Moving heaven and earth

Developer has soil reclassified to enable project to proceed

Council is becoming accustomed to being ignored when it comes to renewable energy development in this community.

But even long experienced councillors were surprised to learn in November that even when the County’s expertise is a necessary part of a developer’s application, it can be ignored. Worse, developers can have critical information about the County altered and never advise municipal officials what they did.

This story begins in Hillier on farmland along Huyck’s Point Road. The landowner, Bob Hunter won a power purchase agreement for a 100-acre solar energy generation facility on land surrounding a former greenhouse. But the cost to construct the transmission lines to proposed electricity proved too steep. So Hunter found new partners and developed a plan to move the plant to farmland on County Road 5 near Elmbrook— very near the transmission station linking the County with a 230 KW transmission line. He could hardly be closer to the grid.

But a problem arose. At least part of the land proposed to host these acres of solar panels was considered prime agricultural land according to municipal classification. County officials broke the solemn news to the applicants. By the definition of the FIT program the land was disqualified for development of the project. County officials assumed the project had died.

They were wrong.

Rob McAuley, commissioner of engineering, development and public works, told a committee of council in November how the developer had sought and found a qualified consultant to reclassify the soil on the subject land.

“It was reclassified out of prime ag,” explained McAuley. “But the consultant’s report never resurfaced in our hands.”

To be clear, a solar energy developer’s consultant changed the soil class of a piece of County land, to the benefit of his client—yet no one bothered to advise the municipality that its soil had been downgraded.

McAuley observed that it was not particularly unusual for a third party soil analysis to draw a different conclusion about its classification—but he noted, for council’s growing attentiveness, his concern that all this happened without the municipality being made aware of the change.