Mecklenburg County may place limit on amount of land that can be used for solar fields
Plus: Buckingham County to consider raising water connection fees
It is now time for another week of local government summaries! This is still a slower time than usual as various bodies take breaks for the holiday summer. One of them is Bedford County where the seven-member Board of Supervisors will not be meeting on Monday.
This edition comes out on a Saturday evening so I can get an early start to the work week. There are two meetings but there would have been three if Charlotte County had their meeting posted. I’ll check here on Monday and include it in whatever goes out that morning.
Mecklenburg Supervisors to consider cap on solar acreage
The nine-member Mecklenburg County Board of Supervisors will meet at 9:30 a.m. The agenda packets are not available online so there’s not a terrible amount of detail to go through. (meeting info)
The meeting begins with the call to order, the pledge of allegiance, approval of the June 12 minutes, and adoption of the agenda.
There are three public hearings.
The first is an amendment to the Mecklenburg County zoning ordinance to place a limit on the total amount of land that can be used for solar projects. The Planning Commission reviewed that proposal at their meeting on May 25 according to the minutes.
The amendment would add this language:
“The maximum aggregate acreage of the fenced-in area of approved solar projects shall not exceed 2,325 acres. The 2,325 acres ceiling applies to Community-Scale Solar, Large-Scale Solar, Medium-Scale Solar and Small-Scale Solar Collectively.”
According to the minutes, the Friends of Meherrin River approve of the cap at the public hearing. Nine speakers opposed the cap, including property owners who claims their rights would be violated by the cap.
The Planning Commission recommended approval 9 to 1. Now it will be up to Supervisors.
There are also two applications for special use permits and two applications for rezonings.
There will also be updates from VCU Hospital, the Tri County Community Action Agency, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and the Economic Development Committee.
Supervisors will also consider a resolution to change the location of a polling place and a resolution to provide hazardous duty benefits to emergency medical technicians.
Public hearing in Buckingham County for water and sewer connection fees
The seven-member Board of Supervisors in Buckingham County will meet at 6 p.m. (meeting packet)
It’s always a good idea to read the minutes of the previous meeting. I won’t recap it now, but I truly appreciate localities that have verbatim minutes. I try not to have many public opinions shout loudly that summary minutes of meetings is a poor practice that brings skepticism about a government’s commitment to transparency. Buckingham County gets it right.
Several members of the Virginia Community Rights Network continued to advocate for a local ordinance against the mining of metals.
The new Buckingham County Emergency Management Coordinator, Charles Kirby, introduced himself to the Board and the public.
Water/sewer connection fees for Straight Street to the tune of $10,000.
Supervisors approved the bid for construction of new restrooms at Community Park that will be funded through $149,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Supervisors voted 5-1-1 to raise their salaries to $10,000 a year beginning January 1. The chair will make $10,500 a year.
There are two regular public hearings.
The first is for an increase to water and sewer connection fees for the public system. They’ve not been increased since 2002 and County Administrator Karl Carter reports that the Utilities Committee seeks to increase them to cover rising costs.
“While we are not trying to make money on connection fees, we do not want to lose money for each connection,” Carter writes in the staff report. “It is the recommendation of the Utilities Committee to increase the sewer and water connection fees to $3,000 per residential connection.”
The second public hearing is for a request from a landowner who would like the zoning code changed to allow for private recreational facilities to be allowed in the Light Industrial M-1 zone with a special use permit. This is separate from the request for such a permit for a softball training center that would come in the future if the zoning ordinance is changed. That would be for the GRIT Softball Academy. Read more about this in the Farmville Herald.
In Buckingham County, land use applications have a first appearance known as an introduction before they come back for a public hearing. U.S. Cellular seeks approval for a 195 foot telecommunications tower to be located at 211 Holland Road.
Supervisors will also be asked to appropriate $175,000 from the Virginia Department of Health’s Emergency Medical Services grant program. You can read those details in the Farmville Herald as well.