News · Jackson
"Court clears way for solar farm in western Hinds County"
"Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons"
A solar farm and energy storage facility planned on about 5,800 acres of undeveloped land in western Hinds County has cleared its biggest court test so far.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, Nov. 10, in favor of the Hinds County Board of Supervisors, leaving in place two use permits the board granted in 2024 to Soul City Storage LLC and Soul City Energy LLC.
Allison Lauderdale, a resident who opposed the project, appealed first to circuit court and then to the appeals court. She argued the supervisors failed to provide the written findings required when they granted the permits.
The majority held otherwise. Its opinion says the board's written order incorporated the 73-page application, the supplemental application and the other materials filed with them, and that the approval and the incorporated papers together certify the project complied with the Hinds County Zoning Ordinance.
The court also rejected the argument that the evidence did not support the permits, pointing to changes the company made in response to community concerns about construction traffic, road use, vegetation management, fencing and wildlife corridors. "Soul City voluntarily accepted conditions that concerned the community," the majority opinion said.
Judge Amy Lassiter St. Pe wrote for the majority.
Judge Latrice Westbrooks dissented. She wrote that the county did not comply with the ordinance's requirement for written findings of fact, on a project she described as a 5,800-acre, utility-scale facility expected to last 30 years, and one the county planning commission had unanimously denied.
Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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