By Heather Michon
Correspondent
The Board of Supervisors got a sneak peek of a proposed ordinance guiding future solar projects in Fluvanna County at their meeting on Wednesday evening (Sept. 4).
The Solar Ordinance Review Committee, composed of Supervisors Tony O’Brien (Rivanna) and Tim Hodge (Palmyra) and Planning Commissioners Lorretta Johnson-Morgan and Kathleen Kilpatrick, has been developing the plan since early summer.
In July, the supervisors voted 4-1 to remove utility scale solar farms as a permitted use on land zoned as A-1 (Agricultural), where it had previously been allowed under a special use permit.
The committee is proposing the creation of a new S-1 (Solar) zoning district, meaning that property owners and developers would first have to have A-1 land re-zoned as S-1 before any project could go forward.
The new ordinance would cap utility-scale solar, defined as any project that generates two megawatts of power, to no more than three percent of the county’s acreage, or around 5,400 acres in total. No more than 1,080 acres of solar fields would be allowed in each of the five electoral districts, and no single solar generating facility could be greater than 500 acres in size. The proposal also sets strict regulations for buffers and screening, setbacks from roadways and water sources, fencing, wildlife corridors, and decommissioning.
No action was needed at the meeting. The proposal is scheduled for a public hearing before the Planning Commission at its Sept. 10 meeting and will come before the supervisors for final approval sometime in October.
Tanker truck
Supervisors approved the sale of a surplus tanker truck owned by the Palmyra Volunteer Fire Department to a department in Charlotte County.
According to FESCO Emergency Sales, the 2000 Freightliner Tanker has an appraised value of $26,000.
The county usually sells surplus vehicles and property through the GovDeals auction site, where the tanker could sell for up to $30,000.
However, Drake’s Branch Volunteer Fire Department in Charlotte County badly needs a tanker. It has limited funds to bid at auction, so they have appealed to Fluvanna to sell the vehicle to them for $26,000.
After discussing the options, supervisors voted unanimously to bypass the auction and sell directly to Drake’s Branch. “It gets them a truck, and it gets us fair market value,” said Mike Sheridan (Columbia).
Signs everywhere
Those signs that pop up like mushrooms at busy intersections around the county were the subject of a lengthy discussion early in the meeting.
State law prohibits outdoor advertising signs anywhere in VDOT’s right of way, which extends a minimum of 25 feet in each direction from a road’s center line.
This does not stop people from putting them there.
Scott Thornton, head of VDOT’s Louisa Residency, said his crews pull up illegal signs when they see them, but admitted it was a constant battle. “We pick up the signs, and by the time we turn around, someone is already out there putting them back up.”
In June 2023, the supervisors voted down a proposal that would allow VDOT to levy a $100 per sign fine for offenders. Filling out the required reports and monitoring each violation as it moved through the legal process would have eaten up considerable staff time for the county.
The most obvious solution – putting up signs that tell people they can’t put up signs – would itself violate the right of way law.
Supervisors discussed several ways to attack the issue, with Chair Chris Fairchild (Cunningham) suggesting they could even hire a school group to do the work. “We could pay a group $200 a month to go clean up these signs in a few key areas once a month,” he said. “It wouldn’t take a lot of time.”
Thornton cautioned that unofficial groups or individuals could accidentally remove signs that were outside the right of way, and removing signs from private property could bring legal challenges.
In the end, it remained a problem without an easy solution.
If residents see these signs cluttering the roadways and intersections, they are encouraged to report violations to VDOT through https://my.vdot.virginia.gov.
