics that were more in the preserve than in the manage and made a recommendation based on that.

I can go into that in further detail if you'd like, which really leads me to where

The end of my presentation.

So this project was reviewed for compliance with the comprehensive plan as required by the special use permit process and by section 15.2 2232 of the Code of Virginia.

We're going to be asking you to take an action on that also as part of the whole special use permit review.

There was a plan that was submitted along with substantial documentation.

All of that is linked to in the staff report.

Includes application plan, vegetation management plan, visual study, and a whole lot more.

These were all considered during the review and when considering proposed conditions.

The staff report discusses many issues and the applicant information is significant.

For that reason, my presentation is limited tonight.

The applicant is here and will be making a presentation.

And instead of me making a presentation tonight to try to guess what your concerns are, I'd like to just try to answer any questions you have.

I will say that I can go on from here.

There are three minor changes to the conditions.

I can either go over those now or go over those later.

So first is to the updated condition number one to allow changes to be made if it's necessary to implement the vegetation management plan.

So wanted to make sure that flexibility was in there.

They wouldn't have to come back and amend the special use permit and they weren't clashing with each other with other provisions of the conditions.

The next one is this project is actually made up of multiple properties and I had said 200 feet from property lines really meant from the exterior not the interior property lines so change that condition so it's from the exterior property lines and to allow them to have above ground wires if it avoids them impacting wetlands or streams.

All those would be interior that wouldn't have any impact on adjoining properties.

So that was something that we talked about and those are the only changes.

Okay, thank you.

The vegetation management plan is pretty comprehensive and I know the applicant is going to talk about that so I'd like him to answer any details about the vegetation management plan.

And then the other question was, is that

When staff is, I know we're not at the site plan stage yet, but when staff is going to be evaluating the site plan stage, are these panels gonna be considered impervious or not?

So when we were doing the other applications, the state had one set of guidance and we were in a completely different place and saying, you know, these are impervious and they need to be accounted for.

So we're actually more aggressive, if you will, in treating the stormwater than the state is.

I have a question, might be more suited for the applicant.

So just tell me, but it was about one of the conditions that reads the property owner must grant the zoning administrator or designee access to the facility for inspection purposes within 30 days of the zoning administrator requesting access.

It felt long.

I was just wondering, is that normal?

No, it's unusual because projects usually aren't this large and they don't have security associated with them.

This is a utility.

So there are some security issues.

It's going to be fenced.

It's going to be gated.

So we need to coordinate that.

There may even be some safety issues on just going on and visiting a property like this.

OK, thank you.

OK, sounds like you're off the hook for now.

We're going to hear now from the applicant.

All right, and if you can just state your name, your affiliation, your address.

And to be clear, and just for the commission, the applicant also has a bit of extra time because they're presenting on both of.

You can lose any time.

We can stay as late as you like.

All right, please proceed, sir.

Good evening, everybody.

My name is Scott Rehmer.

It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm with Hexagon Energy, and I actually live at 1369 Lantown Road in Crozet.

I live here in Albemarle County.

I've been working in the solar field for about seven years.

I've been a resident of the county in Charlottesville area for 10 years, came down and did grad school.

fell in with this Motley crew over at Hexagon right after grad school and have in some way or another been part of them since the very beginning.

We worked all over the country, delighted to be able to stand here tonight and introduce a project that we are very proud of to have learned.

We've learned lessons over our years of operating and we get to bring those to bear here in Albemarle County.

So quick shout out, Hexagon's a, I won't say major yet, but we're an employer within the county and I've got several of my colleagues here in the audience tonight.

So Hexagon is give a wave.

We're just over on the downtown mall.

So it's a delight.

Usually I'm up here, you know, up in rural Maine or Massachusetts doing this alone.

And so it's really fun to be able to have a crew here with me tonight.

So I'm here to talk with you this evening about Woodridge Solar.

This project began in conception, actually.

Our CEO was friends with the landowner of this property and began back in 2019 is when we started looking at it.

Just for big picture reference for you, the reason you're hearing from us now and not a lot later in the future

is because last actually just about a year ago exactly we got notice from the grid manager called PJM who we'll talk about in a little bit that we were fast tracked to interconnect our project so that we had an ability to move pretty quickly we will have an interconnection agreement in hand either this month or early next year so that's a big part of why you're you're hearing from us because we're we have a fish on the hook as it were a lot of times these things get permitted as sort of a

shot in the dark, if you will, and it takes a lot of time and effort from everybody for something that nobody knows if it will actually work.

Well, I'm very happy to report that we do have an interconnection agreement that will allow us to begin working on this rapidly per the commission and the Board of Supervisors' pleasure.

The guiding ethos I think that I took and my team took with this project from the very beginning was that we wanted to work on both fronts.

I don't think in Albemarle County it's a hard sell to say that we all know we need to clean our grid.

We all know that we need to stop climate change with every method that we can using clean power, getting it onto the grid as quickly as possible.

That's critically important and this project does that.

I'll talk about it in a second, but something 25 to 30,000 homes worth of power will be produced per year from this project.

That said, that's not enough.

And unfortunately, I think the solar industry has potentially done itself a disservice over the years by only focusing on clean energy and not taking land use into a serious consideration.

So we wanted from the very beginning to use this project as an example of

responsible land use with solar.

I hope to demonstrate that to you this evening.

As Mr. Fritz referenced earlier, this is sited on a 2,300 acre timber tract.

It's several parcels under common ownership that we have a lease agreement to work on.

Of that, our project total impact area, and by that I mean areas where the vegetation management plan is anticipated to be planted, roads, all of that, sums through about 1,500 acres.

In terms of what's going to be fenced, where panels sit, so what you could kind of call developed area, I suppose, it'll be about 600 to 620.

We put 650 there as a higher estimate, but it's collapsed a little bit over time.

It's a big project, no doubt.

It's the largest that the county has seen.

Statewide, this is not the largest.

There's a 500 megawatt array up in Spotsylvania.

For reference, this is 138 megawatts.

Spotsylvania has a 500.

They learned some lessons on vegetation management that we are learning to implement here to avoid some of the issues with runoff.

They had another 800 megawatt was approved recently.

So state level.

This isn't massive.

This is this is big.

It's midsize.

It's big for the county, though, and we realize it's a big project for the community, which is why we've taken a very serious approach to it.

One thing that we felt confident in starting this project on was Albemarle has a very progressive and powerful climate action plan.

And it spells out in detail a lot of the ways that it wants to see our climate mitigation measures take place.

And three of the primary strategies that Woodridge Solar fits with very well are listed here.

It's to enable and incentivize utility scale solar.

utility scale renewable energy projects in the county code during community development regulatory process, partner with utilities and renewable energy companies like Hexagon to increase local renewable energy and energy storage initiatives, and promote and facilitate investment in the utility scale renewable energy by the private sector.

Check, check, check.

Those fit very well with what we're trying to do here.

We were very excited to be able to have something to present there.

High level highlights, and you know, we can go through, I'll go through with as much time as I have the project details, but so forgive me if I'm keeping this too high level, we can dive in as deep as desired.

This project will produce power for the equivalent of about 25,000 to 30,000 homes.

I've been saying 25,000, some independent consultants that we've had said it's closer to 30, which is great, prefer to err on the more conservative side there.

Visual impact comes up with these things no matter where you work on them.

And the reality is that they sit in a field at about eight foot tall, maybe sometimes a little taller.

They're not grass, but they're not particularly high.

That said, we wanted to be very cognizant of this to any residents and any neighbors in the area.

So we took an initial stab.

County setback requirements were 25 to 75 feet, depending on front yard, side yard, rear yard, et cetera.

Right off the bat, we just said 200 feet around all external property lines will be untouched.

Well, I say untouched.

We'll not have any work or equipment related to the solar project and there will be screening buffers in there.

That's why I say they'll be touched, but they won't be impacted and we'll have no equipment.

Of that 200 feet, 100 feet will either be existing vegetation that's around the around the edge.

If you go out on a site tour, you've seen how thick some of that is in areas where it's not there.

We'll plant a thick, fast growing pine buffer in that 100 foot.

In fact, a lot of it has already been replanted because the use of the property is a timber timber tract anyway.

So those will grow up rapidly to provide a hundred foot screen.

Behind that will be another hundred foot of tall growing native meadow plants to provide basically pollinator habitat and also you know screening but not super high that shades the panels so that we have that hundred foot setback for that.

We have worked really hard to come up with, and we can talk about this more in a little bit, to come up with a pollinator being butterfly friendly mix in this vegetation management plan that we've put together.

Talk a little more, one of the cool things about that the state of Virginia has

What they call the Virginia Pollinator Smart Certification.

That's effectively a review process and listing of species that the state will then endorse and qualify a site as pollinator smart or non-pollinator smart.

We have designed a vegetation management plan with the help of our engineer because I don't know

very much at all about plantings, unfortunately have learned a lot, but with their help to be in compliance with the Virginia Smart Pollinator Program.

Very excited about that.

That will allow a lot of micro, not micro habitats, a very large habitat for many species to live under and around these panels, as well as, I'm excited, I think you might hear from somebody later about some beekeeping for some potential commercial honey production on the site, which is pretty cool.

That's also, getting smart qualified used to be seen as something only very small projects could do, not large projects like this, but we worked pretty hard with Ernst, who's one of the leading seed manufacturers, you don't manufacture seeds, seed aggregators, I suppose you would say, to come up with a plan that we are confident those plantings are available to make this work.

We comply with the wetlands protection ordinance stream buffer in that we will not have any activity in terms of construction except for a few existing crossings across streams and moving power lines across streams.

Otherwise, we will not be within 100 feet of any delineated wetland, which has been submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers.

We've already done that delineation and built our site around that.

It's cut off here.

I'm sorry.

I think we had different versions of PowerPoint, so I apologize for the bad font.

Thank you for your patience.

It'll enable wildlife corridors, as you will see in our site plan in just a moment.

Many different subsections of the array are separated.

What that allows is not, there's not one large concentrated block of panels.

Rather, wildlife will be able to pass through.

through several corridors and so we don't anticipate notable disruption to the wildlife patterns.

Habits, that's what I just said.

100 feet from wetlands, climate action,

Sometimes you repeat yourself.

