The Planning Commission pre-meeting for June 10th, 2026 is now in session.

Welcome to our pre-meeting.

Thank you for taking part in the business of our city.

The first order of business is the agenda overview discussion.

We have a total of eight applications, of which two applications are for continuance or withdrawal.

Mr.

Boswick, would you please provide the commission with an overview of the applications?

Yes.

Good evening.

We have two requests for continuance.

PLN-REZ-2025-021.

Mirrors Creek is requesting a continuance to the July eighth, twenty twenty-six meeting.

Next we have PLN-UFC-2025-049.

Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any comments or questions regarding these items?

Without any objection, the items will be placed on the continuance withdrawal portion of the agenda.

Next, we will review the remaining items and determine placement on either the consent or regular agenda.

Any updates regarding this application?

Good evening, commissioners.

Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Do any commissioners have any questions for staff?

Is there any discussion?

Here, none, is there any objection of placing this item on the consent agenda?

All right.

Next item is item number three, Chesapeake waterfront concrete.

Mr.

Hannigan, do you have any updates regarding this item?

Good evening, commissioners.

Um, I did want to let the planning commission know that we did receive six letters of opposition to this um request from the residents at um reunion at South Norfolk.

And I also wanted to let the commission know that the applicant's agent will be here tonight to request a continuance to the July uh planning commission meeting.

Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Do any commissioners have any questions for staff?

Any discussion?

Alright, because they are uh putting this on, or they're gonna ask for a continuance just to let you know that there wasn't enough notice to put this in in the pre-meeting, so this will go uh as we go through the meeting.

Uh the applicant will come forward request um the continuance as long as city staff, and I've talked to Mr.

McNamara.

There's no issue.

Regularly we do allow the applicant on the first time that continuance.

Uh so once that is done, and Mr.

McNamara, we'll make sure that there's no problems with staff, it will require a motion and a second, and then we'll vote on placing that for continuance and then we'll move forward.

Um so right as of now we'll keep that on uh just for the regular.

And just so you know, if the continuance does uh pass on this item, speakers uh will be allowed to speak on the continuance, not so much the merit of the of the application itself.

All right, uh next item is item number four, empowerment inc 757.

Ms.

Neal, do you have any updates regarding this item?

Good evening, commissioners.

I have no updates on this item, and we've received no public comment since it was most recently scheduled for uh public hearing.

Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Do any commissioners have any questions for staff?

Um so just to clarify, we've had this application come before with some different uh issues that came up regarding police department and some some issues they have.

I just want to make sure that we work closely with the police department and that they're in support of the application as we have it tonight.

Yes, sir.

We've been working very closely with the police department and they have worked with us to craft the stipulations that we have presented before you.

Okay, thank you.

Um, is there any discussion?

Hearing none, is there any objection to place in this item on the consent agenda?

All right, uh next item will be item number six uh millstone energy center.

Mr.

Bell, do you have any uh updates regarding this application?

Good evening, commissioners.

We do have one minor update, which I believe was uh distributed to you as well.

The emergency response plan.

There was just a small update to section 4.6.

The fire department requested a requirement for the availability of a subject matter expert within 15 minutes of request, to which the applicant complied and made that change.

So that's what the update is all about.

Um, and then we did receive 28 comment forms in support, most cited reliability of the electric grid, need for clean energy sources, and a desire for cheaper energy costs, and then we also received 13 comment forms in opposition, and most of those focused on safety and environmental concerns as the reason for their opposition.

Thank you.

Any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Any questions for staff?

Um, is there any discussion?

We'll go ahead and we'll move this to the regular.

Uh, unless any discussion now, I think with the number of of people that are here, this will be automatically on regular.

So next item for uh the next item is item number seven, 1715 Park Avenue storage yard.

Mr.

Bell, do you have any updates regarding this application?

We do not have any updates on this application, and we received no um comment forms on this one or calls from citizens.

Thank you.

Any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Are there any questions for staff?

Is there any discussion?

Hearing none, is there any objection to placing this item on the consent agenda?

We'll put number seven on.

The next item is item number eight, Cornland Park City Communic Communication Tower.

Miss Peebles, do you have any updates regarding this application?

Yes, I have received two phone calls about this application.

