A company was recently granted a permit for a solar panel project in Greene County.

The Greene County Board of Adjustment held its second hearing for Grand Junction Solar, part of NationalGrid Renewables, earlier this month for a conditional use permit for a 100-megawatt solar panel farm near Grand Junction. County Zoning and Environmental Administrator Chuck Wenthold said the meeting that was held in the courtroom of the Greene County Courthouse lasted 3.5 hours and the Board voted 4-1, with Board Member Dan Tronchetti as the lone no vote. 

Wenthold said the primary reason for the conditional use permit resubmission by Grand Junction Solar was due to the Board of Adjustment denying the permit in May because of concerns with the emergency response plan. Wenthold noted not only did Grand Junction Solar address those issues, they also adjusted the project boundary from over 1,100 acres to 993 acres to better adhere to the county’s ordinance that limited solar panel projects to a maximum of 1,000 acres, as well as taking out the location of the battery energy storage system. 

Board of Adjustment Chair Mike Holden felt confident about voting for the permit for the second consecutive time after the Greene County Emergency Management Coordinator Doug Hawn gave his approval for it. He felt the public had multiple chances to voice their comments and that the Board conducted itself well.

“That was not a place, in my opinion, to keep anything out, it’s a public hearing. You need to give people their chance to speak their minds. In the end, the Board has to make their decision with no regard to your personal opinion of a project. You have to separate those from what your job is and our job was to see that they’re compliant to the ordinance as written by the supervisors.”    

Holden said the Board put an additional condition as part of the acceptance of the permit was that Grand Junction Solar discuss with the landowners who were not participants in the project about allocating funding to them to have vegetative screening installed on their property by the landowner. 

Wenthold added when the conditional use permit is submitted to the Iowa Utilities Board, Grand Junction Solar will also need to finalize any drainage and road use agreements before construction can begin, which could be as early as the beginning of next year.