We have actually been talking with a couple of local graziers, people who run sheep, who are interested in keeping sheep on this site.

Our vegetation management plan is designed to try to balance, and I'll talk in more detail in a second, but to balance what sheep would need to eat under and around the panels to keep them healthy, what bees need to keep happy and buzzing both under and around the panels and in the meadow areas outside of the panels and also within the stormwater management areas.

So that's what our planter mixes are actually designed for.

They can be tweaked in the site plan, but they're set up to kind of be that as a baseline.

So we've been talking with them.

Like I mentioned, you'll hear in a little bit about another beekeeping and need production partnership that we're working on with this as well.

This is also, and I think many of you, I've been able to go on a tour of the site with, and you've been able to lay eyes on it.

It's a commercial timber tract currently.

It has a lot of nature on it, and nature is resilient and finds a way to push and fight.

But it's not been particularly well maintained over the last 80 years.

It's a monoculture loblolly pine forest that's managed in about 14 different tracts that just continually get cleared, have Roundup dumped on top of them after a couple of years of being cleared to kill all the broadleafs off, and then they get replanted in pine.

So its current use is not

We need timber production and I get it but this is not necessarily the best use of the land and you know what we're talking about is a 35-year project that gives these soils rest for a little bit of time so that's that's been kind of the guiding ethos.

One of the other things that I'm I'd say most proud of on this project is the amount of community engagement that we have have taken you know we had two formal meetings

But that doesn't include very, very many hours spent both on site tours with community members and in people's homes talking, learning about, and really taking people's feedback into account.

So there's a few different big changes that the community had in terms of what this project did.

One of them is the removal of panels along Island Drive, which I'll point out in a second, just to minimize proximity to some residents who were concerned.

We did that.

And then the other is actually the vegetation management plan itself.

Holy moly, I only have three and a half minutes left.

I'll move quick.

But we worked with them.

I sent out an update email to you guys several months ago that mentioned that I had engaged with several environmental organizations and hoped to have some endorsements to bring before you.

Lo and behold, I do.

I'm very grateful.

We've been in close contact with the Sierra Club, C3, and Liveable Seville, all of whom have done a very detailed review and put together some really helpful fact sheets and have endorsed the project full-throatedly.

So we're really grateful to have that.

That said, we haven't only worked with professional organizations.

I've engaged with several neighbors for a lot of time, as well as there's a hunt club that currently and has for years hunted the property.

They're going to maintain, since we're only fencing 600 acres,

There's still about 1800 acres of space that they'll be able to maintain their recreational purpose for and we've worked with them pretty closely as well to kind of meet the needs of all residents who are going to be in the area as best we can.

You can't do everything to make everybody perfectly happy, but I feel confident saying that we've done the best we can with this.

I mentioned this interconnection to you a second ago, I won't go through it again, except that what's really cool about this project

is that it can interconnect now because it is able to interconnect now because there's an old coal plant that's been decommissioned.

There's space on the grid for a large solar project to step in and take its space.

It's a really cool story.

And it's also pragmatically very helpful that we're actually able to connect to the grid.

That was down in Fluvanna, and that whole plant site has been decommissioned.

I think they're working on the coal ash, but I don't remember exactly the details.

Here's the site.

I won't spend too much time on it.

These are existing photos of the site.

This was taken in the spring of last year.

It's pretty degraded.

As you can see, the bottom right is one of the more interesting pictures because that's a lot of just existing scour pads of stormwater that's just kind of ripping through and not particularly well kept.

You can see the stumps there as well from the previous pine activity.

More pictures, we took some drone shots.

One thing in terms of putting this plan together, we wanted to have a quick understanding of what the soil was going to look like.

So we did do soil tests across the whole area.

Long and short of that is that the soil is very acidic across the whole site.

It is going to require

You know, we can't just go plant plants and expect them to magically grow.

We have a process of both lime and fertilizer that's going to be able to help bring the soil.

I don't want to speak to what I don't know while I have our expert here with us to help speak to that.

But we worked with Ernst to come up with a seed mix and a plan for maintenance of making that take.

So long story short, it's a pitch, I know, but that is what the site looked like.

The top picture there that you see is the first project I ever developed.

It's in Massachusetts, and you can see that the grass has actually taken.

The site right below it is actually after its problems.

That's this Pennsylvania site where they were having trouble getting vegetation to take.

Ernst came in, who we designed our site plan with, and got vegetation to take.

That was taken this summer.

It's a very lush meadow underneath it.

Thank you.

You will have a chance to give us more information if it's relevant to a question asked.

Excellent.

That was the red line.

And this is partially the staff as well.

My understanding is that the buffers that are shown on the map, there will be 100 foot buffers on all the streams, or at least all the streams on the entire property, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Correct.

They could go in there and do any stream restoration or anything that's permitted under the water protection ordinance, as long as it's not in conflict with the application plan.

So for example, if they wanted to go in there and do some exempt activity in the WPO, but that was in conflict with the site plan, then they couldn't do it.

But if they wanted to go in there and do stream restoration, that's permitted, that's consistent with the plan, they could do it.

The other one relates to the vegetative management plan.

It's a great job.

I think one of the things too, I know a lot of those soil analysis

They lean towards agriculture, so the amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus they recommend to apply may be higher than you actually need.

Thank you for the presentation.

Yeah.

Sorry, I have trouble here with the mic.

When I said community engagement is one of the things I'm most proud of.

I think that was something I, when I started this job, I didn't know what municipal government or solar development or development itself was, and I didn't know the role that communities played.

I like to think that all the projects I've done have benefited the communities they're in, and I think they have.

But I also learned rapidly that it makes my job and communities lives a lot easier if we just have a dialogue right from the beginning.

And so we worked really hard to make sure that's clear.

So I would say that's one of the best lessons learned.

One of the next lessons learned is the vegetation, because originally it was

We'll plant some grass.

Yeah, grass.

That'll work fine.

And you know, stormwater, these things don't really have any sort of impact on stormwater, right?

We'll be fine.

That's since become obviously not clear, not the case.

And in some ways, the industry, I think, has, like I mentioned, maybe done sometimes a disservice to itself by not really acknowledging these land use issues and integrating them rapidly.

So I think learning how to treat solar as both a land use development, a positive land use development,

in places where that's appropriate is the other.

Maybe that is the primary lesson that we've learned.

And I know there's a sort of meta, but those are kind of the guiding lights for how we've approached this.

Thank you.

Just go this way.

I just have a couple of sort of just basic sort of photography questions.

Yeah.

So if you could go back to your slide that's sort of from the drone that shows that.

Yeah.

In the top photograph, there's that, if I remember correctly, that's a deep, deep sort of gully that was carved out from when it was, I guess, timbered up there and just sort of left.

Yeah, so the reality is that this project and looking at the site, it's kind of obvious it's going to require grading.

There's no way that we're going to be.

We need to get slopes to about 15 percent.

That can sound, on the one hand, scary.

And I realize that because what immediately comes up is topsoil and what happens to help the health of the topsoil.

And, you know, in some areas where you might have a six foot cut, you're getting down to not topsoil.

That's not especially fertile.

That's going to support plant growth.

And that's going to be moved around.

So I think I know our vegetation management plan works to integrate best management practices there.

What I'd say, though, is the other side, the good side, the not scary side of that grading is that those scour areas that you're starting to see are going to be smoothed out.

And we're actually going to be able to help reduce channeling and then rapid runoff and erosion by actually integrating this and keeping it from being a cutover site.

Rather, it's actually going to be a densely meadowed area.

that is well maintained.

Thank you.

So and then the next question I have, my recollection, I think I saw it on your plans, but I frankly was struck by just the quantity of them, which is good.

This is the largest plan.

That's another lesson in our conversation from this earlier this afternoon.

This is a good number of plans.

But I was trying to figure out, I know there were a number of sort of small tributaries that were on the property that hadn't been respected by the timbering or at least had not been engaged with properly with the timbering.

I was trying to figure out what you were going to do with those.

Yeah, and you can sort of see, and I think we even crossed one.

I can't remember if I was with you or someone else when we saw a little crawfish running through one of those degraded little tributaries.

You can see how the site is sort of cut up in all these areas.

That's because that's where delineated wetlands are.

We've done... We contracted with Wild Ginger Services out of Scottsville to do a wetland delineation and they spent

an entire summer just going block by block delineating with these wetlands.

And so our whole site plan is actually based off of that and the idea that any wetlands we have to be 100 feet off of and those are going to be protected.

Now, I don't want to over warrant what the project can and can't do.

We're not proposing to go in and restore all of those wetlands.

What we are proposing is leaving them open for restoration and giving them a chance to rest and making them available to folks.

But yeah, what you see

I love to claim the credit for the wildlife corridors, but nature sort of provided for itself in this situation because these wetlands are natural corridors that have these hundred foot on either side buffers.

But I have two more, just two more other ones.

I think the last one is about what you started us with, but I want to hear if you should speak a little bit.

Highest elevation in terms of the topography or in terms of the panels?

I'm going to lean on my civil engineer actually because I know there's a lot of grading.

Dan, do you have off the top of your head what we're dealing with?

We can't hear him.

He'd have to come up if he's going to testify.

Certainly appreciate that.

My name is Dan Jamison.

I'm with Timmons Group out of Richmond, Virginia.

Off the top of my head, we did this the overall grading months ago.

I want to say there's probably 50, 60 feet of fall throughout the site, obviously in the tributaries that you were speaking of and being in the lower range.

But there are some some higher points.

Most likely the transmission line is sitting up on a more or less a ridge as well.

So if I recall, it was summer.

Yeah.

And that's spread across the entirety of the site.

So it's not like you have 50, 60 foot jumps and there's, as I mentioned, there's grading here.

What we can commit to is that there's no input or export of soil across the whole site.

So just to understand, so you're saying, I think it's about, according to the grid lines, it's about 500 feet above sea level.

So you're going to say it's about

Or 50 to 500 or 75 to 525 ish thereabouts.

I understand that.

Sorry, I don't.

That's fine.

Yeah, and I brought a whole panel of experts and so I might ask Nick Ford, our interconnection engineer, but the way the grid works, so we're in Dominion service territory right here, right, and so Dominion has their own area, but then actually all the way up through New Jersey, west of Chicago, down to northern North Carolina, is one giant grid management area, and they call that Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland, because

I won't make any denigrating comments towards the northeast here.

