Gov. Wes Moore’s leadership under fire, ‘Maryland definitely has a management issue’
Baltimore County council members passed legislation Monday regulating smaller solar facilities.
“The bill establishes a distance requirement for some of the smallest solar facilities that we allowed in Baltimore County, the larger facilities will be regulated by the state, but this does establish that distance requirement, it also requires better landscaping and visual treatment of those facilities,” County Council member David Marks said.
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“The state has definitely said that solar energy is going to be a prominent part of our future energy portfolio, but a lot of people feel that these facilities are clustering around certain areas, and there isn’t really enough being done to shield them from adjacent residents,” Marks added.
The long-awaited legislation comes after state lawmakers in the Maryland General Assembly passed the Renewable Energy Certainty Act, a bill which will help streamline the development of solar and energy storage projects in the state. Lawmakers are also hoping the legislation helps the state generate more energy.
“It prevents counties from using overly restrictive zoning laws to block solar and energy storage projects that meet state standards,” Delegate C.T. Wilson said during the most recent legislative session.
“I think that’s what the Moore Administration is trying to do, is move to renewable energy. And that’s really important. I think we’re evaluating how we do that,” Baltimore County Council member Izzy Patoka said.
Marks said County leaders were waiting to see what state lawmakers came up with before passing their legislation.
“The bill was being considered exactly as the state legislature was passing its own law,” Marks said. “So, we had to go back to the state law and find out what exactly we were allowed to do. State basically told a lot of local jurisdictions, it can no longer regulate these, so we had to find out exactly what we were allowed to do to take these steps to really protect our communities.”
However, to date, Governor Wes Moore has yet to sign the bill and it’s not clear when that will happen.
During Monday’s meeting, Baltimore County Council member Wade Kach voiced his frustrations, while temporarily withdrawing a bill he had proposed, aimed to prohibit certain solar facilities on land which is considered prime farmland. Kach said he would reintroduce the bill once decisions are made on the state level.
“What is happening on the state level is very regretful because in regard to solar, in regard to zoning,” Kach said.
“With the state taking over more and more of the zoning and more and more of the solar citing, the public is basically shut out of the process,” he added.