The first phone call was from an adjacent property owner who had some general questions and ultimately submitted a planning commission comment card, um, vocalizing support so long as there were other um uh other mitigation techniques, the vegetation buffer was kept, noise, lighting, and such.

And then I received a second phone call from the um uh airport manager of Chesapeake Airport who was inquiring about the status of a 7460 study that's submitted to the Office of Obstruction and Analysis within the FAA for the proposed communication tower, as it's two miles from the runway of the airport.

Um, the um applicant spoke with the airport manager, and the study is currently under review with the FAA.

I would just also like to note that proper number three does address that compliance with the Federal Communication Commission and Federal Aviation Administration is still a requirement and still stipulation of this use permit.

Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any conflicts with this application?

Do any commissioners have any questions for staff?

Is there any discussion?

Here and none, is there any objection of placing this item on the consent agenda?

All right.

So as of now, the consent agenda consists of items number two, four, seven, and eight, and the regular agenda consists of items three and six at this moment.

The next order of business is the planning commission, committee reports, old business.

Is there anything to report from these committees?

Next, we have upcoming items, summary of new public hearing applications received.

Mr.

Boswick.

This month's summary of new applications in the pipeline includes two rezonings with companion conditional use permits.

That's it.

Next, we have initiated text amendments.

Ms.

Neil.

We have no initiated text amendments to report this month.

Thank you.

All right, at this point, we have a special presentation by Mr.

McNamara.

Good evening, Planning Commission.

Thank you for your attention this evening.

We are doing a series of educational uh pre-meeting topics that we think would certainly be beneficial for just as we as we've adopted the comprehensive plan.

We're talking about different topics and and policies within that plan, just to touch on some of those.

And then tonight's uh topic is gonna be smart growth.

And uh with the adoption of Chesapeake 2045, the concept of smart growth became the City Council adopted policy.

We've been discussing SMART growth for quite some time now, and it's been uh you know endorsed by council at multiple times through multiple retreats, but with the adoption of Chesapeake 2045, this is now city council policy.

Uh what like to do today is take a deep dive on the concept of smart growth and its components as defined by the comprehensive plan and how we apply those.

The overall concept of smart growth is fairly straightforward.

It's an approach to creating neighborhoods and places that provide a variety of amenities, services, and housing, and opportunities, and to use multiple modes of transportation and proximity to residents, essentially creating these exceptional places that the comp plan discusses.

The result of smart growth is vibrant residential, commercial, and recreational sites and areas that contribute to making Chesapeake what it is.

Smart growth is mentioned in the introduction chapter of the comprehensive plan and is described as being woven into the guiding principles, policies, and plans for implementation.

It's the common thread throughout the document itself.

Smart growth in Chesapeake is comprised of 10 elements, and these elements were discussed at length and decided on by city council at two separate retreats.

So the first one we we decided on the elements, and then that second retreat where we reconfirmed those elements, and then as part of our comprehensive plan outreach and conversations again, reconfirmed those with residents as well.

Each of these elements is core to the concept, and we're going to explore each one.

So Chesapeake is a desirable place to live.

There are many reasons why our cities at the top of the list when it comes to people wanting to stay or to come here.

Having attractive amenitized communities is at the top of that list.

Many of the development proposals that you see that come before the Plan Commission have been through an extensive vetting process to ensure that we are getting high quality design and construction.

Communities should be visually appealing and contain amenities that activate the community, creating opportunities for spontaneous interactions such as sidewalks, trails, clubhouses, and green space.

Next is a concept that I think we're all familiar with, and that's the concept of mixing land uses.

A place for someone to live is near a place for someone to play at the park, which is near a place to get an ice cream cone afterwards, which is near a place to buy a t-shirt after the ice cream cone is spilled on someone's t-shirt.

You get the idea, having these places mixed together allows for vibrant places where interactions can take place.

Mixing uses works for many reasons.

It creates community, it gets cars off the road, it fosters small business.

So on the screen, you'll see Summit Point in Greenbrier, which has many of these components of mixing land uses.

While this is appropriate at this scale in this location, mixing of land uses works on smaller scales as well.

Think of the coffee shop right at the corner of the neighborhood, the doctor's office at the edge.

While going vertical mixed use like works in places like Greenbrier, horizontal mixed use works as well, and placing these different uses in close proximity to each other where you can either walk, bike to those locations.

Next is compact conservation design.