But we're part of that.

They manage the whole process for Dominion and for all the utilities that make that up.

They historically were a little bit easier to interconnect to than some of the other grid managers.

They're called ISO's, independent system operators throughout the country.

They got overwhelmed with a lot of solar projects and said, hold on a minute, there's a lot of speculative

projects in here that are stuffing this whole process up for all of us.

Let's basically put a big stopper on it for a little while.

And so they put a two-year moratorium on any new interconnections, as well as projects that have already been sitting for a couple of years that don't meet certain criteria.

We guessed that this project was going to be held up in that same timeframe.

We found out last, I think it was literally Christmas Eve, that because this retired coal plant and some other issues, pieces that had fallen out on the grid, there's space on this grid for us to connect without even having to upgrade it.

And because of that, that was one of the criteria for fast-tracking a project like this to actually be able to interconnect.

Yes, I had my first kid in the last year, so I can't keep it straight, but I think it was 2021.

I didn't have the kid.

My wife, who's in attendance, who was in attendance had the gig.

We had our fun.

So basically, the project's been green-lit to go forward to connect to Dominion.

That's right.

As a developer, the job is a little bit hard because you're trying to manage a few different timelines and make sure everything is viable and when it needs to be viable.

And we only have so much time.

I think it's a couple of years between the time we signed the paperwork to get the project built.

Okay.

Thank you for the presentation.

So I want to go back to a comment you made about one of your lessons learned, which was stormwater from previous projects.

And I also heard from staff that we consider this as impervious.

So I want to understand that, particularly if you're improving soil condition, as you're stating.

Can you talk a little bit about what you do?

Are you going to be grading?

Are you going to be grading any more soil?

Are you going to amend the soil?

And then, of course, you're going to plant.

That is an imminently logical question.

I'm grateful to hear you ask it.

There is a big debate going on right now about whether or not to treat solar panels as impervious or not.

That project I showed you up in New England in Massachusetts, they don't consider them at all impervious because there's more space between a panel row

More space in the row than there is of the width of the panel itself.

So, you know, your panel width is about six foot.

You have and this is for shading because you don't want the panel shading each other and you need to be able to drive a tractor through.

You have about 33 percent ground cover.

They're not touching each other.

And so what you end up getting is rainwater falls on it, but then it falls from the panel to the ground.

The vegetation is thick.

You might have heard the conversation about a drip edge in the southwest.

That's a problem here.

We have enough vegetation that it doesn't actually

damage the soil.

But then once it hits that soil, it just starts flowing.

And so it flows under the panels in front of it and in front of it.

Last year or this year, I think, the state started looking at what one could say was the most aggressive stormwater management revision that we've seen.

And one of the major pieces of that was saying we now need to design these sites as if the panels are impervious.

That sent the industry into a bit of a tailspin actually of like, well, how do we have enough space to build these things?

Because now, A, that's from our perspective, that's illogical based on what I just explained to you.

That said, we realized that previous projects treated this as if it was no impervious surface whatsoever.

and had too much runoff.

And so there were problems with that.

So there's a middle ground.

The state's working hard to try to work through that right now.

They had issued guidance, felt like a little bit of a shot from the hip, but issued guidance that said we needed to consider them as impervious.

After public comment,

They withdrew that.

So that's no longer actually a state mandate or dictate.

And they're working to revise those to actually try to get this right.

Like I said, different states treat this differently.

There's no magic bullet that we found.

Where we're at is that we'll comply with both state and local mandates on how to get this working.

I would very much appreciate a consideration that they're not fully impervious across the whole area, but instead are

somewhere in the middle and come to an agreement there.

Now, what I will say is our site design and you can see

These little blocks and squares, we wanted to not get caught with our pants down, as it were, for stormwater and realized we had no space for ponds.

So we went ahead and worked conceptual stormwater management into the site so that we do have space regardless of whatever happens to be able to handle that.

That'll all, of course, be ironed out at the site plan review, but this is the conceptual level.

I knew it was a complex question.

Thank you.

Great, thanks.

Appreciate the presentation and the tour.

It was a great tour.

I really enjoyed it.

I did about 9,000 of them.

Pretty sure those pictures were taken on the tour I was waiting on.

That's it.

So a couple quick questions.

One is just to make sure I understand the substation request that you've got in front of us.

There is one substation request, right?

And that is all that you're requesting.

Do you foresee the need for additional substations in the future?

No, only one substation.

That's here on these lines that run on the south, as you can see.

It's very interior to the site, which is strategic.

So that's the only point.

The point of that sub is to connect to the line, get the power from the panels to the grid.

The only caveat I would like to add there, and this is not part of our request right now because we don't even know what's going to happen and the industry is changing,

You may see me again in a year or two or somebody else on this project to request a battery storage amendment so that we can put some battery storage with this.

Battery storage did not get fast-trapped with the PJMQ and so we don't, and the market's kind of trying to figure itself out and the technology is constantly changing so we didn't throw that in now.

That would be the only potential

addition to the substation, but it wouldn't be another substation.

It would just be some trailer, basically like Connex boxes stacked on top of each other at the substation location, but no additional substations.

You got the thumbs up.

A few more quick questions.

I'm sorry.

A few more quick questions.

One is under the category of timing and phasing.

I think you touched on this as well.

So you've got the interconnection permit.

So two parts to that.

We anticipate construction will actually only take 12 to 18 months because once you get your grading done,

You're just popping steel posts in the ground and securing panels so it'll be a lot of great jobs for that 12 to 18 months and then it'll be quiet and there won't be anything happening with it.

So the construction itself won't take too long.

We do have a series of hurdles, you know, assuming all of this goes well and we as a community agree on this.

We all need to go to the state for what they call their permit by rule and that requires a really detailed cultural and historical study.

It takes a good bit of time so you know we don't have a ton of wiggle room and elbow room and there's a three-year permit validity added.

I think that's more than sufficient but you may see in some ways maybe even ask if the board could language could be added that the board may extend based on

extenuating circumstances.

Yeah, no, that's good.

It's all a factor.

Yeah.

And, you know, we were just talking as a team about this last week that there's these new tariffs that have got, well, there's been a new judgment that finds that a lot of the panels produced in Southeast Asia are subject to tariffs, in fact, that will be implemented.

So that's definitely going to put a squeeze on supply.

But the plus side of that is with the passage of the IRA, the Inflation Recovery Act,

Local or American-based production for these things is actually now really heavily incentivized and is ramping up.

Plants are being announced that are going to produce these things.

We're going to be in a little bit of a funny timing that we've got to navigate that.

We feel confident that we've got all the pieces in place to do so.

Great.

Yeah.

Okay, just two more quick ones, not a question, one's a statement.

Question on the wires and the tweaked condition that Mr. Fritz presented, that all wires needed to be underground with the exception of those adjacent to wetlands and etc.

I'm just trying to quantify that and what kind of visual impact that would have.

No, it's only

Sorry to cut you off.

The only place is, you know, we'll need to connect each of these subarrays.

Ultimately, they all need to get to this substation.

And so each of those will have, you know, they have inverters located at each subarray that's really small.

You can hardly see it, but I think it's like there's one that's about right here.

Those will all gather up together and then we'll have to get those lines all into one place and then run across

You know, the most efficacious pathway to move power from here to here.

So it's not as if it's gonna be.

It's not like they're all gathering into one.

That's right.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then the last thing is about the stormwater.

The one thing that strikes me about stormwater is the quantity and quality.

Yeah.

And people aren't parking on top of these arrays.

People aren't driving on them.

So that's more of a statement, I guess, than anything else when you're thinking about that.

But I also know you're gonna have to install

Erosion Control devices.

Yeah, we'll have sedimentation basins scattered throughout that then remain as stormwater, as well as all the silt fences you could dream of.

Thank you.

That's all.

OK.

Does anyone have any questions for the applicant before I move into public comment?

All right.

We're going to move on to public comment portion.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Okay, so we're going to get ready for the public comment portion and just to let you all know on the back of the agenda are all the guidelines for participating in public hearing.

We are allowing a little bit of extra time this evening because we are combining

Two different applications into one.

One of the things that I like to tell people is that we don't allow people making out loud exclamations in the audience, but if you want to show your support for something instead of yelling, yay, you can raise your hand and support, so that's fine.

The other thing is if somebody right before you has just made all the points you want to make, you can always just say ditto and then make a new point.

rather than repeating the same points over and over again.

They won't necessarily be any more powerful.

And then don't forget to state your name and your affiliation when you come up.

And you also can raise and lower the mic.

I'm short so I would lower it.

If you're tall you might want to raise it.

So with that I'm going to call out the people who have signed up to

testified.

However, if you didn't sign up, that's fine.

We'll still have time at the end for you to come up.

So I have the list here, but if you didn't sign up, that's fine.

For those people online, my practice is to take the people online after the people who have spoken in person.

So if you're waiting online to speak, you'll also get a turn.

I'm going to ask Gal to queue up.

So we're going to start.

I'm going to ask the first three people to queue up so we can save time getting in and out of your seats.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the commission.

Thanks for your time tonight.

It's always a pleasure to come in front of these boards and to work through.

My name is Matt Hansman.

I'm the founder and CEO of Hexagon Energy, but I'm also a lifelong resident of Charlottesville, born and raised here and have worked most of my entire career here.

and as Scott pointed out our company works all over the country on these projects and it's only been in the past several years that Virginia has really embraced bringing renewable energy into Virginia and so it's a great pleasure not only to be here in Virginia working hard which we have many projects throughout the state but more particularly to be working in our

own neighborhood in our own backyard with our neighbors and making sure, as Scott mentioned, that we bring kind of the best practices to this project so that we're all as a community are happy and content with the project.

One of Hexagon's kind of guiding values that we stress as a company is stewardship.

And as we think about stewardship as a company, we look at it on the

largest macro scale like our ability to bring clean renewable energy to the United States or the world in general.

But then we look kind of as we narrow that focus to kind of the regional and the community level.

And as Scott pointed out, our interaction with the communities, our give and take with the communities is critically important to how we can build projects that are

Well accepted by the community and take into consideration all the community's comments and requests.

