Agenda - 09-01-2015 - 5b - Laserfiche WebLink

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6 39 1 signed up to speak on this and I think I'm responsible for many of them. In our expert group, we 2 have Engineer George Retschle, Appraiser Tom Hester, Appraiser Rich Kirkland, Cypress 3 Creek Renewables Employee Rich Moretz, and Mechanical Engineer Tommy Cleveland. They 4 are all on that list and are all a part of our presentation. And I handed out to you a notebook 5 that you will find at your seat that includes sworn Affidavits, copies of the site plan, and of the 6 prospective that were provided as a part of our submittal packet. And I would ask you to move 7 into the record the staff report and associated documents and that you also include in the record 8 the notebook that we have handed to you. 9 10 We're going to attempt to be efficient with your time and rely largely on those Affidavits. All of 11 those folks are here today and available for cross examination. We'll call a few of them up to 12 talk with you and we'll bring others, as needed, to answer questions that you, or others, may ask 13 of us. We recognize you've been here for a long time, and we'll try to get you out— get our part 14 done as quickly as we can. As staff indicated, we have been working hard with neighbors in the 15 area. We had first the staff sponsored community meeting in April. We had our own meeting in 16 May and we have continued our dialogue with adjacent property owners. And our belief is that 17 our neighbors are comfortable with what it is that we're proposing. Staff indicated the property 18 is zoned AR and a solar farm is permitted as a Special Use in that district. The solar farm site 19 plan meets all of the criteria that are set out in your ordinance for approval of a Special Use 20 Permit. And I'm going to ask folks to come forward and confirm for you that all those 21 requirements have been met. 22 23 I'll start with Mr. Retschle, who is the Project Engineer. I ask him to talk with you briefly. And of 24 course at any time please feel free to ask questions. 25 26 George Retschle: Good evening. My name is George Retschle, I'm the President of 27 Ballentine Associates in Chapel Hill. I have been duly sworn. I do appreciate your time this 28 evening. I am a Licensed Professional Engineer in the State of North Carolina and in Virginia. 1 29 have been involved with a little over hundred solar farms in the past three years. I was 30 responsible for the preparation of the site plan that you have before you tonight. Pat (Mallet) did 31 mention a few modifications that have been made to the site plan since the original submittal. 32 One of those modifications involves a buffer along the northern property line. As a result of 33 some negotiations between our client and the adjacent neighbor, we have widened that buffer 34 from the minimum 50 foot required to a 65 foot buffer. So there's a substantial amount of 35 existing vegetation that's going to remain on that northern property line. And with solar farm we 36 need to be careful of shading on the west, east and south portions of the array, so that we don't 37 have inefficient panels. But along the northern property line, we were able to to provide a much 38 wider buffer than what was required and what we had originally anticipated. That's one of the 39 major changes. 40 41 Another change was that we pulled the southern property line up to reduce the amount of 42 overall property within the property that's going to be subdivided out. I think it went from 23 43 acres down to 19.8, so it's gotten a little bit smaller. The size of the array within the fence is 44 somewhere around 10.5 acres. And that final acreage and size will be determined by the final 45 electrical design. What you see on the plan now, is a preliminary layout of the panels, and 46 some of that will gyrate a little bit as the final electrical design is done. That won't happen until 47 after we receive approval from the County Commissioners and just before the permitting 48 process. 49 50 1 know that you've been handed an Affidavit that's got my full testimony on it. But I wanted to 51 just kind of summarize a couple of the major points. In my professional opinion, this project, as