This approach better utilizes and makes use of land.

A great example is up on the screen.

A traditional suburban neighborhood, to the left is a traditional suburban neighborhood.

Lots are laid out to give each individual similarly sized lots to use up all the land.

On many occasions, some of the most desirable areas are owned by a single owner and inaccessible to everyone else.

In compact conservation design approach, designers start by identifying the most desirable features and making them community features waterfront corridors, greenways, existing stands of trees, etc.

Smaller lots are then platted, and the community has more access to green space than ever before, even including the individual yards.

So when you're looking at the picture here, there are similar number of lots on both sides.

The right has no public water access, no off-street trails, no usable green space, no amenities, excuse me.

The left has no public water access, no off-street trails, no usable green spaces, no amenities, no tree stands, but the right does.

Same number of lots, just arranged differently to maximize the actual site characteristics.

Compact conservation design could be used in other areas as too, as well.

It should not be necessarily used to develop more, but to develop better.

From our standpoint at the city, we need to continue providing more and more opportunities for stakeholder collaboration.

The days of holding public meetings at 6 o'clock in the library are done.

We need to leverage things like social media and technology.

We need to go to places where people are at.

Getting people out and attracting a diverse amount of people in the planning process is key to success.

We need here from all ages, backgrounds, socioeconomic statuses, ethnicities.

Everyone needs a seat at the table.

From a development application standpoint, we know that State Code says that there's a minimum amount of engagement that it must take place.

Nailings to adjacent property owners, advertising in the newspaper.

We encourage applicants to go beyond the minimum.

We want them engaging with stakeholders before their application appears before you.

We have a section in our staff report that now details what efforts were made to encourage robust stakeholder engagement.

Part of the growth equation is where to grow and where not to grow.

Preservation of areas where growth should not occur is also paramount to our smart growth.

Identifying places like farmland and wetlands and public water access and saving these places are critical to a community.

Likewise, now that you know where growth shouldn't occur, we need to know where growth should occur.

Designating these areas where growth is also where growth should occur is also important.

Redevelopment of existing areas is one of the most economically responsible things that a city can do.

Taking advantage of existing infrastructure while refreshing land use is extremely important.

Growing up and not out will help protect those valuable lands at the rural suburban boundary while still meeting the need to grow.

Our whole approach in growth management in the comprehensive plan takes this into account.

Next is creating walkable neighborhoods.

You have certainly seen major strides being made in this area over the past few years.

Sidewalks have begun to become a focal point of all that we do.

However, walkability is more than just adding a sidewalk.

It's streetscapes, it's building orientation, it's placemaking and safety.

People walk in places where they're invited when they are in an interesting place and when they feel safe.

Next up is creating a range of housing opportunities and choices.

Building quality housing for families of all life stages and income levels is an integral part of the smart growth approach.

Diversifying housing options within existing neighborhoods can give everyone more choices about where to live.

Younger folks who have moved away and went to college and don't come back to Chesapeake because they either can't afford to do it or want a different housing option other than a single family detached home.

On the other hand, we also know folks that want to stay in the neighborhood that they have lived in for 50 years, but they just can't anymore because the house is too big and the maintenance is just too much.

By diversing our diversifying our housing options within a neighborhood, we can allow people to live in these places for all stages of life.

You don't get land uses without transportation networks.

So much emphasis has been placed on that view on the vehicle that we have largely forgotten how to get around without one.

Go to your neighborhood for a second.

Can you safely get from your neighborhood to a restaurant on a bike by walking or by a wheelchair?

Transportation choices make it safe, convenient, and affordable for all residents to travel where they need to using the preferred mode, their preferred method of transportation.

A variety of modes helps ensure that residents and visitors can move easily between neighborhoods, access jobs and services, and stay connected to the broader community.

Our transportation network needs to provide mobility options other than just for motor vehicles.

Next, we come to making decision decisions predictable, fair, and cost effective.

We need to be up front with what we want, how we want it, and how long it'll take.

In the same vein, developers need to be upfront and willing to do what's in the best interest of the city.

Put your best foot forward and hire good people to design.

Engage with the community early and often.

Getting people out and attracting a diverse amount of people in the planning process is key to success.

We need to hear from everyone.

So when you combine these ten elements together, that's when we get our full concept of smart growth, and you'll see that smart growth is integrated into all that we do.

