Zoning Board of Appeals Approves Solar Variance for University Lutheran Church

With a one vote majority, the East Lansing Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) approved a variance on Aug. 2 for University Lutheran Church at 1020 S. Harrison Road, allowing the church to install a second solar array, bringing its total energy capacity to 40.34 kilowatts.

As ELi previously reported, the church was denied a permit from the City of East Lansing because of a 2013 ordinance that restricted solar installations to 15 kw hours. However, church representatives and Absolute Solar, the company hoping to install the new solar panels, insisted the 2013 ordinance presented an arbitrary limitation other communities did not impose. The ZBA tabled the measure at the July 12 meeting. Board members indicated they wanted  to learn how the ordinance had (or had not) been enforced in previous years and what the intent of the ordinance was when conceived.

Tim Dempsey, Interim Director of Planning, Building & Development for the City, shared his research with the board during the Aug. 2 meeting. He said only a handful of previous permits exceeding the 15 kw hour limit were granted and that those staff members were no longer with the city.

To award the variance, the board must find that the applicant meets five conditions, including one members disagreed on: “the variance shall not be a variance so commonly recurring as to make reasonably practical the formulation of a general regulation by the City Council.”

Board member William Schulz believed that approving this variance would open the ZBA to more requests from other entities hoping to install a larger solar array.

“I don’t want to belabor all the points,” Schulz said. “But I’ll say this: I’m all for environmental sustainability and, while I’m not a solar expert, when someone says it is an outdated ordinance, I don’t know that it’s so. I’m very sympathetic to the church for all the reasons said [the church took out a $30,000 loan to help pay for the new installation], but we are bound by the ordinance. We can’t say this implicates policy. We’re not a policy organization.”

Patrick Beatty made the motion to issue the variance.

“My motion is not based on trying to bypass or knowing what solar limits or what they do,” he said. “I don’t know as that approving a variance is going to make it a common occurrence. We don’t know that. But this board is empowered to make variances to the zoning.”

Board member Chad Wing asked Dempsy for counsel on how an update to the ordinance would happen.

“Let’s say this is presented to City Council and there is widespread agreement it needs to change,” he said. “What’s your best guesstimate [on how long it would take]?”

“If there was a clear agreement on the system, maybe a 90-day process,” Dempsey said. “Six months or longer if it was a lengthier process.”

Board member Beverly Bonning took several minutes to explain how she arrived at a decision.

“At the last meeting,” she said, “because I’m the newbie on the team, I put a lot of weight on those who had served on this board…I took quite a bit of time to drill down on this issue over the last month and focused on standard three because that seemed to be a concern.

“I took the time to review the Planning Commission meeting [from 2012] and how they ended up at 15 [kw hours],” Bonning said. “They backed into it by looking at the utility standards. I watched the conversation twice. I followed the City Council approval in 2013. I watched the video. I visited the applicant’s site to see what their solar array looked like. And for good measure, I read the Michigan Municipal [materials].

“My takeaway is that…there was very little discussion about the 15 kw. It put my mind at ease that I wasn’t substituting my judgment for the Council’s,” she said. “The Zoning Board of Appeals is delegated to make variances because ordinances aren’t changed on weekly and monthly bases and the City Council and staff don’t have time to revisit that often.”

When discussion ended, the variance was awarded to University Lutheran by a vote of 4 to 3, with Wing and Joshua Smith joining Beatty and Bonning to support the motion. Andrea Ditschman, Schulz and Kathryn Rodgers voted against the motion.

Just a reminder that, this week, ELi established a special new Investigative News Fund to support our investigative reporting for East Lansing. Read more here.