Community member urging County Council to place more restrictions on solar projects

SAINT JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. -- The solar farm debate in St. Joseph County continues, with County Council voting on more restrictions for future solar projects on Oct. 8, but with the Dumont Solar project in the works, some community members continue to urge the council for even more restrictions on future solar projects.

The future site of the Dumont Solar project will be near North Liberty and Potato Creek State Park, where ABC57 was taken on a tour Friday by Jason Gean, a property owner in the area.

Gean has been fighting for more solar project protections for property owners since he first heard of the Dumont Solar project, saying he believes large scale solar projects impact property value when they encompass residential homes.

“If they go to sell their home, who’s going to buy it? And there’s no property value protection. Other counties, including Madison County, have property value protections that their county council, their representatives, have put in place to protect the citizens,” explained Gean. “Ours are not doing that, we’re getting lip service and nobody’s taking any action and actually doing something for us.”

This comes after council already updated their solar ordinance to roll back much of the 2020 law that allowed large-scale solar farms to come to the county without a public hearing. But since then, council member Randall Figg, says some of the council has been working to put more amendments in place.

“We have taken this as fast as we could, and we did get some of the amendments passed and they’re good amendments and the moratorium unfortunately failed and this amendment came up, and that’s what we’re going to vote on Tuesday night. We couldn’t have really gone any faster,” said Figg.

Gean also worries about other solar projects moving into the area, which is why he is pushing for further restrictions on future solar projects.

“Now there’s other community members who are getting letters from other solar companies wanting to expand into Lakeville and also into Marshall County and the Tea Garden area. If that happens, we’ll easily be over 10,000 acres and to give you a comparison, Potato State Park is roughly around 3,000 acres,” said Gean.