The Porter County Board of Commissioners is holding a special meeting at 10 a.m. Friday in order to draft a letter to Indiana Governor Mike Braun letting him know its displeasure with House Bill 1628 which seeks to allow multi-jurisdictional infrastructure projects for electricity, gases and fluids, or water without the need for local permits or zoning approval.
“I think it’s a terrible thing, unless you’re there supporting special interests,” said Porter County Board of Commissioners President Jim Biggs, R-North. “A bill like this will pertain to every area of the state.”
The bill summary says it “provides that a person that seeks to locate, construct, or deploy any facilities, equipment, or infrastructure in connection with a multi-jurisdictional project is not required to obtain from a local authority a permit, or any other land use or zoning approval, with respect to the siting, construction, or deployment” used in the generation, transmission, or distribution of electricity, gases or fluids, or water if those services “will provide utility services to employ or economic benefits to residents, businesses, or political subdivisions in more than one county.
However, it also states that those criteria are to be set forth to the state by the developer, owner, or operator of the project, not the communities where the operator seeks to develop the project.
The bill, sponsored by Indiana State Representative Craig Snow, R-Warsaw, had its first reading Jan. 21 and was referred to the Committee on Utilities, Energy, and Telecommunications. If passed, it would go into effect July 1 of this year.
Snow’s office did not respond to questions about the bill by press time.
Porter County Council President Andy Vasquez, R-4th, was on his way back from Indianapolis where he had been attending a conference for county officeholders on understanding the state’s lawmaking process when he learned about the bill. He said he’ll be at the meeting Friday. “As president of the county council I’d like to gather more information so an educated decision” can be made, he said.
Biggs brought up the recent efforts of NextEra, the largest energy utility holding company in the world, to bring a solar farm to Malden in south Porter County. NextEra’s application to build a solar farm in Malden was rejected by the county on Aug. 17 on the grounds of failing to meet the standards set forth in the 2020 solar ordinance and the county’s unified development ordinance. Any future application by NextEra or any other company to put a solar farm on agricultural land would have to be made under a new ordinance or an appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals.
“Currently, say if a solar company wants to come to Porter County they have to go before several boards and meet several land zoning laws,” Biggs said. “If the intent was not the way it reads now, then it needs to be rewritten.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.