Proposed solar panel regulations come to Council Committee

In Tuesday’s General Government and Planning (GGP) Committee, Principal Planner Daniel Crum will present a proposed Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment (ZOTA) that would create and modify regulations for solar panels in residential, commercial, and industrial areas.

Where did this ZOTA come from?

This new ZOTA was initiated by Silicon Ranch, a private company that is seeking to build a 797-acre solar panel farm on agricultural land near Winchester Road.

Lexington’s current zoning ordinance does not allow ground-mounted solar panels in Lexington’s agricultural areas. Silicon Ranch submitted their own ZOTA, but it was unanimously disapproved by the Planning Commission. Instead, the Commission approved a separate, broader ZOTA written by Planning Staff that is focused on regulating solar panel installations across Lexington.

How the proposed ZOTA works

Planning staff’s ZOTA regulations are based on installation type instead of location. The three types of solar panel installations regulated in the proposed ZOTA include:

• Integrated systems: Solar panels that are built into the roof, wall, or elsewhere of a building.
• Roof-mounted systems: Solar panels are built on top of a roof.
• Ground-mounted systems: Solar panels are built on top of the ground, further divided and regulated by size:
  • Small-scale installations of 2,500 square feet or smaller.
  • Medium-scale installations between 2,501 square feet to 5 acres.
  • Large scale installations bigger than 5 acres.

Where installations would be allowed

• Integrated and roof-mounted solar panels:
  Allowed in most areas of Fayette County, including residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural areas.
• Small-scale ground-mounted installations:
  Allowed in most areas of Lexington excluding agricultural land.
• Small- and medium-scale ground-mounted systems:
  Allowed as an Accessory Use in most commercial zones (for example: a coffee shop in the B-1 zone could install panels in its parking lot, as long as the shop remains in operation)
• Small- and medium-scale ground-mounted systems:
  Allowed in B-4 (Warehouse), I-1 and I-2 (Industrial), and the E-D (Economic Development) zones as a Principal Uses, meaning the solar panels could be the sole use of the property.
• No ground-mounted systems in Agricultural Zones
  All types and sizes of ground-mounted solar arrays would remain prohibited in agricultural areas under this ZOTA.

Planning Staff, the Planning Commission, and other members of the community who oppose recent solar panel farm proposals argue that not enough is known about how large solar arrays might impact soil health and long-term agricultural use.

Other perspectives

Advocates for solar farms argue that Lexington’s available land inside the Urban Services Boundary is too limited to host solar arrays at the scale needed to reach the city’s carbon neutrality goal by 2050. They argue that integrated and roof-mounted installations alone aren’t enough.

Mayor Linda Gorton has expressed concerns about solar panel farms on rural land recently. She has specifically spoken out against, and initiated a City lawsuit to stop, a solar panel farm being built by East Kentucky Power. As a public utility provider, East Kentucky Power is not subject to Lexington’s planning ordinances and is instead regulated by the Public Service Commission, who approved their proposal despite opposition from Mayor Gorton.

District 4 Councilmember Emma Curtis recently shared a post on social media that included a highlight of a visit she made to a Silicon Ranch solar panel farm in nearby Garrard County. Curtis wrote that she was “excited by [the] potential” of the company’s proposal in Lexington. Curtis serves on the GGP Committee.