Agenda - 09-04-2014 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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39 1 chose this area because it was located within the rural buffer, and we believed that the 2 thoughtful zoning regulations in the rural buffer would work to preserve the rural character of 3 Orange County. Tonight I want to express our strong opposition to a granting of a special use 4 permit for the proposed project. I have outlined our general reasoning for opposing the project 5 in a written statement that I submitted to staff earlier today; and since that statement overlaps 6 with much of what previous speakers have already said, I won't cover that ground again. I 7 would however like to address two specific deficiencies that I found in the applicant's submittal 8 that I believe are very important. 9 10 The first of these has to do with whether the soil types and compaction study 11 requirements of the UDO have been met for the SUP submission. In section 5.9.6 C 1 of the 12 UDO there are specific submittal requirements for solar arrays of this scale, that is utility scale 13 solar arrays. Part C 1 states that in addition to the information required by section 2.7 the 14 following shall be submitted as a part of the application. In submittal requirement D —there are 15 4 requirements listed — D reads as follows: "A soils report denoting the types of soil on the 16 property including detail on the compaction necessary to support the proposed development." 17 This language appears to be plain and straightforward that a soils report and a compaction 18 study are required for submittal. I have not been able to find any documents concerning soils in 19 the applicant submittal materials, although staff has told me—the planning staff has told me 20 there is a soil map of some sort. I don't know what detail that map contains because I haven't 21 see it. However, in the site plan for the development, the developers proposed to conduct a 22 geotechnical study after approval of the SUP. A full geotechnical report should be required prior 23 to consideration of approval of the SUP submission for the following reasons: 24 25 First, this development calls for a large-scale 20 acre, 5 megawatt power installation 26 requiring the erection of 18,354 solar panels in 966 strings. Based on the site plan drawings and 27 the information you saw tonight these are going to be held up by relatively small supports along 28 their length. The structures will be subject to wind shear, to soil-soaking rains and other 29 stresses, so a full assessment of soil properties is critical in order for planning staff to fully 30 understand the site's suitability. Such a report could well reveal soil compaction characteristics, 31 subsurface rock features at a shallow depth - and by the way, I have rock outcrops in my yard, 32 just a 100 or so feet away from the boundary - or other unknown but important features that 33 would affect the Planning Staff's opinions and recommendations, and also possibly the State 34 regulatory agency approvals. In addition, the property owners affected by this project would then 35 have an opportunity to review and comment on the soil report, which we have not had. 36 37 So I request, even though it may cost extra expense for the developers — may eat into 38 their profits ultimately a little bit— I request that the commission require submission of a full soil 39 test as required by the UDO before any decision is made on the SUP. 40 41 The second issue that I want to touch on has to do with the serious flaws in the Binks 42 noise impact assessment. I think these flaws invalidate this assessment. The applicants 43 initially based their impact assessment on two documents. Could I turn on the overhead? Does 44 someone know how to do that? So this is included in the application packet. In this view of the 45 site the applicants showed eight, 500 kilowatt inverters scattered across the site, none of which 46 are located particularly near to an adjacent property. The nearest one to a property along 47 Cascade Drive would be this on, which is 200 feet away. The applicants also submitted data 48 from an independent testing lab on the type of inverter that they propose to use —a Solaron — 49 anyway, it's a 500 kilowatt inverter from a particular company— In that testing, the lab said that 50 the noise produced by this inverter at 1 meter was 68 decibels. This is the data you heard 51 earlier tonight, I believe from Mr. Wallace. However, in the current— in the site plan the