The anti-solar folks have been busy behind the scenes.

They have changed two goals and strategies of Theme #6: Ag and Rural 

They have changed

To 

Objective 6A: Preserve soils that are considered prime or of statewide importance for continued agricultural use whenever possible. 

Strategies 

  1. Deny residential development of areas not serviced by public water, sewage and present road conditions (width and shoulder) safely support additional traffic. 
  2. Create an agricultural committee, comprised of a representative set of producers and agricultural organizations/businesses, that stays abreast of state and federal guidelines and definitions, supports maintaining productive agriculture, and is at the forefront of farmland protection for future generations. 
  3. Educate landowners about enrolling productive agricultural land into conversation easements, Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP), and Agricultural Districts in keeping with maintaining the rural characteristics of the county. 
  4. The Planning Commission should notify and solicit feedback from local agricultural businesses, Extension, local, federal, and state agriculture officials before major land use decisions are made and should consider a cap of existing farmland that can be entered into long-term leases or contracts that take the land out of its current productive use. 
  5. Restrict significant conversion of “prime farmland” or “farmland of statewide importance” to any other use besides agriculture. 

Notice that 6-A-4 will allow them to introduce several more hurdles before you can use your land. This is in the same direction as State Senators West’s effort to limit large-scale solar to 1% of a county’s land. (Mason County has 157,683 acres of land, so by Senator West’s rule, Mason County could have no more than 1,576 acres of large-scale scale solar.) and that 6-A-5 is more of the same.

The second change happened to objective 6 C

it was originally

Objective 6C: Encourage additional land uses that protect farmland from development but provide supplemental income to landowners. 

Strategies 1). Permit owners to make “Best Value” use of land without onerous restrictions. Ex. (trees,solar, recreation, hiking, mountain biking, water sports, RVs, ATV, Remote Control Vehicles, mini-home resort, destination marketing center, etc)

But has been changed to:

Objective 6C: Support additional land uses that protect farmland from permanent residential, commercial, or industrial development but provide supplemental income to landowners. 

Strategies 

  1. Provide property owners with additional land use options to increase the income potential of their land. 

Notice the language has gone from “permit owners to make best value use”  to “Provide property owners with additional land use options.”

As adults, property owners should be “PERMITTED”, not “given more options”.

If you care about your right to use your land, I hope you will attend and speak up for landowner rights  at either 

  • Tuesday, September 17th @ 6 p.m. – MCTC – Calvert Café
  • Tuesday, September 24th @ 6 p.m. – May’s Lick Fire Hall

Also, I hope you will vote against State Senator West, whose bill to limit large-scale solar to 1% of total acres demonstrates that he does not value landowner rights. If you care about landowner rights, help elect Ms. Crain, our state senator, as she respects them.

Review the comprehensive plan goals and objectives that

Mason County’s topography is dominantly undulating to very steep and is dissected by many small streams.. This topography does not support the large fields needed to compete economically with the corn belt’s large-scale machinery. All while the cost of local facilities and services continues to rise due to inflation and higher societal expectations.

Will our plan for the future be based on hopes for ever-increasing state and federal grants, backstopped by either increasing local taxes and/or falling levels of governmental services? Or will we choose to encourage new land uses such as solar that:

  • Protect our topsoil for future generations.
  • Reduce chemical pollution in local watersheds.
  • Generate revenue help to replace the $64 million of lost tobacco and dairy income
  • Increase the number of local high-value job opportunities.
  • Expand the real estate tax base to support local services
  • Safeguard the land from encroaching urbanization
  • Don’t add a long-term burden to local infrastructure.

Failure to speak up leaves only two options: higher taxes or fewer local services.