You'll see it mentioned throughout your staff report.

You'll hear us discussing it continually throughout.

So at this time, we'd like to open up for any questions that the planning commission may have.

Any questions?

I think this was a great overview and and really putting in all the different components that go into the smart growth.

I think the one thing we talked about it at a few planning a few months ago was a little bit about the credits for the rural land to be able to move things and to be able to have a higher occupancy.

Can you just address that a little bit as well?

Yeah, so the transfer of development rights program, and that's something that we've been working on extensively for the past year now.

And that ties, you know, both components of where not to grow and where to grow together.

So if we're able to compensate property owners, particularly in the rural area, to move that development into areas where we do want to see growth, that really is you know hitting many of the the components that we're that we're looking for as part of smart growth.

So where we're at right now is you know, this this requires multiple things to be together.

So the first thing, of course, is the the actual TDR ordinance, transfer development rights ordinance, and we're certainly working on that right now.

The other thing is designation of a growth area where we want to see this growth.

And certainly with the adoption of the Green Bar Area Plan, we've we've designated an area where we think that this growth can occur, but that also means that we need to make code changes to allow that growth.

So our zoning ordinance right now is pretty restrictive and it doesn't permit the type of growth that that's called for there.

So that's component number two.

Component number three, which was equally as important is the fact that if this growth is to occur to occur, we need to be able to offset with the infrastructure upgrades and to make sure that that's not done at the cost of you know the taxpayer.

So in this case, uh we needed to actually go forward and uh uh petition for a state code change with the General Assembly, and we're happy to report that the governor has signed that bill into law, and that on July 1st, we'll have the ability to enter into what we call development agreements, which will allow developers to identify uh impacts that their development will have on and will allow them the ability to offset that with uh development agreements or through contributions towards the the infrastructure itself or the construction of the infrastructure.

So once we get that once the bill becomes law at that point, we will certainly be picking things back up and trying to bring all three of these components together so that we could have a successful TDR program.

And I guess um the other thing is, you know, we we had the Greenbrier area plan that was approved in the Deep Creek area, uh which uh you know, which we just got through not too long ago, um, and now we're getting ready to hit up the Western branch.

So I know a lot of citizens uh that are here new, but um just the the fact that parts of our city are being addressed uh with this concept of smart growth to identify the areas as well.

If you can just identify maybe what we have done and what's coming up into the future.

Yeah, so the comprehensive plan is really the overarching umbrella that that uh has a lot of the policies that that city has across across the entire city, but we know you know at 353 square miles that this that this city is very different in different areas and each has its own characteristic uh you know uh uh development pattern, it has uh different things that are important for it, and you know, we certainly have worked pretty hard over the past couple years to adopt you know the green bar area plan, the Indian River Plan, the Deep Creek Plan, the industrial waterfront.

We've set forward uh three sets of design guidelines at this point.

Um we're getting ready to start with the Western Branch Plan.

You know, the idea is that all these are components of the comprehensive plan and really gives us the opportunity to do a deep dive into these areas to give them the due that they're that they that they're owed, and to engage with citizens of these unique areas, uh as we all know, you know, just because community communities, and we want to make sure that we're paying uh you know full attention to those communities to to give them uh the attention that they're due.

Thank you.

Um any other comments, questions?

Yeah, good evening.

Do you have an example of any of the ordinances that would have to be changed?

You indicated they were quite restrictive, just the just a couple examples maybe.

Uh so with transfer development rights, you know, first thing we'd have to do is actually create a brand new ordinance.

Uh so there's nothing in place right now in our zoning ordinance that allows TDRs to take place.

We're certainly enabled by uh the state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia to do that.

So that'd be you know component number one.

Component number two would be the adoption of an overlay within Greenbar that would set the framework for uh you know the type of development that we would see.

So you know, the it would uh make reference to the adopted green bar area design guidelines to talk about the form of development, it would reference the green bar area plan to talk about the the uses that would be permitted in those areas.

It would refer to those as uh refer to that document as well for the infrastructure that was necessary to support that development.

So those two in particular would be necessary.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you very much, Mr.

McInmara.

Appreciate it.

And uh look forward to to continue this work.

All right.

Uh at this time we have concluded our pre-meeting.

So at this time, if there is no further business to consider, the meeting stands adjourned at 6 26 p.m.

