As more solar farms come to Sussex County, some County Council members want to bring restrictions in order to protect farm land.
Sussex County Council approved more solar farm applications during its Tuesday meeting, but some council members expressed concern about their use of productive farm land.
Councilmember Matt Lloyd says the land being used for some the currently approved solar farms in Sussex, which numbered nearly 60 when the County last discussed it, is farmland that the county “can’t get back.”
He notes that while he respects property owners' rights to make their own decisions, he’d like to see some regulations on their construction.
“So, with that in mind, I am interested in exploring reasonable limits on solar development, whether that means capping the acreage allowed on individual parcels for applications or establishing an overall, countywide limit.” he said.
Councilmember Steve McCarron offered his support to the idea, saying he represents farmers and producers Llyod wants to protect.
“We, I think, began that discussion with starting to look at how many acres we actually have. But it’s probably time to have a discussion about quantifying what we feel is appropriate.” he said.
Council voted to approve three out of the four solar array applications that came before them this week, and deferred action on the fourth.
Each of the approved applications were for southern Delaware; two for Seaford and one for Laurel.
The Laurel array will use a parcel of nearly 50 acres, and the two in Seaford will use around 29 acres and 39 acres respectively. The two Seaford arrays will only take up a portion of the total acreage; the first around 13.5 acres of the 29 total and the second around 31 acres of the 39 total.
The Laurel array's site plan did not include acreage for the actual array.
Altogether, the approved arrays total over 114 acres of use, and the deferred fourth could add another 52, if approved in the future.
Lloyd has not yet proposed an official ordinance on solar farm development.
