Momentum builds in Livingston Parish to extend pause on solar farm development

Livingston Parish loves its farms — as long as they aren’t the solar kind.

While solar energy development has surged in Louisiana over the past few years, Livingston Parish halted developing solar panel farms and plants in May 2024. Now, parish council members want to extend it further.

Councilwoman Erin Sandefur is asking the council to extend the existing 12-month moratorium on large-scale solar panel farms and commercial solar power plants. The moratorium does not include residential solar panels on homes. 

The moratorium could have ended before its expiration date depending on pending studies or new ordinances, the council said last year when it put the pause in place. No new ordinances have since come to fruition.

Compared to neighboring parishes, Livingston Parish is behind on enacting any regulations to rein in development of solar projects. Tangipahoa, West Baton Rouge and St. James parishes have enacted either temporary halts or new regulations for solar power in the past few years.

Sandefur, the Livingston Parish councilwoman, is asking to extend the halt on solar farms so that the parish’s policy can be written in alignment with the state legislation’s goals.

She has a letter from the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources saying lawmakers were planning to create a comprehensive regulatory program for solar developments during the upcoming legislative session, which begins in April.

The letter says it would potentially create statewide requirements for wildlife protection and site plans for solar industry development, which is why she is asking the parish to extend the moratorium.

Sandefur said waiting to get feedback from the master zoning plan survey also plays a role in this move. The parish is developing a new master plan for land development. 

“We’re cautiously looking at this to figure out what’s best for the parish,” she said Tuesday at the parish’s ordinance committee meeting.

The solar moratorium extension was introduced at the Thursday parish council meeting and a public hearing for it was set for March 27.

The only solar panel field under development in Livingston Parish is outside of Springfield in Councilman Joe Erdey’s district, but Hurricane Ida damaged it in 2021. New Orleans-based solar energy company Joule is working to restart construction.

Erdey said he isn’t sure how he will vote on extending the solar moratorium. 

“I can’t support it yet, until I know everything I need to know about it,” Erdey said.

Erdey has questions about safety of developing the solar farms related to the land and wildlife to build these projects. Similar questions from other council members prompted putting the moratorium in place last May.