RAISIN TWP. — A decision on whether to approve a proposed solar energy facility in the southeastern part of Raisin Township could be made in July.

Raisin Township Planning Commission members heard from residents and representatives of the company that has proposed the Beecher Solar project at a public hearing Tuesday. About 50 residents attended, with two people speaking in favor of the project and two opposed to it.

The next step is to have the township’s engineering consultants review the proposal to see how it conforms to the township’s commercial solar energy ordinance, planning commission chairman Marcus McNamara said. That review should be completed in time for the commission’s July 9 meeting.

NextEra Energy Resources LLC of Juno Beach, Florida, which has proposed the project, submitted a detailed application about the project that goes into more depth than what was presented during the hearing Tuesday, McNamara said.

The project encompasses 827 acres across several parcels of farmland spread roughly between Academy Road on the south and Holloway Road on the north, and Kerr Highway on the east and the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks on the west, according to a map of the project. The photovoltaic panels would be placed in two locations and take up 433 acres, Stephen Eastridge, senior project manager for NextEra Energy Resources LLC, said in his presentation. The largest area of panels would be in a backwards L shape with Kerr Highway on the east, Laberdee Road on the south, Chatfield Highway on the west and Holloway Road on the north. The western edge of the northern section of that area would run about a half-mile south from the intersection of Holloway and Billmeyer Highway, then head west to Chatfield. Most of the land for that part of the project is east of Chatfield, but there is a small portion on the west side.

The smaller area of panels would run north-south in a narrow strip between Academy Road and the railroad, about halfway between Rogers Highway and Raisin Center Highway. A substation would be placed there.

Other parcels between the two areas of panels would be used for placing transmission lines underground.

Most of the land is leased, Eastridge said, but some of the property owners in the project area would prefer to sell their land.

The panels, Eastridge said, would be about as tall as fully grown corn stalks and no more than 14 feet tall. They would be enclosed within agricultural-style fencing that meets federal security requirements. Barbed wire would not be used. There also would be landscaping to create a visual buffer, and there would be perennial vegetation planted around the panels to preserve soil quality. The panels would be set back at least 200 feet from the property lines.

The panels would be built on a system that would track the sun, so they would turn from east to west throughout the day. They would have a nonreflective coating on them and would create no emissions, fumes or other pollutants, Eastridge said. Sound modeling for the site shows any noise from the equipment would not exceed 25 decibels when measured from the project’s boundaries. According to the National Council on Aging, 25 decibels is similar to a whisper or leaves rustling.

The site would be decommissioned at the end of its useful life and the site would be restored to agricultural use.

If approved, construction would start in 2025 and the facility would be providing power to the electrical grid in 2026, Eastridge said. The project would support about 150 construction jobs. Any material damage to public roads caused during construction would be repaired.

NextEra has been in contact with the Lenawee County Road Commission and the Drain Commissioner’s Office about the project, Eastridge said. So far, they’ve mostly been working with the drain commissioner’s office.

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Once operational, the facility would generate about $15 million in local tax revenue, Eastridge said.

One of the people who spoke in opposition to the project was Kevin Burns, who lives on Holloway Road next to the proposed project. He said he doesn’t want to look out his windows at solar panels, given what he’s seen of other solar projects in the area that have dying trees that were supposed to be providing a visual buffer.

Burns also asked about electromagnetic radiation, wind noise, fire hazards, what happens if the panels are damaged by hail and if the water runoff and soil quality would be monitored.

McNamara asked the NextEra representatives to provide answers to those questions before the July 9 meeting.

Burns also lamented the loss of crop production.

“I guess we’ll get it back in 30 years, but that’s 30 years of nonproduction time,” he said.

Louis Rebottaro, who lives near a solar facility on Hendershot Highway, endorsed the project. He said the end result will be like any other farming, where they’ll be harvesting energy from the sun to produce a commodity that is consumed by a majority of people in the world. He said he lives about 100 feet away from the facility on Hendershot, and he hears more noise from the traffic on M-50, which is about a mile away, than he does from the solar panels.

“Farmers have a right to make a profit off the investment that they’ve had,” he said. “They can go to bed at night without having a sore back, and they don’t have to worry whether it rains or not and they still have an income.”

— Contact reporter David Panian at dpanian@lenconnect.com or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @lenaweepanian.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Raisin Township has public hearing on proposed solar energy facility