Renewable zoning in Michigan may be further incentivized thanks to a team of six University of Michigan students and their award-winning School for Environment and Sustainability capstone project, the Michigan Renewable Energy Development Initiative. The project won the American Planning Association’s Sustainable Communities Division student award at the APA National Planning Conference, which took place from April 13 to 16.
According to a press release from the Graham Sustainability Institute, the student award recognizes a class project or paper by a student or group of students at an accredited institution. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, Rackham student Sarah Dieck Wells, member of the team, said she was excited to see her work recognized.
“A lot of the time, projects that we do as students, you work really really hard on it and you feel like this could have (an) impact and then it doesn’t necessarily get off the ground,” Dieck Wells said. “To see that this project is being recognized for actually having tangible impacts in the community … that is super super rewarding.”
MI REDI aims to educate townships across the state about renewable energy and assist them in zoning land for utility-scale solar or wind energy development. These zoning ordinances reduce the barrier to entry for utility developers looking to build a renewable energy production facility.
While the project started as a capstone project at the University, members of the team now work for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy to continue the project as part of the Renewable Energy Academy, a partnership between Graham Institute and EGLE. Three members were hired by EGLE after graduating in 2023: Ian O’Leary, Zona Martin and Yingxin Wang.
In an interview with The Daily, O’Leary, now a departmental analyst at EGLE, said MI REDI held town hall meetings to address any concerns from community members.
“The main function of these sessions was less so to give a perfect zoning ordinance that was going to be turned into law,” O’Leary said. “It was just for everybody in the room to be able to talk about this and voice concerns and get a lot of instinctual considerations out of their system.”
As a part of the project, the group interviewed government officials from 24 townships and ultimately selected two townships to serve as pilots: Negaunee Township in Marquette County and Milton Township in Antrim County.
In an interview with The Daily, Martin, now a departmental analyst at EGLE, said these townships did not have any zoning done for renewables, which was part of the reason they chose them for pilots.
“We piloted townships that were silent on their zoning, so they either didn’t have a zoning ordinance for solar or they didn’t have a zoning ordinance for wind or both,” Martin said. “So even if a zoning ordinance is a little bit more restrictive, and a developer would be (like) ‘I don’t know if that would work for this development that I’m thinking about,’ they still are aware of what the preferences are because it’s stated in their zoning ordinance, whereas, if you’re silent, the developer has nothing to work with and is kind of going into the community blind.”
MI REDI’s project was developed for their client, EGLE, as part of a now five-year-long partnership between the University and EGLE. The partnership was spearheaded by Sarah Mills, director of the Center for EmPowering Communities at the Graham Sustainability Institute, who nominated the U-M team for the APA SCD student award. Throughout their project, Mills served as their advisor and a key partner. Wells said she joined the project in part due to Mills.
“I just really like her work and admire her as a mentor,” Wells said. “I’ve worked with her in the past, and I just really wanted the opportunity to work with her more. And this project is a way to glean more mentorship from her and then also find ways to work on a project with her for more than just a couple months.”
As a part of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2024 budget, $30 million was allocated towards the Renewable Ready Communities Award now managed by Martin, O’Leary and Wang. O’Leary said the team was brought on to EGLE due to this allocation.
“I think we can all agree (the allocation) was extremely vague,” O’Leary said. “It had no details set other than like a couple loose numbers, and (EGLE) just went, ‘Hey, you guys kind of were the original onus for this. Can you figure it out and make this a new grant?’”
The budget allows for the creation of grants promoting renewable energy projects. Townships developing utility-scale renewable solar projects that generate a minimum of 50 MW and wind projects generating a minimum of 100 MW will receive $5,000 per megawatt from the grant. Townships can also profit from land purchases, jobs brought to their local economy and potential property taxes from the energy projects.
O’Leary said renewable energy projects are a net positive for the economy of these townships.
“If those stipulations (from the zoning ordinance) make the project comfortable for you, and you have a landowner who’s willing to lease their land for that, it’s pretty much all upside,” O’Leary said. “Assuming that things like noise and chemical leaching and environmental impacts have all been well studied by the developer, and there’s a plan in place to ensure that everything will go smoothly, there is a very large financial upside to hosting renewable energy.”
The projects also coincide with House Bill 5120, effective Nov. 29, 2023, which will introduce new state siting laws that are less restrictive to wind power. Martin said opposition to wind initially led to its decline.
“After the 2010s there was a lot of opposition and restrictive zoning ordinances passed for wind and so wind development stalled a little bit,” Martin said. “So there’s a lot of wind projects already built, but not a lot of new developments. And so, right now, the (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) queue has about four projects proposed, but after the effective date of PA 233, I think that we’re going to start seeing a lot more wind coming into the queue.”
O’Leary said the team hopes to incentivize local townships to make their own zoning plans using community input rather than have the state create them.
“We have the ethos as well as being able to say, ‘Yeah, we like local permitting,’” O’Leary said. “And then if (townships) say, ‘You guys are the state, you’re EGLE, you’re the State Energy Office. Are you sure that you like local permitting?’ Our $30 million grant is specifically for megawatts that go through the local permitting process and only for that, so we can say, ‘No, we are specifically incentivizing the local permitting route.’”
Daily Staff Reporter Matthew Shanbom can be reached at shanbom@umich.edu.