Council turns down request to build new solar farm
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 3, 2015 1:46 PM
The Goldsboro City Council voted Monday night to deny a rezoning request by Highwater Solar II that would have allowed the construction of a solar farm off Salem Church Road.
But the vote in favor of denying the rezoning request was split. District 3 Councilman William Goodman voted against the motion made by District 6 Councilman Gene Aycock to deny the request. The rest of the council voted in favor of the motion.
Originally, the item appeared on the council's consent agenda, with a recommendation of approval from the city's planning commission.
During the work session prior to the meeting, Aycock made a motion to move the item dealing with the solar farm from the consent agenda to the items requiring individual action.
Both supporters and opponents of the solar farm were present at Monday night's meeting, and consisted of many of the same people who initially spoke either for or against the measure at the last council meeting on Oct. 19.
Christopher Howell, whose family owns much of the land surrounding the location where the solar farm would have been built, spoke in opposition to the measure at both the public hearing and at Monday night's meeting.
"The O.J. Howell Jr. family is the single family that stands to lose the most. I understand there are other residents who have been in support of opposition of this rezoning, but they don't stand to lose nearly as large as the O.J. Howell Jr. family does. That's my deceased dad, my late father, and my mother who just turned 90 on Wednesday of last week, who is still living, and that's her estate," Howell said during the public comment period at Monday night's meeting.
Beth Trahos, the lawyer with Smith, Moore and Leatherwood who represented Highwater Solar II, also returned to give one last word of support to the rezoning request.
Mrs. Trahos told the council that the rezoning request for a solar farm was in line with the city's comprehensive plan and was compatible with surrounding development in the area, and the measure should therefore be approved.
"We would say to you that solar farms are good neighbors. That they're good neighbors to farms, they're good neighbors to residential developments, they're good neighbors to the myriad of uses to which this property could be put," Mrs. Trahos said.
Regardless, with the council's vote Monday night, the solar farm will not be built.
The council also bumped another item from the consent agenda and made it an item requiring individual action Monday night.
The item was a waiver of an exterior sidewalk requirement for Oxford Plantation on the south side of Oxford Boulevard, for which Mayor Pro-Tem Chuck Allen's company, Allen Grading, is doing the site work. Therefore, Allen had to excuse himself from discussing or voting on the item due to the conflict of interest.
The council voted unanimously to approve waiving the exterior sidewalk requirement for the 60-unit apartment complex, and instead chose to make the company pay a $5,565 fee to avoid having to meet the exterior sidewalk requirement.