So we take that very seriously, but also at kind of a micro level, we also take the stewardship of the land very, very seriously and as

was mentioned.

The landowner is an old friend of mine from growing up here in the in the region so we are very much of the same mind as he is as far as stewardship of the land and we think this project over the life of the land will actually significantly improve the quality of the land and leave it in a better place once the project has been completed and decommissioned.

So I'll keep it short.

I wanted to actually comment.

I've been working in the industry for over 20 years.

I've seen planning commissions throughout the country, and I'd have to say that the staff here and the ordinances and the process that you all take has been one of the best and most thorough and detailed that we've seen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Billy Spreadland.

I'm with the Woodbridge Sportsman Association.

We've been leasing this land that the project is going on for over 50 years.

I've analyzed what they're doing.

It's a very positive project for the community.

I feel like it's going to better the land in the community.

I grew up here.

I've lived there my whole life within two miles of the project.

I look at the way the area has grown.

I see this project keeping rural land, rural, the amount of land that they're actually going to use on this project.

The fenced in area is very insignificant to the amount of land that is going to be incorporated with this and kept as

Forestland.

I hunt here.

My children hunt now.

They're young.

I want them to have this land that they can go and do things on.

We pay leases on this land to preserve it for this right that we have.

It's also going to, in the community, there are a lot of excavators.

There are a lot of dump truck drivers.

There's people that are going to be doing land clearing.

Planning, all these people that are going to prosper from this project.

I run a security company.

There's going to be a need for that.

There's so many positives in our community that I feel like people are going to be able to utilize.

So I am very much in support of this project.

And us as a group, Woodbridge Sportsman Association, we are all in support of it.

My name is Drew Price.

I live in the Samuel Miller District.

And I've lived in Albemarle County for 17 years now with my wife and three kids, all of whom go to Albemarle County Public Schools.

And I'm here tonight to speak in support of the project, not only as a longtime resident, but also as the co-founder and president of Hexagon Energy.

When Matt and I started Hexagon, our goal was to build a local small business that could bring the benefits of renewable energy to our area, both in the people we employ and in the communities that we serve.

And as you heard Matt mention, we've spent the past seven and a half years working across Virginia and other parts of the US trying to bring projects that deliver clean energy

environmental benefits and economic opportunity.

And when we went into each of those different localities to work, we approached it as if it were our own trying to do our best.

And all the while hoping that we might have a chance to actually work in our community.

And so when this opportunity came up a few years ago, we jumped at the chance to sort of put our money where our mouth is and show that, you know, we

We're committed to doing this work where we lived and we've been working hard ever since then to build a well-cited and thoughtfully designed project that benefits our community.

But one of the things I wanted to touch on tonight is that one of the coolest parts of my job in starting this company is that my kids have been more interested in what I do now than they've ever been before.

And maybe that's because, you know, when I was starting this company when they were 8, 6, and 3, they realized that their future depended on it in more ways than one.

They actually came here tonight to keep eyes on me and I guess make sure I did a good job but you know I think the other thing is that you know the kids get it that like we all need to do our part and so

You know our conversation at the dinner table is always, you know, where are you working on projects and how are they going and when do we get to see one and so it's really proud to be able to stand up here in the community.

They've all been born and grown up in and say that we're working on this project that has a chance.

to make our county a little bit better in the world, a little bit better.

And one day, hopefully, maybe they'll get a chance to go tour that with their school groups.

We live in an amazing place.

There's so much knowledge and expertise around us, and we haven't been shy about tapping into that.

It's one of the reasons we started this company here.

We've been working with

local nonprofits, with professors, with researchers, with local businesses, like you've heard, and also with neighbors to incorporate the best ideas.

And not just the best renewable energy ideas, but really challenging ourselves to bring the best ideas from all disciplines from this.

And that's why we're really proud tonight to present Woodridge Solar.

It's this product of intense community input,

Engineering expertise, you know, environmental rigor, and then just honestly like genuine care and concern for our county and the place we live.

So I appreciate the opportunity to make the comments and would appreciate your vote to recommend approval to the board.

Okay, thank you.

Hello, my name is Christine Putnam and I live on Secretaries Road, so you probably notice there's that green

section right in the middle of the project, and that's where I live, and that's my property.

So, of course, I understand the need for alternative energy sources to address climate change.

And that said, I would, of course, rather see solar being placed on rooftops and on brownfields.

But I also understand that this particular project has advantages, given its proximity to the transmission line.

with this open capacity.

So not only am I a citizen and I live in the middle of this project, I'm also the chair of the Albemarle County Natural Heritage Committee and so I'm deeply concerned about the protection of our natural resources and I'm particularly concerned about the impact that this solar project

will have on the land.

I wanted to commend Scott Remer, he's been great.

He's listened to these concerns and there's been this commitment from Hexagon in restoring the native vegetation and protecting the stream buffers.

So I have read the vegetative management plan from top to bottom.

And it's a sound plan.

But the problem is that it relies on active monitoring.

So if you meet through the plan, it's like it's going to be monitored in these periodic intervals.

And not just at the beginning in the first three years, but continually over that 30-year period.

So that has to happen in order for it to be successful.

And I know how difficult it is to establish a plant cover on these acidic soils.

And especially this once been impacted by decades of industrial timbering.

So I'm a gardener.

I've lived on that property for 25 years.

I've tried to grow things and it's not easy.

It's not as easy as just throwing the seed out.

This job could be made more difficult due to the intensive grading that will have to take place under around the panels.

You're going to be pulling, taking the topsoil off, you're going to bring the subsoils up and laying them on top.

One can only hope that after the soil amendments have been added and the seed has been dispersed that the weather will cooperate to create a thriving vegetative cover.

But there is a real possibility that the weather will not cooperate, that there will be places where the seed does not take and where invasive plants will take hold.

This is why a third party professional is needed to make sure that the vegetative plan is properly implemented and monitored, not only during the first few years, but throughout the life of the project.

And it looks like the developer has offered that.

And so I really feel like it needs to be a condition.

The developer should provide funds for the monitoring and any needed remediation.

We cannot expect county staff or neighboring citizens like myself to take on this responsibility.

650 acres worth.

If we want to see the land restored to support a biodiverse landscape of native plants, which will in turn support pollinators, birds, and other wildlife, active monitoring really must take place.

With a project of this size, there's a lot at stake.

We need to make sure that we get it right.

The county is in the process of hiring a consultant to write an ordinance for utility scale solar.

And this model ordinance needs to require that all projects meet the pollinators smart certification and that these proper projects are properly monitored.

So before approving, I hope that that monitoring will be put in place.

Good evening commissioners.

My name is Danny Van Cleef I live in the Whitehall district.

Much of my family's history in this area includes property ownership in Southern Albemarle County, going back multiple generations in fact so I am speaking with that perspective in mind, someone who has grown up.

with a deep appreciation for the rural character of Southern Albemarle County and therefore someone who thinks quite a lot about getting development right in that part of our county.

The other perspective I have is I am also the founding CEO of the solar energy business also based in Charlottesville.

And like the applicant, our business is part of a growing collection of renewable energy companies that call this county home.

I know the Hexagon team personally, they're a respected competitor of ours so it's a bit unorthodox perhaps to speak in support of a project on behalf of a direct competitor but I'm here to do that and I can attest to their professionalism, their character and their integrity.

And I know that like myself and my colleagues at SunTribe Development, the Hexagon team views working on, and I think we heard this from one of the founders, they view working on this project in a community that they call home as a privilege and a responsibility.

So I expect that that will translate into extreme care being applied to the balance of this development effort, just like it clearly has been thus far.

I've worked on more than 70 completed solar projects in 22 states over the past decade and a half, including a successful special use permit application last year for another ground mounted solar farm in Albemarle County called Midway Solar.

So I can speak from direct experience when I say that when it comes to the level of rigor

Thoughtfulness and the duty of care that is applied to reviewing a solar application.

Albemarle County's planning staff distinguishes themselves as best in class.

And by the time an application reaches the Commission's desks, it has been thoroughly vetted.

and the standards and conditions which have already been imposed are of substantial quality and merit.

I found, as have my colleagues, this to be amongst the most rigorous places to secure a land use approval for solar in the country.

And I think that that, in my view, staff's recommended approval of this application carries significant weight and should provide real comfort for everybody that's gathered here tonight.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else from the audience who would like to comment, please come forward and you can cue up.

Sorry.

Good evening.

My name is John Kluge.

I'm a longtime resident here.

Um, and also a business owner.

The last time I was actually here addressing this council I had my little girl with me, but she kept trying to steal the microphone so I thought I'd leave her at home tonight.

I am here really in support of the Woodridge Project.

I'm also the co-founder of the Thistle Rock Meat Company.

So Scott earlier mentioned a partnership relating to pollinators and to meat production.

So you all will probably be seeing a lot more of me in the months ahead as we hope to open up sometime in the middle or later next year.

So mead, if you're not aware, is a honey derived product classified in the state of Virginia under a farm winery or that is at least the classification we'll be pursuing.

We are a nature based and mission driven social enterprise.

So our reason for existence is really to bring people and our communities closer together with the natural world.

It happens that we produce a wine that is largely based off of the production of honey.

Right now, our farm is located in the Milton area, where we have a regenerative flower operation and apiary.

This work started during COVID.

My wife and I began work restoring our soil

which not so dissimilar from this proposed project site was a timber area and most of our topsoil was completely gone when we started our work.

So we started with the dirt and we then moved into the flowers and the botanical operation and then brought the bees in.

And I can share with you that just in the last 18 months, our backyard and our farm has completely changed.

We are seeing wildlife that we never saw six years ago when we moved into this site.

The biodiversity has improved, the quality of the soil, our ability just to grow vegetables has completely changed.

And I really credit this to

an approach that is really one based in symbiotic relationship with the land and the flora and the fauna.

As a farm winery that is producing honey as its raw fermentation ingredient rather than grapes, we have a requirement, one that we hope to exceed, to produce over 51% of our fermentation ingredients or at least 51% of our fermented sugars

from Honey ourselves.

It's very hard to do that if you do not have large acreage.

We have right now 40 hives under our management and you'll hear from Allison Wickham who's our head of APRE operations in a moment.

