Clintonville discusses leasing 90 acres
By Bert Lehman
The city of Clintonville has held preliminary talks with NextEra Energy to lease roughly 90 acres in the city’s northern industrial park for a solar energy project.
City Administrator Sharon Eveland told the Clintonville City Council about the talks on Aug. 13.
Eveland asked council members if she should continue to have talks with the company.
Eveland said there is a lot that still needs to be worked out and discussed, and that it’s not 100 percent that NextEra Energy will want to locate the project in Clintonville.
“But I just wanted to get it on your plate,” Eveland said.
According to its website, NextEra Energy is the world’s largest utility company.
“They put these solar panels in different places and they connect into a substation and then they sell that power to whoever owns the substation,” Eveland said. “If they were to do this, they would do it at the substation that is in the northern industrial park that’s owned by Badger Power.”
Eveland said NextEra Energy is looking for at least 750 acres for the project. of which around 90 acres would be in the city of Clintonville.
Project’s impact on taxes
If this project materializes, Eveland said a concern regarding the project is it would tie up almost all the land the city has in its industrial park for the next 30-50 years.
The project would have no property tax or personal tax value to the city.
“The equipment that they use is exempt by the state from personal property taxes,” Eveland said. “So, the only monetary value we would get from this is the annual lease payment which, based on the initial number they put out there, would be roughly $58,000 a year.”
Eveland said the city needs to determine if it has the potential to fill all 90-100 acres in the industrial park with new businesses.
“If we can’t, are we hamstringing ourselves to do something like this and not use that for 30-50 years,” Eveland said. “Is it financially worth it to have that property remain untaxable for so long? There are a lot of questions that still have to get asked.”
Eveland said the city would not be building the solar structures. Everything would be built, maintained, and owned by NextEra Energy. The city would be leasing the company land for the solar structures to sit on.
Most of the land that NextEra Energy has expressed interest in leasing currently does not have electrical service. Electrical service would not be needed by NextEra Energy.
Eveland asked the council if it thought it was worth the time and effort to pursue the project further.
Ald. Brandon Braden said he was interested in learning more information about the project.
Council President Mike Hankins said if the council decided to pursue this project, he’d like the council to develop another plan to have land available to attract traditional business development to the city.
“I wouldn’t want to move ahead with it if we didn’t have a way to still move forward with what it (industrial park) was originally intended for,” Hankins said.
Mayor Richard Beggs said the city had plenty of land available for traditional business development even if the city pursued the solar project.
Beggs sees low probability
Beggs added that he attended the meeting with NextEra Energy, and said he was “not overly impressed with the probability that we’d hear any more about it.”
He said he thought they were discussing the project with five other cities.
“We’re pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole I think,” Beggs said.
Ald. Ben Huber said if the $58,000 per year for rent is accurate, he would be inclined to pursue the solar project because the city would receive more than $600 per acre each year.
“Over a 50-year lifespan it’s well over $30,000 an acre that they would be paying you to lease the land and you’d still own the land at the end of the lease,” Huber said.
Eveland said she wasn’t as pessimistic as Beggs on the likelihood the project could become a reality. She said that she has heard from property owners of land adjacent to the city’s land who said NextEra Energy has contacted them about potentially leasing their land for this solar project.
“I do think that there is definitely some interest here (by NextEra Energy),” Eveland said.
Based on feedback from the council, Eveland said she will continue to pursue conversations with NextEra Energy in an effort to obtain more information.