Minutes 05-27-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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I've looked at, additionally, another solar farm in Zebulon. This one has actually been approved but not built. And there is no way you are going to be able to read all that information unless your eyes are way better than mine; but to sum up, there is a subdivision up here that was put in place and developed before the downturn in the market, and they sold one lot in the back that you can't even see there before the downturn. Those lots sat there through the whole downturn. And the solar farm that got approved —after it got approved, those lots went on the market. They sold at a discount- a bulk discount for multiple lots. It's very common in subdivisions, and I compared that to bulk lot sales of two other subdivisions nearby out in the Zebulon area. Again, it's a rural sort of transition area where you have single family homes and rural properties next to each other. The other areas that are selling the bulk lots, they actually sold at much deeper discounts than the lots that sold next to the solar farm. So again, the matched pairs here are showing that there is really no impact from that potential solar farm right there. Then also, closer to this location, I looked at the solar farm on White Cross— solar farm that's — it's now operational. They actually—after that solar farm was built—this is in Chapel Hill — after it was built—the - actually from the parent tract the land was—the solar farm was built on —the owner of that sold the rest of the property they had, and again it is selling at very similar prices to those tracts of land in the area. So looking at those different matched pairs, I'm seeing no sign of any impact on property values due to the proximity of that solar farm or any of those solar farms. And again, the location of these comes into harmony of use. I've visited over 40 solar farm sites. The first 22 I've looked at are in this chart here. I broke down showing what kind of uses are near these solar farms. Where are the solar farms going, and you can see that the vast majority of the uses that these properties are located are agricultural and single family residential. There is very little of these being developed in commercial or industrial areas. These are all going to these areas where there is that transition area. That makes sense because you need some open acreage, some land, to put the panels on; but you also need users, homeowners, to receive that power. So going through that, again I'm finding that this is a typical area where a solar farm would be located. I go through and looked at the various components of why there would be an impact. A lot of times if there is going to be an impact, you would find it, and you would identify it with a certain thing, whether it's traffic or noise or odor or hazardous materials, things like that. This site is going to have less traffic than even a single— one single family home on the site; so traffic is not going to be an issue here. There is —of the 40 sites I have been to, I have never smelled anything that was attributable to the panels. As far as noise goes, I have never heard anything off of those. Trying to think— Hazardous materials—There is no hazardous materials that are proposed for this location. The question that comes up mostly though is appearance. And I've again tried to show some pictures of some greenhouses next to these solar panels. So on the left are greenhouses, and on the right are solar panels, and I consider those to be very similar visual impacts. Both are very typically found in these sort of transition areas, between agricultural areas and residential single family homes. In fact this location here is right around the corner from my house and right off the road. So again, to sum up it is my professional opinion that the proposed solar farm is going to have no impact on these adjoining single family and agricultural uses, and that it is not going to have any impact on property values, but also that it is a harmonious use. Michael Fox: Mr. Rooks, do you have questions for Mr. Kirkland?