A Southeast Indiana community is temporarily pausing solar farm and data center developments.
The Dearborn County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to approve a moratorium on the processing of rezoning applications for commercial solar, battery storage facilities and data centers. It will last for up to a year to give leaders time to consider changes to current zoning regulations.
“We got to make a decision, and not everybody's going to be happy with it, but we're trying to do the best we can,” Commissioner Kevin Turner said. “We got a lot of information with this. We got a lot of work to do ahead.”
The move comes after residents pushed back on possible solar energy projects in the county.
More than 1,700 people signed an online petition calling for county officials to enact an “immediate and indefinitely termed moratorium on the approval and development of large-scale commercial solar energy systems.”
The petition outlined several concerns about solar projects being sited in Dearborn County, including the loss of agricultural land, potential reduction in property values and changes to the rural character of the area.
No developer has submitted an application to build a solar farm in Dearborn County, our news partner WCPO reports. However, Linea Energy is planning what could be a 1,200-acre solar farm in Manchester Township.
The moratorium took effect Wednesday. The commissioners say they’ll continue collecting feedback over the next year.
Other Tri-State communities are enacting similar pauses on data center development as concerns grow over the facilities' environmental impacts, energy demand and effects on utility bills. Cincinnati is temporarily regulating new and expanding data centers while the city studies possible permanent regulations.
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