We have your attention, please.

Tonight's planning commission meeting the schedule to begin.

The speaker cards are available on the table outside.

Stop a sandal, Oh, the space provided on the cards.

May I have your attention, please?

Tonight's planning commission meeting is scheduled to begin in five minutes.

If you wish to speak at tonight's meeting, we ask you to complete and submit a speaker card before the meeting begins.

Thank you.

The planning commission public hearing for June tenth, twenty twenty six is now in session.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance for those who wish to participate.

You're invited to remain standing for the invocation.

Commissioner Berfeld will lead the pledge of allegiance, and the invocation will be offered by Vice Chair Squalia.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the privilege and responsibility of serving our city.

Tonight, help us remember that the decisions we make will shape neighborhoods, families, businesses, roads, schools, and open spaces long after this meeting ends.

Give us the wisdom to know when growth is beneficial, the discernment to recognize when caution is needed, and the courage to protect what should be preserved.

Help us be good stewards of the community entrusted to us.

May we honor those who came before us by safeguarding the character and integrity of our city while also creating opportunities for those who will call it home in the future.

Let our decisions be thoughtful rather than rushed, principled rather than political, and guided by what is best for Chesapeake as a whole.

Amen.

Please be seated, and as a reminder, please silence your cell phones.

I'd like to welcome each of you to our meeting tonight.

Thank you for taking part in the business of our city.

Mr.

Boswick, please call the role.

Present.

Commissioner Gilman.

Present.

Commissioner Halliard.

Present.

Commissioner Malone.

Here.

Commissioner Squalia.

Here.

Commissioner Spruell is absent.

Commissioner Taylor.

Present.

Commissioner Williams.

Present.

And Chairman Hackworth.

Present.

The minutes for the May thirteenth, twenty twenty six public hearing are now being considered for approval.

Do the commissioners have any corrections or revisions?

If there are no corrections, the minutes are approved by unanimous consent.

The commission rules and procedures are available at the table in front of the chambers on the screen in the chambers, and they are also available online at our website.

The chair asks that each of you follow these guidelines.

Speakers who violate the rules of the public hearing will receive one verbal warning within the course of the evening.

Upon planning commission action of either approval or denial, the remainder of the items shall be heard by city council next month on either the third or fourth Tuesday beginning at 6 30 p.m.

in this chamber.

Unless otherwise announced tonight.

Citizens may contact the city clerk's office or the planning department on the Friday after the planning commission meeting to find out which date the item will be heard by city council.

The first order of business is the consideration of request to withdraw or continue an item.

Normally an application is withdrawn without further discussion.

In the case of continuances, it is the plan and commission's policy to continue an item as requested by the applicant or staff.

Mr.

Boswick, are there any requests for withdrawal or continuance?

Yes, we have two.

Mr.

Boswick, please read the applications into the record.

The first application is PLN-REZ-2025-021.

The project is Mirrors Creek.

Applicant is Coastal Virginia Partners LLC.

Owner is Gary D.

Mayors trustee.

The proposal is a conditional zoning reclassification of approximately 13.2 acres of R15S residential district to R8 residential district.

The location is the western terminus of Woodland Drive in the Western Branch Planning Area.

Based upon the applicant's request, staff recommend that PLN-REZ-2025-021 be continued to the July 8, 2026 Planning Commission meeting.

Next is PLN-USC-2025-049.

The project is 1500 Steel Street container stacking.

The applicant owner is 1500 Steel Street Industrial LLC.

Agent is Troutman Pepper Lock, LLP.

The proposal is a conditional use permit to allow container stacking.

The location is 1500 Steel Street in the Deep Creek planning area.

Based upon the applicant's request, staff recommend that PLN-USC-2025-049 be continued indefinitely.

Thank you.

And at this point, I understand that there is also a request from the applicant for continuance on PLN USE 2025-009, which is Chesapeake Waterfront Concrete.

Um I ask Mr.

Hamlin if you're here.

If you could come up and uh tell us what your request is.

Mr.

McNamara, is there any objection by staff on this request?

No, sir, there's no uh objection.

We would support that continuance and recommend that that plan commission take that action.

Okay, thank you.

Um so at this point, because it wasn't put on earlier, uh, we would need to take a have a motion and a second and take a vote on that.