So we have to expand and we have to do that through partnership.

And so as a mission-driven company, we are not only being very thoughtful about how we source our ingredients aside from honey, so thinking about fruits from other local farms, thinking about other botanicals from local farms, as well as honeys that are unique to special places around the world.

We are reinvesting 50% of our pre-tax profits into climate action, conservation, biodiversity protection, and livelihoods of disenfranchised beekeepers.

But to do this, we are really looking at ways we can structure innovative partnerships.

And this solar project is a really great example.

For us, our goal out of the gate is to be the first net-zero meter in the country and the first net-zero winery in the state of Virginia.

That is partially why this project has particular appeal because we can bring our bees to the Woodridge site, help advise on the pollinator plan as well as the land management practice.

Use the honey that we collect there to produce a value add product here in the county and take that on a national stage and use that to communicate our goals as a mission and nature driven company.

So we, of course, support this project.

I hope you all do as well.

We've signed a letter of intent with Hexagon Energy stating our purpose there, and I hope we'll continue this discussion shortly.

Thank you.

Good evening.

There must be a lot of parents because we're all talking about how hot of a date this is and how we haven't spent any time away from our kids, including myself.

So thank you for having us.

I needed it.

I'm Allison Wickham.

I'm also here on behalf of this rock with John.

He introduced the company to you, so I'll ditto that.

I'm also the founder of Siller Pollinator Company, which is a Charlottesville area based pollinator focused service provider.

I have an undergraduate.

I'm sorry, could you raise the mic a little?

He's having trouble hearing.

There's a lot of buzz behind us.

Cool.

OK.

I have an undergraduate degree in chemistry, environmental studies and geography and a master's degree in soil and crop science.

But mostly people just call me the bee lady.

But as an expert in land management and pollinators, I have to say that this is this is a great project.

It's going to have a direct positive impact on pollinator populations.

Besides the no-brainer benefit that it provides clean energy, it's going to provide food and nesting grounds for native pollinators.

And did you know that there are over 400 species of bees native to the state of Virginia?

So we don't just have honeybees and bumblebees and the carpenter bees that are destroying your deck right now, well in the summer, but 400 other species.

and these native pollinators rely directly on native plant species because they've been together for thousands of years.

You know, a lot of people know that pollinators are in decline and one of the leading causes is habitat loss and one of the best things we can do is just provide more habitat.

So hexagon is going to do that hundreds of acres worth so that's fantastic.

I've seen the vegetation plan, and it's beautiful.

It's a thing of beauty.

So I read it also top to bottom.

And they've generously allowed us to plan to keep bees on the site for Thistle Ragney Company, which is going to greatly improve our honey yields.

and it's going to provide jobs and clean energy, food and nesting grounds for the insect residents of Albemarle County and we're going to be producing an agricultural good on site as well.

We're going to turn that hunting into mead to be enjoyed in Albemarle County and I think it can really be a beautiful model of a cooperative

piece of land.

You know, there's an energy company here, but

Then we're going to come in and we're an agricultural company that's going to be there also making an agricultural product.

And then if we have sheep grazers, that is a whole other thing.

And it can be this beautiful model of cooperation and sort of co-contribution to the GDP.

And I think that that's something that we could really brag about.

So I think that it would be it would be something to encourage and spotlight.

And I'll say this, I can't keep bees at a coal-fired power plant.

Thanks.

Good evening, I'm Janie Podurowski, a resident of the Ryle District.

As a county resident who believes in social and environmental justice and climate change, that these things must be addressed locally, I'm speaking in support of the Woodridge Solar Project.

I urge that you recommend to the county supervisors to vote to approve the special use permit for the solar development by Hexagon Energy at the Woodridge site.

I'm a recent graduate of the Virginia Cooperative Extension's Master Gardener training so I'm pleased that the project plans includes extensive vegetation management for improved biodiversity with the potential benefits for our local ecosystem and that it qualifies for the Virginia Pollinator Smart Program and it sounds like a lot of economic benefits too.

But I, after hearing my fellow Master Gardener Christine Putman I do think that the ongoing monitoring that she mentioned would be wise.

The project is at the strategic location for the existing transmission line.

The community needs to be involved in the local efforts for the climate action plan to move forward.

And that's why I'm speaking tonight.

Increased community involvement leading up to the construction of the project needs to be encouraged by both your board and the Board of Supervisors.

We all use power and have vested interest in replacing fossil fuels with renewables.

My vested interest is, as some others have spoken, I have seven grandchildren and I'm interested in them having a

a livable community to live in a livable earth.

My husband and I do our part with solar panels on our roof and I drive an electric vehicle, but we need renewable energy at this scale to really make a difference.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Graham McLean, Albemarle County resident.

I first want to thank you for your detailed work on what you're doing in terms of evaluation.

This project is truly impressive.

I'll also start by saying

per your guidance, ditto, ditto, ditto to everyone who came before me.

And we'll review how solid of a project is.

I think that's pretty firmly established.

But I do want to I want to actually address a little bit of the context of your consideration of the project.

So the first is the essential fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia needs to deploy substantial renewable energy of all kinds and all sorts of configurations in order to decarbonize our electricity sector.

So yes to distributed generation, yes to solar on brownfields, yes to solar on reclaimed coal fields, and if you did all of that, that will not be enough.

So utility-scale solar is a critical piece of the equation, and we will not reach our goals without it.

The second I want to underscore is the existing transmission that you've heard about tonight.

That cannot be overemphasized in your consideration of this project, given the backup and the queues of the PJM.

And what we face as a nation in terms of needed transmission.

And then the last point I wanted to make was with respect to justice.

The less solar we deploy in Amarillo County, the more solar we have to deploy in other communities in Virginia.

And the less solar we deploy in Virginia, the more we have to deploy in other states in the United States.

And the less we deploy in the United States, the more we export that need to around the globe.

So it is only just that we as Albemarle County residents approve sound renewable energy projects that leverage existing infrastructure like Woodridge solar.

So I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm the co-chair of Livable Seville.

Livable Seville is a local all-volunteer group whose mission is to advocate for policies to build an inclusive Charlottesville area with affordable housing, sustainable transportation, and healthy neighborhoods welcoming to all.

Climate change and environmental justice are urgent matters, and we must address them at the local level.

I'm speaking in support of the special use permits for the Woodridge Solar Project.

Our research has found this project to be consistent with the county's environmental and land use goals, and we hope it will be approved and constructed.

The Woodridge Solar Project is an opportunity for Albemarle County to establish itself as a leader in Virginia for how to do utility-scale solar projects well.

It is a chance to say yes to renewable energy locally while preserving the ecological integrity of the site through a vegetation management plan that will remediate the land and grow hundreds of acres of native plants.

This project is consistent with phase one of Albemarle County's Climate Action Plan.

The CAP recommends that when considering utility scale of renewable energy projects, the county should strive to maintain a holistic perspective that accounts for potential climate benefits and the health of our local ecosystem.

This project maintains that balance through a combination of reduction in carbon emissions, room for effective stormwater management, and an extensive vegetation management plan that qualifies for the Virginia Pollinator Smart Program.

Another chance to make this much progress on the county's environmental goals through renewable energy is unlikely to come along anytime soon.

Hexagon Energy secured a connectivity agreement with PJM, which we've already talked about.

just in time because there's a two year pause.

Rejection of Woodridge Solar could cause the county to miss this window of opportunity and give solar developers pause about pursuing local utility scale projects longer term.

It could take decades for smaller community scale and rooftop projects to provide an equivalent amount of renewable energy in Albemarle County.

We understand this project is complicated and represents significant change for land use on this site and is unlike anything done on this scale in Albemarle County before.

But we see it as a win-win situation given Albemarle County the chance to both improve local ecological diversity and act quickly on its ambitious goals to address climate change.

We hope you recommend approval for this project.

Hello there.

My name is Kendall Dix.

I live in Esmont, right on the Scottsville border out in Albemarle County.

I have some good friends on Secretaries Road, so I'm very familiar with the site where this project is proposed.

My day job is a national policy director for a climate justice organization that's based in Louisiana, but that works

internationally.

I'm here representing myself, but I'm very familiar with the broad context of climate change and very familiar with climate action plans that are implemented at all levels of government.

And I'm especially familiar with those that focus on equity as I work for a Black-led organization that has climate justice and environmental justice at its core.

and so I moved here from Louisiana and I've already heard a lot about the local impacts or the local benefits I would even say when it comes to remediation but I just want to you know sort of contextualize to what it's like for places that are a bit more climate vulnerable than where we are here where the land is actually disappearing at a rapid rate and a lot of these places are where oil and gas production is already happening and so

The thing that we know about the climate problem is that everything that we do now is much more valuable than anything that we do later because the emissions are cumulative.

And so acting now to help sort of decarbonize helps people here, I think, in terms of energy resilience, in terms of getting us off of oil and gas, but it also helps people in places like Louisiana and places around the world that are climate vulnerable.

As a justice organization too, I think a lot of times there's a heavy skepticism of utility scale solar.

So I wasn't looking at this with rose colored glasses.

In fact, I was going through the proposal looking for the flaws.

And with utility scale,

or with any sort of solar installation sort of what you're looking at again is a lot of people have referenced is sort of you know what's going to be the land use impact are we are we converting something that that could be of a better use whether it comes to you know a forest or a farm or something like that um and I think is uh Christine who I know already referenced you're already you're almost uh bordering sort of already sort of like on a brownfield site or something that's been severely degraded and so

I think, you know, short of building something already on top of the built environment, I think this is the type of site that you would be looking for for this sort of thing.

And I think in terms of the set asides, the remediation of the land and all the other things that people have referenced, I think this is something that people who are skeptical of utility scale solar might say that this could be an example.

I guess we will see of it being done right.

And I think that we have a real opportunity here to maybe show what it could look like if things like stream buffers and pollinator remediation and really taking the advice of the neighbors around.

could look like.

So the last thing that I would mention is that there are studies that are out there.

I already emailed one to one of our commissioners here about how the larger the project, the more efficiency you get sort of in terms of electricity generation.

And so

The more concentrated it is, the less that you have to do in terms of distributed.

And in this case, I don't think that we should pretend that solar is without its cost, too.

We have mining in places like Central Africa or other places.

