Trending
The Logan Township supervisors voted recently to send a rezoning request from a company that wants to build a solar farm in Coburn to the township Planning Commission for review and a recommendation.
The action signals the supervisors' willingness to consider the request to rezone 230 acres near Toy Town in Altoona from agricultural to industrial -- the only zone that allows for solar farms in the current ordinance and also in a proposed new ordinance the supervisors are likely to vote upon soon.
The three-megawatt solar farm proposed by Penn Power Partners LLC would only require about 12 acres of the ground the firm is asking to be rezoned, but the intervening acreage would connect that 12 acres with an existing industrial tract, thus avoiding spot zoning, which state law discourages, said Penn3 principal Scott Wyland, a lawyer from the Harrisburg area.
In considering the rezoning request, officials should be aware that the change would open up the ground to any use permissible in industrial zones, Planning Director Cassandra Schmick told the board.
"Whatever is allowed under industrial, that is legal," said Supervisor Ed Frontino. "I could put a junkyard on it."
There have been cases in which uses that were the basis for rezoning requests have changed after those requests were granted, according to Schmick.
While the land is currently zoned agricultural, it's only woods now, Wyland said.
The proposed solar farm would be along the mainline railroad tracks and would be invisible to passersby on roads, according to Wyland.
The company has a lease on the tract where it hopes to place the solar farm, Wyland said.
It also has an option to lease another section of the 230 acres, but there are no current plans for it, and no certainty the company would ever do anything with it, he said.
"This zoning change will allow the owner (of the property, John Feather) to enjoy the rewards of hosting the project, which will provide clean power to help satisfy local electric demand," Wyland wrote in a letter to the board requesting the change. "We believe this extension of the existing industrial zone is sound, consistent with good land use practices and will keep intact the township's thoughtful protection of existing agricultural lands."
After the Planning Commission makes its recommendation, the supervisors will decide whether to move forward with an ordinance, Schmick said.
If they do, the solicitor would draft a rezoning ordinance, there would be a public hearing on it, and the supervisors would vote on whether to adopt it.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.