BOISE — As part of efforts to make sweeping changes to existing code, Ada County commissioners are being tasked with making a determination as to where future solar projects will be approved.
The county’s zoning code rewrite, its first since 2000, constitutes a wide number of changes including updated zoning districts, altered approval processes and new measures surrounding water conservation. The hearing on this wide-reaching document, however, centered around how the county would accommodate large, utility-scale solar projects moving forward.
An Ada County staff report originally recommended a narrow approach, seeking to prohibit solar installations solely on irrigated prime farmland, as defined by the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NCRS) soil classification system. The NRCS defines this as “land that has the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics suited for producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops and that is available for these uses.”…