There are places where these materials have to be smelted and mined and things like that.

It's not like solar is completely without cost.

And so I think that we have, in some cases, where utility scale could make sense,

a real duty to sort of invest in that to make sure that we're not using these resources inefficiently and subjecting other regions to environmental injustice.

So for those reasons, I believe I am in favor of this project and I hope that you'll approve it.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll have to lower this substantially.

Good evening.

My name is Richard Levy and I am a Charlottesville resident.

I am also the co-founder of SunTribe Solar, the sister company of SunTribe Development, who you heard from earlier.

I am the chair of the Charlottesville Renewable Energy Alliance.

I am a member of the Virginia Board of Workforce Development.

We advise the governor on all matters related to workforce.

And I am the co-chair of an organization called SHINE,

The Solar Hands-On Instructional Network of Excellence.

SHINE is a nonprofit organization that is funded by the state of Virginia.

We develop training labs for folks to learn the skills required to be effective on a solar job site.

Part of our program is an informational dashboard that uses data to predict where projects are going to come up next and therefore where we need to roll out those training labs that are funded by the state to train individuals to gain the skills needed to work on projects that are local to where they live.

Most recently PVCC has agreed to deploy our program here locally at their campus.

And so with the approval of this project, you will also have the support of the state of Virginia and of Shine to help train local residents to obtain employment on this project.

I am Patricia Mada.

I live right on Secretaries Road.

These solar panels will be going up right next to my home.

Out my side windows, I will have beautiful visual view of solar panels.

Originally when they decided to herbicide the area next to my home it was over herbicide to make it look very desolate and barren and probably those are the pictures you saw.

There has been previous herbicides done and regrowth of pines which are directly across from me and they grew up pretty

pretty full and pretty nicely.

My concerns are first, of course, are there gonna be any more herbicides used in order to implement these solar panels?

Where exactly will these solar panels be coming from?

Mr. Rehman mentioned, and he's been in my home, he knows about the window I'm talking about, I showed him.

Where are these solar panels coming from?

They're supposedly supposed to be U.S.

solar panels.

I'd like to see U.S.

solar panels used in something of this magnitude next to my home.

Also, where the fire department

At one point there was supposed to be a fire department placed closer to this particular area.

Right now the closest one is all the way up by Monticello High School or all the way in Scottsville Township.

If there is a mishap, an arc or something, which have previously happened,

How fast could a fire truck come or there be water on these panels?

How quickly can this be taken care of?

Because I will be right next to it.

And if all these grasses are implemented and there is a drought conditions within the 22 years I've lived there, there have been droughts if it spreads.

And of course, one of the most important things is

the dismantling.

There's still no clear cut plan of how these solar panels will be dismantled.

Will this be eventually an industrial dump site for all these panels?

And will it turn industrial after it's fully decommissioned?

Because where are they going to put these solar panels?

Where are they going to take them?

and exactly how will they dismantle them?

Some of these questions are answered because there are concerns, definitely.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

My name is Jim Allen.

I lived in Albemarle County, in fact, right across the road from one of the original sort of solar panel fields that Hexagon had proposed.

I felt I needed to come up here as a naysayer to actually to join Pat.

Pat and I live, Pat, my wife and I, and her husband live not too far from each other, probably about a hundred yards or so.

And my concern is, like she said, was about, in one sense, about fires.

This is, as Scott put, the pictures of Massachusetts versus Virginia.

Well, Massachusetts is a much colder environment.

It's much more lush.

Came here.

I moved here from Dallas, Texas.

My wife and I, when we moved here, we flew in an airplane and it was brown and dry in May in Dallas.

It was lush and green here.

We said, we've got to live here because this is much nicer.

well the same sort of dynamics going on with those pictures because in the summertime here it's dry and it's dusty and therefore it does become a fire hazard and as Pat noted we are about 30 minutes from any any sort of fire safety in that regard and you have to have

you know sort of that duplicity of backup too because one fire truck coming out with a tank of water with a 30 minute head start is not going to cover it.

You're going to have to have lines of trucks with that water to be able to put that thing out before it becomes a problem for all the people in that in that neighborhood.

So in essence, we're sort of against it.

I'm also, you know, 40 years in the investment business.

One of the key things that

I learned, I mean I've seen lots of financial crisis come and go.

2008 you saw this and you saw that in the 2008 global financial crisis you saw it more recently with FTX.

People that don't have skin in the game oftentimes invest heavily in things and it ends up creating problems down the road.

and the people here who actually do have skin in the game, the people who are living right amongst next door, across the road from, are not necessarily in favor of us.

Now I have to say, Scott and his team have been very good to work with.

If anybody were to put together a solar field next to us, I'd like it to be a hexagon because they're actually very good to work with.

Frankly, we've always had a good relationship with the forester there too.

I know Christine has been very close in looking at how things work out with the degradation, but frankly, I've always found that

you know there's always been trees but once every 10 years you have to have loggers come out and get with all the dust and everything um but you know we've always worked well with them but you know the idea is that we have the skin in the game we're the ones that are going to be right there and therefore we want to make sure that this is you know that our lands are not substantially changed from what they were when we moved here

Pat moved here probably 17 years ago.

I know we were here about five, seven, eight years before she was and people have moved in since then and not knowing that there's a problem that you know with that there's going to be a solar solar field put next to it and therefore we just don't think that you know if you want to put together a solar plan

Why don't you put it out Western Albemarle or Northern Albemarle instead of right next to us.

Good evening.

My name is Laura Young.

I'm speaking tonight to show support of the Woodridge Solar Project.

My grandmother lives off of Secretaries Road and her property borders one of the proposed locations where solar panels will be placed.

In addition, her driveway will also become an access point to one of the service stations.

When I first heard of this project, I had mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I was excited about the possibility of powering 25,000 homes with renewable energy.

However, I was worried about the impact of my grandmother's property.

This summer, my dad and I met with Scott.

At our meeting, Scott listened to our concerns and his work to show that he and the team at Hexagon will be good neighbors throughout the entirety of their lease.

Albemarle County set a goal to hit zero net emissions by 2050, and I believe this project will help us get closer to that goal.

I support the Woodridge Solar Project, and it is my hope that the board will too.

Thanks.

I live right across the road.

on this project off Secretary's Road.

And I know you guys are here for our community.

Thank you.

My name is Brian Friedman.

I live on Blenheim Road, about two miles away from where this project is going to be.

In general, I'm also a ditto.

People have complimented working with Scott and his listening to the neighbors around in the area and trying to, I guess, alleviate our fears about a huge utility solar facility being put in there.

One question I had was at the very first slide it said there were 200 acres of panels or I thought it was 650 acres of panels.

I don't know if Scott can, that's one question I had and Scott mentioned that.

I was confused about that.

Whether it's 200 acres of panels within 650 acres or whether it's actually 650 acres of panels that are there.

My other concern is ultimately Hexagon as a developer is interested in making this project happen.

and getting it through and building it and putting it all together, then the big question is, who owns it after that?

And I am concerned about the teeth that the project will have or that the enforcement will have for whoever owns this project afterwards.

I like the folks at Hexagon or at least Scott, I haven't met the other folks and they seem like very good citizens.

However, they may not be the ultimate owners of this project and my concern is how do you can make those folks answerable to what the plans need to be.

It might be a great VMP

But how do you know five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road that that is still being implemented and taken care of?

I think that's a very important part that needs to be in the whatever the final written pieces are for this.

And my other question is, where does the power go?

We talk about 25,000 homes in Albemarle County being powered by this.

Is that truly the case?

Is this power going to Albemarle County?

Is Albemarle County going to benefit from this?

Or is it going up to Northern Virginia or someplace on the grid?

I agree that solar is an important part of how we go forward in decarbonizing the energy requirements of our country.

The question is, how does that benefit the folks here in Albemarle County?

Is there anyone else in the audience physically?

I'll try to be quick, but I'm not used to microphones.

Actually, I'll probably toss most of what I've got here.

I ditto a lot of what's been said.

Okay, my name, Bruce Sullivan.

I've lived in Albemarle County since 1973.

My mother lives at 49 of

4503 Island Drive, which is the northern part of the project.

And her Island Drive is essentially her driveway.

It goes through the project.

And we support the project.

We had some concerns early on.

We met with Scott, my daughter and I met with Scott.

And they've addressed those concerns.

The biggest concern was who was going to care for the road.

I'll just cut to the chase.

This is a great opportunity for Albemarle County.

It's an opportunity to be a leader.

We can we can show the rest of the world what a good solar project looks like and I I have every reason to believe this will be an excellent project.

So, we have the opportunity to be a good neighbor just not just to our friends in the Commonwealth but to everybody in the

Let's do this.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else in the audience who'd like to speak to this?

All right, seeing no one come forward.

Yes, ma'am.

I have two people at this point.

The first one is Kirk Bowers.

Kirk, please state your name and address if you're affiliated with a group or organization.

Okay, thank you for your attention and your time this evening.

My name is Kirk Bowers.

I'm a 35 year resident of the Rivanna

District and the native of Virginia.

I represent the Sierra Club.

I'm the conservation chair for the Piedmont group.

We, the Executive Committee of the Piedmont Group, endorse support for the Woodbridge Solar Facility Project.

The project site is suitable for a solar facility.

It would generate power for 25,000 homes, which is over half the homes in Albemarle County.

The project also supports the goals of the county climate action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It would meet about 20% of the goals of overall greenhouse gas emissions for the county.

The facility also fits into the Albemarle County comprehensive plan goals and the pending update.

So it's a great project.

We really support it.

However, we do have a couple of recommendations and reservations.

You know, when we support a project, we just don't want to go into it without looking at it very thoroughly.

And I'm going to offer my 40 years of civil engineering experience and background.

I'm a licensed professional engineer in conservation chair.

and I have a lot of experience in these types of projects, site development projects.

So what I'm, we're asking is several things is to include specs and the construction plans to minimize construction related compaction of onsite soil and share a high cover of perennial vegetation with minimal maintenance.

designed the site with pervious space between solar panel rows to promote infiltration of stormwater runoff.

Solar farms can be designed to minimize the impact of landscape eco-hydrological processes.

You know, our current practice is really, we're trying to get away from conventional stormwater practices using swimwear basins and using infiltration and impact development design.

