Agreement between solar farm and Yorkville horse trainer in Yorkville moves 20-acre project forward

An agreement jockeyed between the developers of a Yorkville solar farm and an adjacent horse training business is sending the 20-acre project off and running.

Yorkville resident Joan MacArthur previously told thr Yorkville City Council she would bring forth a lawsuit if glare from the panels of her neighbor’s new solar farm would impact her race horse training facility.

MacArthur’s horses run tracks directly south of the proposed Beecher Road Solar LLC solar farm development, located north of Corneils Road, west of Beecher Road, and east of Route 47. The project’s parcel is currently owned by Gary and Betty Bennett.

The development’s special use permit and roadway setback was approved by city council at their May 13 meeting.

Per an agreement with the horse training facility, developers will install a 10 foot fence between the two properties to minimize glare from the solar panels reaching the horses. The developers also updated site plans showing their solar arrays could only be built to a maximum 10 foot height. Original plans listed 30-foot maximums, which MacArthur opposed.

Following earlier debates between city officials and the developers about setbacks from roadways, the project was downsized from its original 23.6-acre design, and now will span across 20.3 acres. The site will feature 11,201 solar panels, and produce a little less than 5-megawatts of energy.

The solar farm proposal is part of an expansion of the city-approved Corneils Road Solar project, a 35-acre solar farm development on property that was annexed and rezoned by Yorkville. This 5-megawatt solar farm’s design, by developers Nexamp, LLC, includes solar panels that cannot exceed a height of 20 feet, enclosed within an 8-foot tall fence.

With the new amendments the Beecher Road solar farm, developers have agreed to an increase of the setback from Corneils road to 902.3 feet. The developers originally wanted only a 482 foot setback. The city requirement is a 1,000 foot setback from any roadway.

The solar farm now will be closer to Route 47, placed at 2,600 feet east of the roadway, compared with the original plans that had the project 4,000 feet from Route 47.

The solar panels are designed and angled to minimize glare into roadways.

According to the site plans, an 8-foot fence will enclose the other flanks of the solar farm.

The Bennett property is adjacent to the site of the proposed Project Steel, a 540-acre data center campus.