Uh somebody like to make the motion to continue that item.

So move.

Second.

All right.

So we have a motion by Vice Chair Squelia, seconded uh by Secretary Malone to continue uh PLN-USE-2025-009.

Um, is prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Mr.

Boswick, if you could record the vote, by a vote of eight to nine, the motion carries.

Thank you, Mr.

Boswick.

Could you go ahead and read that item into the record uh for the continuance as well?

Yes.

The application is PLN-USC-2025-009.

The project is Chesapeake Waterfront Concrete.

Applicant is James Salmons Jr.

The owner is Chesapeake Waterfront LLC.

Agency is Kinzer Leftwich and Cayley PC.

The proposal is a conditional use permit to utilize the site for concrete crushing and recycling and to request to allow a height exception for a 170 foot tall silo and tanks.

The location is 25 2651 South Military Highway in the South Norfolk Planning Area.

Based on the request by the applicant, staff recommends that PLN-USC-2025-009 be continued to the July 8, I believe, meeting next month.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Hammond.

We're good.

Secretary Malone, are there any speakers on the items for continuance?

There are.

Speakers, you may hold your comments until the meeting at which the item will be fully discussed, or you may speak on the continuance now.

If you choose to speak, you must limit your comments to the continuance request only, and you cannot address the merits of the application.

Each speaker will have a total of three minutes.

Secretary Malone, please call the speakers.

Speaking in support of agenda item one, Mr.

Grady Palmer.

I'll see if the question.

Next speaker.

Available for questions, Mr.

Terry Reese.

Next speaker.

Agenda item one.

Agenda item three.

In support, Mr.

Zachary Handlin.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in opposition of agenda item number three, Ms.

Tierra Anderson.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number three, Ms.

Kendra McFarland.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number three, Ms.

Vanessa Phillips.

I'll be voting on the next meeting.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number three, Mr.

Eric Blon.

Braun.

Next speaker.

Available for questions, agenda by item number three.

Ms.

Brianna Taper.

Next speaker.

Same with Ms.

Simone Simpson.

Next speaker.

And Mr.

H.

King.

I'm not going to try the first name.

Next speaker.

Same with uh Miss Bianca Schaefer.

Next speaker.

And speaking in support of agenda item number five, Mr.

Robert Bowman.

Next speaker.

That concludes the speakers.

The chair will accept a motion to continue the items as read by Mr.

Boswick.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Gilman and a second by Vice Chair Squelia for continuance.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Mr.

Boswick, please record the vote.

By a vote of eight to zero, the motion carries.

The second order of business is consideration of the consent agenda.

The consent agenda contain contains those items that the planning staff believes are unopposed and have a favorable staff recommendation.

Speakers on items placed on the consent agenda will be given a total of three minutes to address the commission.

If you have an objection to an item being placed on the consent agenda, please note your objection when you address the commission.

Secretary Malone, are there any items on the consent agenda in which there are three or more speakers in opposition?

There are not.

If there are, um at this point, then our consent agenda will consist of item number two.

Mr.

Bosswick, please read the consent agenda items into the record.

The first item is PLN-REZ-2025-019.

The project is Charlton Woods.

The applicant owner is Coastal Virginia Partners LLC.

The proposal is a conditional zoning reclassification of approximately 1.1 acres from R15S Residential District to R10 residential district.

The location is 4733 Charlton Drive in the Western Branch Planning Area.

Based on the findings contained in the staff report, staff recommend that PLN-REZ-2025-019 be approved with profers as listed in the official agenda.

Next is PLN-USC-2025-045.

The project is empowerment in 757.

The applicant is empowerment events venue and party rentals LLC.

The owner is Roses Rudolfo Say House Trustee.

The proposal is a conditional use permit to operate a banquet hall out of an existing shopping center tenant space.

The location is 2709 Campus Stella Road Suite G in the South Norfolk Planning Area.

Based on the findings contained in the staff report, staff recommend that PLN-USC-2025 be approved with stipulations as listed in the official agenda.

Next is PLNUSC-2026-007.

The project is 1715 Park Avenue Storage Yard.

Applicant owner is 1715 Park LLC.

Agency is Kimley Horn.

The proposal is a conditional use permit to allow outside storage for a general contractor business.

The location is 1715 Park Avenue in the Southern Norfolk Pl South Norfolk Planning Area.

Based on the findings contained in the staff report, staff recommend that PLN-USC-2026-007 be approved with stipulations as listed in the official agenda.

Final consent item is PLN-USC-CT-2025-002.

The project is Cornland Park City Communication Tower.

Applicant owner is the City of Chesapeake.

The proposal is a conditional use permit to construct an approximately 199 foot tall communications tower.

The location is 2908 benefit road in the Southern Chesapeake planning area.

Based on the findings contained in the staff report, staff recommend that PLN-USE-CT-2025-002 be approved with stipulations as listed in the official agenda.

That concludes our consent agenda.

Thank you.

Secretary Malone.

Do we have any speakers for items on the consent agenda?

We do.

A reminder that if you're going to speak on the consent agenda, you'll have three minutes to speak if you choose to speak.

Secretary Malone, please call the speakers for items on the consent agenda.

Speaking in support of agenda item number four, Miss Paradise Smith.

Good evening.

Address 2004 Randolph Arch Chesapeake, Virginia.

Over the course of this application, I have worked to address concerns, modify my business model, and accept numerous stipulations designed to ensure the venue operates responsibly.

My goal has always been to create positive business environment and a safe environment where residents, entrepreneurs, youth, families, and organizations can come together to learn, connect, collaborate, and grow.

My concern is not the occupancy number itself.

My concern is that the occupancy limitation is being established before the fire marshal occupancy determination process has occurred.

And I have learned that any future modification to the occupancy limitation will require an entirely new conditional use permit application.

If the venue demonstrates compliance, operates responsibly and establishes a positive track record.

I will ask the commission to consider whether future occupancy determination and demonstrated compliance should have a path for consideration without requiring an entire new application process.

Thank you for your time and your service by the city of Chesapeake.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number four, Pastor Reneal Spruel.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number four, Mr.

Marcus Bolton.

If you would hit the button and you should light green.

There you go.

Good evening, members of the city council, mayor, vice mayor, and uh my name is Marcus Bolton of 1217 Seaboard Avenue.

I'm also a member of the South Norfolk Revitalization Commission.

Um I am support of Empowerment 757 just because it is a staple of our community.

She has worked in our community as well.

And I just wanted us to be attentional about where we want to go with the business fronts in the community.

Um this has not been a good week for our community.

There's been endless shootings, and there's not always outlets that we can look forward to in the community as well.

Um, this is the first time that I've seen planning on the agenda for the area of South Norfolk.

This is the first time I've seen business on the area planning for South Norfolk, and it's just um kind of devastating to think that she's been going through endless chest ties, um, and not being able to exactly get her business to where she wants to be, even though she like I said she is a staple of the community.

And like I say, I am a member of the South and Alpha Relies Revitalization Commission, but this is not a joint effort.

This is my own personal beliefs.

Um I just believe that she has been part of the community, and I do want to see other things influenced into our community that is um a positive remark and not derogatory.

There are other agendas that um do concern me as well as far as financial uh stabilitation and things like that, but our business fronts are somewhere that we can start off and give people that look the same and are of the same and of the community a way that they can be prideful about where they're from.

People that give back into the community, uh not just businesses and corporations that are added on into the community.

So I just hope that you guys take into consideration uh her application, and like I said, we just be intentional about where we want to go as far as the outlook of the community.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in support of agenda item number seven, Mr.

Kyle Long.

It was on, you turned it off.

How about now?

You're good.

Yes, all right.

Thank you.

Uh my name's Kyle Long.

I'm with Kimley Horn, the civil engineer that's been working with the owner for this project.

Um, we're requesting a conditional use permit for an outdoor um storage yard for general contractor.

Um we've provided and coordinated with the planning department on um fencing and landscaping screening for this project to make sure it's um screened from the public right of way, and um I'm available for any questions if you have them about this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number eight, Mr.

Woody Gibson.

I don't have anything, I'm just here.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item eight, Ms.

Ellen McGill.

Good evening.

My name is Ellen McGill, and this is my husband Robert.

We live at 2836 Benefit Road adjacent to Cornland Park in Fire Station 13.

We have lived there for 36 years.

We submitted our concerns electronically that each of you should have received as we weren't sure if we'd be back in town for this meeting.