And that's what we would recommend that LIDB use is the greatest extent possible on this site.

Part of that is

to encourage recharge of groundwater as part of the site development process.

However, there are some containing interest here I see.

What we need to do really is to develop a good stormwater plan that would use existing on-site soils to infiltrate the water.

That means building some infiltration swells between the panel roads.

Let's see.

During construction, select site management practices that minimize adverse impacts to the soils.

And then there's two other things that are really concerning me, the construction sequencing.

I kind of cringe when I hear two years of trying to complete this project.

I've seen projects that are very well planned and organized.

end up being years behind schedule.

And I think there's some problems on this side because of the steep slopes.

Also, you get into slopes that are over a 10 to 15 percent gradient, you really have a hard time getting vegetation to grow on those slopes.

And I see we really need to take a look at that during the plan interview to make sure that's not going to be a problem.

and then another issue is sequencing the erosion control on the site.

I looked at some of the soil characteristics.

There are a lot of soils on the site.

Okay, I appreciate the time.

I hope you will take our comments into consideration to support the project.

Thank you.

Next I have Katie, please state your name and address and you'll have four minutes and 30 seconds to speak.

Hi, great.

Good evening, everybody.

Thanks so much for having me.

My name is Katie Ebinger, and I live in Charlottesville.

I'm the climate policy analyst for the Community Climate Collaborative, or C3.

And we are a nonprofit here in Charlottesville that specializes in local climate action.

So I'm here today to support granting the special use permits to the Woodridge Solar Project.

Over the past few weeks, the policy team at C3 has conducted an analysis of the proposed Woodridge site to assess the justice, environmental, economic, and climate impacts of the project.

Tonight we're really excited to comment with our support for the project and I'll share with you just some of the positive justice and climate aspects we wanted to highlight from our study.

So as you've heard, the Woodridge Project effectively engaged local community groups and environmental groups, sorry, community groups.

which resulted in a well thought out design that centers ecosystem health throughout every stage of the development process.

And their community engagement went far beyond what was required.

Some of the feedback was even incorporated into the project's final design, which is pretty cool.

So as this project progresses, we just urge that this community engagement is continued to be centered throughout the project.

And then further on that justice kind of side, whenever we're able to generate clean energy, we can close dirty power plants, which have historically been located in environmental justice communities.

And we can also hope just low climate change, which similarly impacts low income and communities of color most drastically.

And so when we think about climate change, this project's importance to climate change mitigation is also substantial.

C3 has similar estimates to greenhouse gas emissions reductions in that first year, similar to what Hexagon projected.

So this is to the order of like 100,000 tons of greenhouse

Well over 100,000 tons of greenhouse gases mitigated in that first year.

And even when we accounted for the emissions created during the manufacturing and other parts of the process, this project was still significantly favorable from a climate perspective.

So we believe that in inviting such a beneficial project to our county, it's the right decision for our community and our climate.

And we urge the approval of these special use permits for the Woodridge Solar Project.

Thank you.

OK, thank you.

Thank you all for your time.

I think a theme that came out consistently

I'm very grateful for the community support and very grateful that we've been able to interact.

I've enjoyed the time I spent with people who are very much in favor of this project and even with people who aren't.

We live in a really special place and that we have the opportunity to work together as a community and get to know each other.

One thing that I did here come out and have her come out, and I think I even mentioned before the end of my first presentation, is how do we make sure that this excellent vegetation management plan that we've put together actually gets enforced?

Something that's come up in conversation with various people here is that can we just work with one of our incredibly qualified local environmental companies here, environmental monitoring companies, to do either an annual report, a biannual report.

I'm thinking maybe biannual for the first three to five years and then an annual report afterward that we as a company or whoever owns it, this is the beauty of a condition, you can put this on as a condition that a third party

I want to say local, there's always the chance that who knows what happens, companies close.

So maybe we say regional qualified company produces an annual report to compliance report with the vegetation management plan.

We're fully on board with that.

I want to make sure that we show that we put our money where our mouth is.

And I think that should hopefully check a lot of the boxes of people's concerns with this.

So we as a developer would support that as well.

Otherwise, I'm very grateful for all of your time.

I've enjoyed working on this and it's been a wonderful way to get to know this wonderful county and I'm open to any further questions or comments.

But otherwise, I'll keep it brief.

One of the citizens asked about decommissioning, and that's something we usually do cover.

And it is part of the plan.

Certainly.

Yeah.

So as part of our application, it is included a decommissioning plan that, and I'm going to have to, I don't remember the top number.

I think it's about 8 million is what we've anticipated in current dollars would cost to decommission the site and remove everything and put the site back to near preexisting conditions.

Now that means we're not going to completely regrade it.

and we're not going to rip all the vegetation out that's already in.

Kind of counterproductive there, but near original condition.

We'll set that aside as a financial instrument with the county before any sort of ground can be broken so that the county has that on hand to be able to decommission if we or whoever owns the project goes belly up.

That said, you say, oh, well, what about inflation?

A stipulation of what we included in our plan and also what one of the conditions speaks to is that that needs to be renewed every five years so that that amount is trued up to whatever inflation has done.

So I didn't mean to gloss over that in my presentation.

That is actually a pretty central feature of what we've put together here, and that is in the application.

OK, sure.

And then another I know you didn't have a limited time.

Yeah, that's a good question that has been discussed at length in various community meetings.

The long and short, well, there's two answers to it if you'll bear with me.

Sorry, I know we're trying to go quickly.

But the power itself is going onto the grid here.

The power itself are electrons pumped into this substation that then flow up and down these lines to other substations in the area.

And most likely, I mean,

It's the same as if you inject a bunch of water to a network of hoses.

You can put dye in and see where it goes, but you don't know exactly.

It's a very complicated math problem.

Long and short is that physically the electrons get used here.

The way the market works that allows us to actually build these kinds of projects and sell this kind of power is that it's usually done through what's called a power purchase agreement or a virtual power purchase agreement.

That does mean somebody with a large power bill that's interested in cleaning up their carbon footprint will contract with us to buy the power.

So when you hear it's going to Northern Virginia for a data center,

No, the electrons actually aren't, but the crediting of the system and the way the power gets paid will be credited against saying, I don't know who it would be, but somebody that might want to contract it by the power.

Okay, then the other concern I heard then, I'll open it up to you all, but about erosion, because while they are spaced far apart, there's a series of panels angled in a certain direction, which creates a certain volume of sheet flow, which hits the ground at roughly the same spot.

And that's why we've seen horror pictures of severe gullying

Yeah, certainly.

That's a really good question.

So two answers seem to be on the two answer train tonight, but first that happens, it rains and you have sheet flow flowing across the ground.

This is why it's important that we get the vegetation management plan correct, because this is going to be a deep rooted system that helps infiltration, helps slow all of that runoff down right at the source, right from the beginning.

That said, that's obviously not all that we need.

That's why we built in, as a very baseline, all of these management ponds.

No, I know that they're tried and true.

They work.

They're nobody's favorite thing.

So we are looking into low impact development features that we can.

Swales in between panel rows, for example.

We're trying to figure out the engineering.

There's a lot of cool stuff going on with that right now.

The problem with the swale in between rows though is it makes it difficult to mow.

And so you have to kind of consider all of these different pieces.

So what we've submitted here as a concept plan is showing that we have at bare minimum, everything we need from a stormwater pond perspective.

And we're looking into other low impact development and best management practices that we can.

I think so.

I can't speak for all of the public.

All right.

One other question that was her concern was with fire.

So can you talk about the, you know, how likely are these?

Yeah, it's an electrical and just, there was also the issue about the distance to the nearest.

And I know that, you know, you're going to be in a well there.

So you're not going to have the pressure to put a hydrant.

Yeah.

Is a fire, it's a water tank.

Are those things under consideration?

It's a good question and something that I've started sniffing into a little bit.

It's an electrical facility that will be installed.

Things sometimes catch on fire.

And if you say they never do, that's a problem.

Where most of the fires often end up happening is in shoddy installation and poorly constructed things, which we will work very hard and have a careful county eye watching us to make sure that's not done.

Two things here is that we will work before the site plan approval with the fire department to make sure that this is an acceptable, whatever we propose is an acceptable plan.

We've kicked around a few ideas around, be it dry wells or potentially other wells or cisterns of some sort could be located throughout the site.

You know, if we're going to keep sheep on the site, they're going to need water anyway.

So there might be a little bit of confluence between cisterns above ground water storage tanks for sheep to then also serve.

The other comment I'd make, though, is that pine forests aren't immune to fire either.

And a lightning strike on a dry pine forest is going to be a real problem.

In fact, what we've got here, because our subarrays are separated one from another,

And they're using low growth vegetation.

You know, I say high growth, but it's this.

It's not a tree forest that actually, in fact, will serve as a fire break.

So we will work with the fire department to address that more effectively.

But there's work going on.

So just where your site is actually pretty close to some popular running and cycling routes in the county.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good question.

So the technical answer is VDOT has reviewed the process and said there's no adverse effect from a VDOT perspective.

That said, I actually hadn't even really thought about the cycling side.

We'll work with the county and VDOT and the community to make sure that trucks are careful because obviously they're going to have to be able to truck some stuff in and out.

So we'll use flaggers signs appropriately.

This is all pretty.

There's some established context for doing that.

I had something else I wanted to say on that.

It's getting late.

Yeah, we'll work to make sure that that works with flagging and otherwise.

Any other questions?

Yeah.

Historically, as a company, we've worked as a front end developer, meaning we go through entitlements phases, we get everybody to sign everything off, and then we transfer ownership of whatever project to a bigger company that has a bigger balance sheet and a lower cost of construction financing than we do.

That's allowed us to be nimble and work across many, many markets.

And we're grateful for it.

You know, reputation still follows you.

If you do a bad project, especially because I live here, it's going to haunt me.

That said, and I got to be careful what I say, we would love to in our exploring avenues to eventually own and operate projects.

And there's no project we'd love to own and operate more than this particular one.

I can't promise it, but I can say that's what we would hope to see happen in an ideal world.

I would just advise you as you go before our supervisors that you have a response that's a bit more shall we say a bit clearer on the options that might sit before the company.

I'll let you talk to your counsel about that.

