Clover Creek Solar Project, LLC D/B/A New Frontiers Solar Park v. Breckinridge County Fiscal Court

Summary

The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a Breckinridge Circuit Court judgment upholding county ordinances regulating a large-scale solar energy project. The court held that the ordinances were land-use regulations subject to Kentucky Revised Statutes Chapter 100 and that, because Breckinridge County lacked a planning and zoning commission and had not followed Chapter 100 procedures, the ordinances were invalid. The court further held that the ordinances were not entitled to priority over the Kentucky State Board on Electric Generation and Transmission Siting's construction certificate.

Holdings

1. Both ordinances were zoning ordinances because they regulated the use of property for the siting and development of large-scale solar-energy facilities. The Fiscal Court's attempt to characterize the 2025 Ordinance as a conservation or commerce regulation, and to declare that it was not a zoning ordinance, did not change its substantive nature.
2. The 2022 and 2025 ordinances were invalid because Breckinridge County had no planning and zoning commission and the Fiscal Court did not comply with the procedures required by KRS Chapter 100.
3. KRS 278.704(3) grants priority over state merchant-electric-generating-facility requirements only to setback and decommissioning requirements established by a local planning and zoning commission. It does not authorize a local government without such a commission to impose conflicting requirements with priority over the Siting Board's review and certificate.
4. KRS 278.718 does not independently authorize a local government without a planning and zoning commission to impose quintessential land-use restrictions on merchant electric generating facilities with priority over the state regulatory scheme.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the 2022 and 2025 ordinances were zoning or land-use regulations subject to the procedural requirements of KRS Chapter 100.
2. Whether a fiscal court without a planning and zoning commission could enact ordinances regulating the siting and development of a merchant electric generating facility and give those ordinances priority over the Siting Board's construction certificate.
3. Whether KRS 278.704 and KRS 278.718 authorized the 2025 Ordinance to impose setback and decommissioning requirements controlling over the state regulatory scheme.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded