In a surprise move, the McHenry County Board voted unanimously Tuesday night to extend a 120-day moratorium on zoning regulations specifically written for peaker power plants and other private electricity-generating facilities.
After more than an hour of discussion, the board decided to extend the moratorium until Nov. 21 because the county’s attorney advised the board to use the extra time to develop new ordinance language to avoid a lawsuit by a peaker plant applicant.
The new wording, which the attorneys and planning staff will write over the next month for a section of the proposed ordinance, also will allow the county to recover costs for hiring experts in zoning matters.
The board plans to vote on the ordinance, including the new wording, at its Nov. 21 meeting.
Virginia Peschke, a member of the County Board and the Planning and Development Committee that oversees zoning, raised the idea of the extension because of her concern over a proposed amendment to charge a $100,000 application fee to power producers.
The committee recommended dropping the $100,000 fee and proposed an open-ended fee that would allow the county to recover costs associated with hiring experts to analyze applications.
The county’s attorney, Susan Connor, told the board, “I would think it would be a very wise idea to extend the moratorium” to give the county time to clean up the legal language in the ordinance to avoid a lawsuit by an applicant.
She said she was concerned that the wording would have applied only to peaker or other power-producer applicants, thereby opening the county to lawsuits.
Before the vote to extend the moratorium, the board debated aspects of the proposed ordinance. The proposal that received the most discussion centered on whether to allow peaker plants only in industrial areas.
The recommendation was to allow peaker plants in various zoning areas as conditional uses, but several members, led by Anne Gilman, vice chairman of the Planning and Development Committee, said that electricity-producing plants are industries and therefore should be limited to industrially zoned property.
Gilman tried to persuade the County Board to amend the ordinance to allow electricity-generating facilities only in industrially zoned areas. Her motion was defeated 13-9.
Under Gilman’s proposal, an electricity-generating facility would have had to be located on land now zoned for industry or rezoned for industry. Gilman’s proposal also would have included operating conditions on top of those ordinarily imposed in industrial areas.
Planning and Development Committee Chairwoman Donna Schaefer, who made the motion to accept the zoning ordinance, argued for allowing electricity-generating facilities as conditional uses in various zoning districts. Under a conditional use, the zoning of the property remains unchanged. After the conditional-use permit expires, the land use reverts to that allowed by the underlying zoning.
About 50 residents packed into the County Board chambers. Many said after the meeting they supported Gilman’s attempt to limit electricity-generating facilities to industrial areas.