I'm just saying that that's an issue that people are going to want to have some clarity.

Great, thanks.

OK.

OK, I think you've answered our question.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, I'm going to close this portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for Deliberation.

I can go either way.

Start there.

I have a comment or two.

Yeah.

Overall, I think this is a great project.

It could be a good example for other projects that we may see in the future.

Sorry Lonnie, could you say that again?

Oh yeah, ongoing monitoring.

Oh yeah, the vegetation.

Yeah, I think that that's, I think it's a great condition to add to this.

I will say I would lean on the side of treating these panels as impervious, just seeing what happened in Louisa.

I don't know how many of you watched the news reports of that or saw the photographs of what happened on that site.

Obviously, we don't want that kind of situation here.

I am in support of the project that's presented tonight.

I think it certainly aligns with the county's goals for sustainability.

It seems like a reasonable site to have such a project.

I would also add

In terms of the conditions with the cost estimating, we might want to say someone who's certified in that field of cost estimating.

I wouldn't go into specifics to what certification, but just know that you have a professional doing it.

And then lastly, as-built should be made available for the decommissioning process that might be tucked in.

So kind of requirement there, but I think it's pretty important if you read

What's entailed in decommissioning that there's a good set of as-builts to go off of.

Okay, thank you.

So I am in support of this project also, but I will comment, I do want to make a comment that

And I agree with that.

Adding the condition and the applicant themselves said something akin to third party monitoring by a qualified firm who does the type of assessment bi-annual for the first, say, three to five years.

You can make five years if you want to be conservative and then maybe annually thereafter because by then the vegetation should be well established.

The reason the commission reviews these is each site is unique.

And so, I don't look at this as, you know, all solar is good or all solar is bad.

But I will make the comment that

This particular site seems to have a high amount of erosion, a lot of gullying occurring.

The soil appeared to be in very poor condition.

My background is in natural resources management, so I do actually have qualification in this area myself.

And I think that this project would actually improve the health of the soil and decrease the runoff that's occurring there.

The other thing is that

I'm often against solar projects that remove forests because the whole point of solar is to

help with carbon release.

And forests and their soils sequester a tremendous amount of carbon.

And in fact, it's the soils that sequester even more carbon than the trees.

But for that to be occurring and doing it well, you need a thick duff layer built up for years of leaf fall and a mature forest.

So if this were before me as a mature hardwood forest,

Relatively undisturbed, I would be a hard no because it would be ridiculous, honestly, to remove a carbon sink to put in a technology that's supposed to prevent carbon release.

That just doesn't make sense.

But on this particular site, because it is highly impacted, the soils are in very poor shape.

There's a lot of erosion occurring right now.

I actually believe that in the end, after this vegetation management plan is put in place, that the site will be

more stable and the soils will actually build up and improve over time as the biomass there decays over the winter and new biomass comes in.

So I think it will be a net positive for this particular site.

I also take seriously our contribution.

We're sitting here, I'm sure, powered by coal in this room, probably some mountaintop in Southwest Virginia having been removed to affect that.

And so, you know, we have a responsibility as a county to try to practice what we preach by taking care of solar.

But I just want to be really clear to anyone and the solar company friends in the audience that this does not mean that I will be in support of removing mature forests for solar.

I will not.

But in this case, in this particular site and the degraded condition in which it's in,

And the fact that the applicant has done such a good job of actually maintaining connectivity through the site because of protecting all the stream valleys, wildlife will be able to continue to move through the site.

He didn't talk about the fact that you also have small openings in the fence so that small mammals and quail can continue to move.

So it's actually, of the solar sites that I've looked at in my profession, a less impactful site than most that I have seen.

So that's kind of where I'm coming down on that.

Well, I'm somewhat clear on this.

I'm voting yes.

And so I'm also voting yes on a couple of reasons.

As I like to remind people, if you do nothing there, if this doesn't happen, that ground up there is in a terrible condition and probably is not going to have trees planted there to have to reforest it.

It's not going to happen.

Yeah, but some of the area that I was visited this summer is not reforested, and I think that would take a lot of work for it to be reforested.

There is 2,000 acres there, and so that has forests on it, and that's good.

And that will continue to be there, but the 200 acres or 600 acres that I actually walked around and drove around this summer is a long ways from being recaptured.

but yes the bulk of the 23 acres, 2300 acres does have a lot of forest and has lands and probably will be timbered which is fine but for me the other thing that will happen on this 1500 acres is that there'll be a diversification of uses and so if you can actually get your bees to run up there and do what they're going to do and if there's another person that I've heard is going to think about running some sheep up there that will put sheep

the bees which I like meat so hopefully the meat does hopefully the meat does come sooner than later and it'll also have timbering and then for those of you who are using it for hunting it also provide food and recreation for people in this area so instead of it just being a timbering operation with a lot of

impacted land and land that has had severe chemicals pointed to suppress the hard ones.

Yes, and just quickly to your point, I mean, the panel acreage that was impacting us 200.

It's a 1500 acre site.

So it is not a 1500 acre solar panel development.

There's still quite a lot of habitat being protected on this particular site.

Luis, we cannot entertain comments out loud from the audience.

So we're not going to put that stuff.

I appreciate the Chair's comments on forest and and their ability to capture carbon and so and I'm in the same the same boat with you on that and that would be a no vote if we're taking down mature forest to do this because we simply don't have enough land if we're going to convert everything to solar in Albemarle County and we drive electric vehicles which now are

You know, obviously powered by gasoline, most of them.

And if all of those went to electric, we would not have enough to supply.

So what happens to our land resources that are also producing food?

So where I think this project is unique in some ways, because there are some cautionary tales.

We've already heard from one commissioner that brought that up.

But if you look nationwide, there's a lot of cautionary tales on solar fields and what they've done to the land.

So this is bringing in so many different parts.

And I don't want to repeat what Commissioner Bivins and others have said, but it's an ecosystem.

And from that standpoint, it's very much environmentally friendly, not only to an economy, but also to what it's doing to bringing in solar energy, which we need some of that.

How much, ultimately, I don't know if everybody read, but fusion, there was a net energy gain of fusion two days ago.

So that's a very interesting conversation that we need to have in terms of carbon neutrality.

So I do think we need to manage our resources and think about our open lands and farmlands and agricultural.

But this is a project that's bringing, the project is bringing so many things together that I would think we would all want it to succeed.

We also want to make sure that it does succeed and how we keep our eyes on it.

Because there's a lot of commitments here.

There's a lot of promises here.

How do we ensure that it's actually happening?

And we make sure that these activities are continuing to flourish in that parcel of land.

Great.

I'm tempted to just say ditto and end it there but I'll have a few comments.

First of all, I, I am in support of the project I am prepared to make a motion.

I do have some thoughts on additional conditions but would want to run some of those past you all, obviously.

Just to try to quickly recap because a lot of what I was thinking has been said and I do agree with the concern about removal of mature forests and would likely, depending on the specific application, vote the same way

you all would in that instance, or some of you would.

I think this obviously checks the box of the climate action plan.

I think it's a great test study for us.

And we'll continue to be something we can monitor as we move forward, just as the vegetation will be.

I think we need to think about that.

25,000 homes is huge.

And the note about the electrons staying local I think is really helpful insight.

I think it is effective and logical use of degraded land.

That checks a huge box for me.

We've talked about that.

I think it can only improve the landscape and I appreciated a lot of the public comment and also understand the comments from the folks who live adjacent to this.

I've got to think this could be, I mean, this is a subjective statement, but

Hopefully a nicer view to look at than what's there now.

I think that I'd like to commend the applicant for an outstanding community engagement process.

I think it's a great model and that potentially can be considered too as we move forward.

It checks the missional goal that we've all been talking about, the need for clean renewable energy.

And I think the reality of it is that, and I want to thank Mr. Dix for his good insight today.

We had a phone call and appreciated his comments today.

The reality of the need for utility scale solar, I think is critically important as well.

and that it's well incorporated into the natural environment.

You mentioned wildlife trails and so on.

So there's so many boxes that this ticks that we all realize and have commented on.

I'm still aware that there's a lot to learn, right?

And I think that this group would admit they're still learning as they go through each of these projects.

But if you don't do projects like this, you don't learn about how to do them better.

And I think this is a huge leap forward to be able to do that.

A couple of questions, if I might, related to the conditions.

One, I really appreciated Commissioner Clayburn's comments about as-built required for the decommissioning process.

So I would be in support of a condition that would state that, and I would imagine it's probably something that would be done anyway as part of the work.

And then in terms of the third-party monitoring of the vegetation, I have a trial of a

of a condition that I'll throw out.

And then also acknowledge that there are conditions that Mr. Fritz recommended at the beginning, some minor tweaks that we'll want to incorporate into the motion.

There was another one that Commissioner Clayborne, you mentioned in addition to the as-built.

Okay.

What was the cost estimating for decommissioning?

The cost of decommissioning was different pieces of components.

Right.

And that's related to the five every five year process that the county would go through.

So sort of what I would recommend on that one is

We hear what you're saying.

The other thing I want to just point out is there was also a special exception consideration for disturbance of steep slopes.

and the commission does not actually have legal authority over special exceptions.

But if you want to take that up, you certainly could make recommendation to the board on how they proceed on that matter.

My general practice to not weigh in on special exceptions that we have.

You don't think that really say.

That's really up to you.

If you think it's something really important you want to take up, you could, but we have another one too.

I have a whole sequence laid out for you.

Sure.

Third party monitoring of the vegetation management plan.

Right.

First five years.

That's what I couldn't remember.

I was five years.

Yes.

The one recommendation I would have is to include the county to approve the qualifications of the third party.

And is that the same for the decommissioning plan?

And then I have decommissioning plan to include as-builts.

It probably already does, but that puts it in there.

And then development and updating of decommissioning plan to be done by qualified individuals.

Right.

No.

Good.

Thank you.

Thanks, Bill.

I can do that if you can give me just two seconds.

OK, there are three separate actions that you need to take.

One is compliance with the comprehensive plan.

The order here is backwards.

It's just because of the numbering system.

I'm going to have you do number 15 first and then do 14.

And we thought that's appropriate because 15 is the entire facility.

14 is the substation to support the entire facility.

OK, are we ready for a motion?