WOODBINE, Md. — Signs along Daisy Road in Woodbine advertise a community meeting for a proposed solar project. The graffitied addition to one of them makes the opinions of concerned neighbors clear.
Homeowners in this area recently received a letter in the mail from Trajectory Energy, letting them know about a "community solar project" the company is working on.
Watch as neighbors react to the proposed development
The residents also received flyers about the benefits of community solar, which the company says allows people that can't install solar on their property themselves to access solar energy and receive credits on their utility bill. In this case, the project would occupy about 14 acres of a 71 acre piece of privately owned farmland. Trajectory Energy says it will produce enough energy to power about 450 homes, save participants about 100 to 200 bucks a year, and boost property taxes for the local government.
"My concern is that - are we really just helping these developers have the highest profit margins? It is much cheaper and higher profit margins to put it on open green spaces and farm than it is to put on rooftops and parking lots," Cat Carter told WMAR-2 News.
Carter has been outspoken against the project as a private citizen. She's also running for Howard County Council.
So is Steven Bolen.
They both say this is a big issue around here, as solar development seems to have exploded in this part of the state in recent years.
And Bolen says it’s a complex one.
“If you're a property owner, you do have rights and you should be allowed, within reasonable limits, to do what you want with your property,” Bolen said. And if you’re a small business owner, and you’ve made the business calculation that a certain amount of solar power is good for your cost efficiency to run your business, I don’t know that we should hold those people back. Commercial industry - that’s a little bit different. It's taking up a lot of green space, and it's taking a lot of our agricultural lands potentially away from us.”
“I do see the importance of having renewable energy and solar panels and solar energy. However I see so much of it covering my District 5,” Carter said. She argues the solar development that’s been mandated statewide should be diversified, rather than heavily concentrated on farmland and green spaces. “And if our incentive structure is not doing enough, then maybe we need some ‘shalls’ and legislative language and making sure that we have certain amounts in each area.”
WMAR-2 News spoke to a couple who lives near the proposed project. They did not want to be on camera, or share their names, out of concern for their privacy. But they have questions about whether their land agreements from the 1990s, meant to protect their property values, still hold.
“There are rules in here that predate solar farm usage, but deal with things such as not including above ground poles or wires for electricity and other things that affect the beauty of the lots,” the homeowner said as he showed WMAR-2 News’ Elizabeth Worthington the documents from 1996.
In 2021, Howard County passed legislation that made the permit process much more solar-friendly, allowing solar development in all zones, including on agriculturally preserved land such as the land on Daisy Road.
Then, just this year, the state legislature passed a law that also makes it easier for solar projects to get approved by the Public Service Commission. Critics say it strips county governments - and their residents - of any local control over solar development in their neighborhoods.
Tyler Hough with the Maryland Farm Bureau says it threatens productive farmland.
“That land can also be the best land for solar development because of its flat or easy access to transmission lines. So it's the lowest cost, so that's why it's targeted,” Hough told WMAR-2 News in an interview. “That farmland is finite. It's a resource that we cannot get back. We can't get back prime and productive soil once it's gone.”
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Hough said he understands why some farmers feel the need to supplement their operations by leasing their land to a solar developer.
“And we're pro private property rights at the Maryland Farm Bureau and understand That sometimes you get in a situation where financially taking a portion off to use for solar panels is the most responsible thing to do financially for that operation. We have members that have solar on their farm for whether it's a smaller community use or if they've utilized it on top of their barns or a marginal piece of land to be able to help with their electricity bills. There's arguments both ways,” Hough said. “But it's an overwhelming majority of our members that don't want to see prime and productive soil taken out of production for any reason.”
There’s a community meeting about the project Thursday night at the Howard County Library, where people can ask the developers questions and raise concerns before the company submits its conditional use petition to the county’s Department of Planning and Zoning.
If you missed the meeting, you can still submit concerns to the Department online, or contact the project development manager directly.
