Planning board sends moratorium on solar arrays to quorum court

By Mark Humphrey, Record Editor

The Madison County Planning Board approved a temporary moratorium on the construction of commercial ground mounted solar installations during a special meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting was held at 5:30 p.m. just prior to the rescheduled quorum court meeting that had been postponed from May 19 due to a severe weather threat.

The decision came after the planning board learned that Today’s Power had notified adjacent landowners last week that it intended to proceed with building a solar array at Hindsville despite their objections.

The Planning Board tabled a proposal by Today’s Power asking for approval of a solar field at Hindsville during its May 14 meeting after several residents spoke against the project.

Learon Dalby, Chief Operating Officer of Today’s Power, the company building the project, told the planning board that Walmart will purchase the power generated by the solar array but does not own the site. Today’s Power will have a 25-year lease of the property with two 5-year extensions on the 35-acre site. It was unclear if the power will be used for the Walmart store in Huntsville or other properties.

“We have a significant investment in this property. Ultimately, we have to make it produce a certain amount of energy to make it pay for itself,” Dalby said at the May 14 planning board regular meeting.

The land that the solar array site will be constructed on is owned by Tiffany Edwards, who inherited it from her late father, Bill Fitch. Several adjacent landowners spoke during the May 14 planning board meeting. They questioned whether the kind of solar panels being installed should be allowed at more than a 10-feet grade, expressed concerns about the array’s impact on migratory bird patterns, and asked Today’s Power to consider alternative locations.

The planning board includes two members of the quorum court, Jeff Marley and Cord Riley. On Tuesday, they discussed the latest development with Today’s Power ready to proceed in the absence of any county regulations that would have prevented them from beginning the construction process.

County Judge Larry Garrett introduced Ordinance No. 2025-13 to place a moratorium on the construction of commercial ground mounted solar panels and to declare an emergency that would put the regulation into effect upon its approval by the quorum court.

The ordinance stated that the Quorum Court “finds it in the best interest of the County to give time to its recently established Planning Board to investigate the nature of commercial ground mounted solar installations and the costs and benefits of any such project for the County of Madison and its citizens in order to draft the most adequate rules and regulations.”

The ordinance defined what constitutes a “commercial ground mounted solar installation” as any “ground installed solar power generation operation over 0.5 acres in size.” According to Garrett, the benefit of imposing a moratorium is that gives the planning board time to consider its duty as stated in Arkansas code “to prepare or have prepared plans for the county, to receive and make recommendations on public and private proposals for development, to prepare and transmit to the county quorum court recommended ordinances implementing plans, and to advise and counsel the county judge, the court, and other public bodies on planning-related matters.”

Due to the emergency clause, the moratorium went into effect “Beginning May 28, 2025 and ending Dec. 31, 2025.” 

The ordinance states the purpose of the moratorium is to “give the Madison County Planning Board the requisite time to develop plans around the construction of commercial solar installations in Madison County.” The dates specified in the ordinance “Shall not be construed to be a limit nor an allowance on the construction of commercial ground mounted solar installations prior to, or following the dates in question.”

Garrett said the forwarding of Ordinance 2025-13 to the quorum court would not affect the solar array under construction at Hindsville because that project was introduced and underway prior to the adoption of ordinance by the planning board.