On April 28th, a special meeting was held by the West Point township board so local residents could debate the possibility of zoning, as townships have the option to add zoning independent of the county
The meeting, held at the Amsterdam Community building, was called on the heels of word that a 4,000 acre, 650 megawatt solar panel farm is going to begin construction just south of Amsterdam in July, prompting concerns over blight, pollution and fires, to name a few.
As the meeting progressed, discussions branched to other concerns however, the board worked to stay on track with zoning questions and upon conclusion of the meeting, the following points were made clear:
1. To approve zoning, it must be put on a Bates county ballot and a zoning decision will be exclusive to voters in West Point township.
2. To begin the ballot process, a petition is required that will need to be signed by a minimum of 5% of vetted registered West point township voters. It is reported that a petition is currently being circulated which will be turned over to the township board and eventually passed to the Bates County Clerk for validation.
3. There will be costs associated with putting a zoning question on the ballot. Those will include attorney fees and election fees required by the Bates County Clerk's office. At this time, those costs are unknown but will be revealed further along in the process. To note, proper ballot language is critical, which further necessitates the need for an attorney.
4. Specifically what is to be included in zoning must be decided upon. For example, will zoning only address new solar projects and expansions to existing solar projects? Data centers? There were concerns expressed that zoning could include many other things however, it appears those mentioned above will remain at the top of the list. Hence, the decision can be made to only put solar farms and data centers in the zoning proposal.
A few key points were brought out in the meeting:
1. Zoning will not affect (or stop) the current solar project(s). It would only have a bearing on future projects or possibly existing project expansions. Some will argue that a "good lawyer" can get around grandfather status but it is extremely unlikely.
2. It was said in the meeting that ordinances could be used instead of zoning however, in most cases these two things go hand in hand and at present, more information is being sought regarding if this is truly an option.
3. A question arose as to why the Bates County Commission has not already been working on similar county-wide zoning. The answer to that lies partially in the fact that such projects are relatively new in our region making foresight somewhat difficult. Just as in the case of the township, it would ultimately take action by the people of Bates County to present a qualified petition to get the ball rolling.
4. Some at the meeting said they were never made aware the 650 megawatt project was coming and felt that someone should have notified them. Here's how it all transpired:
A deal was made directly between the solar company and the landowner and in some cases a non-disclosure agreement may have been signed; following that, the company in this case, did notify some adjacent landowners as part of their 'Good Neighbor' program; and during this time the company had been working with the Bates County Commission regarding easements, roads and other requirements.
That said, no other notification to the public is legally or otherwise required. We will note that the Mid America Live website contains well over 25 news releases and references by the Bates County Commission directly related to the solar projects dating back to at least 2022. Most all the same articles were published in the News-Review newspaper and were made available through other media outlets including the Bates County Clerk Facebook page.
At this juncture, the West Point township board awaits the petition before taking further action. It also appears that more research and discussion is being done by members of the West Point community as well.
Mid America Live will continue to follow this story and provide updates as they become available.