We're not necessarily opposed to this project, but have concerns that we'd like to share with you that could impact our quality of life since our property line is just 62 feet from the proposed compound.

Obviously, we would love to see this located somewhere else on the 38-acre park rather than so close to our property, but it's been explained that there are reasons for this location.

I have spoken to Harvey Miller, Assistant Director and Broadband Development Officer by email and phone, and also to Summer Peebles, City Planner by email and phone, regarding our concerns.

They both have been very courteous, informative, and have quickly responded to any questions we have.

However, I would like to reiterate those concerns to the entire planning commission.

The biggest concerns for us are that one, the tree buffer between our property and the park not be disturbed.

It has been stated that no vegetation is to be disturbed for this project.

This line of trees provides a visual and sound barrier for us to the park, which are great neighbors as well as Fire Station 13.

With the addition of this compound that will be directly across the ditch from our property, this tree border will be even more crucial.

So we hope that will not be touched.

Two, noises that could be audible to us from the tower and or surrounding equipment.

We've been told that there will be no audible sounds coming from the tower itself, and only sounds would be from the cooling unit housed inside a small building on ground level that would just go on and off as needed for cooling the computers and the units inside.

And would be no louder than a window AC unit.

Lights.

We have been told there will be no required lights for aircraft on top of the tower, and there won't be lights elsewhere on the tower or on the fence that will enclose the area.

There would be lights inside the ground building that houses the computers and cooling unit, but only used if night maintenance is required.

Number four, there's a proposed generator.

This would only be used during power outages and may have a weekly maintenance test lasting about one hour.

Excuse me.

And five, future carrier air area.

We're told that this is for future carriers to have equipment slash antennas, and the same concerns we have above would apply to them.

Thank you for respectfully considering our concerns being the closest neighbor in proximity to this project, and we hope that it will work out well both for the city of Chesapeake and for us.

Thank you.

Next speaker that completes the speakers.

All right.

Are there any discussion on these items?

Hearing none, a motion is in order for approval of the consent agenda with applicable stipulations or proffers as read into the record by Mr.

Bosswitt.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion by Commissioner Gilman and a second by Secretary Malone.

Please prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Mr.

Boswick, please record the vote.

By a vote of eight to zero, the motion carries.

The next order of business is the regular public hearing agenda.

Each speaker will have three minutes to present comments to the commission.

Mr.

Boswick, please present the first public hearing item.

The item is PLN-USC-2026-002.

The project is Millstone Energy Center.

The applicant is Millstone Energy Center LLC.

The owners are Douglas and Melody Deal Living Trust Agency is William Smallin.

Their proposal is a conditional use permit to construct and operate a battery energy storage system on an approximately 31-acre portion of property.

The location is 1912 Centerville Turnpike South in the Great Bridge Planning Area.

Mr.

Miller will now present staff's findings.

Staff provides provides the following findings.

The proposed project is consistent with the standards set forth in the Chessi Peak Zoning Ordinance and the 2045 Comprehensive Plans call to allow for new alternative energy technologies.

The proposed project would provide up to a hundred and fifty megawatts of battery energy energy storage solutions, alleviating strain on congested electric power transmission and bridging the gap for intermittent alternative energy sources such as wind and solar generation.

And the proposal accomplishes city council's desired outcomes for economic prosperity by diversifying the tax base, connectivity by preserv by reserving a portion of the property for a future trail facility, and environmental responsibility by preserving a majority of the mature trees on the site.

Based on these findings, staff recommends that PLN use 2026 002 be approved with the stipulations as listed in the official agenda.

Secretary Malone.

Please call the speakers for the item on the regular agenda.

Speaking in support of agenda item number six, Mr.

Jim Purikle.

I apologize if I misspelled your or misstated your name.

And just as a reminder, when you come up if you're speaking, if you would state your name and address, and just remember that every speaker will have three minutes to address the commission.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, members of the commission.

My name is Jim Piracal.

My address is 704 Colonial Avenue in Norfolk, Virginia.

And I am uh the legislative director for a trade association called Advanced Energy United.

But today I'm speaking to you as resident of the Hampton Roads area, who is also concerned about the energy imbalance within our state.

I am also a 20-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and the Virginia lead for Project Vanguard.

And we at Project Vanguard believe that energy security is a subset to national security, and that our nation's security rides on our ability to wean our economy off of fossil fuel generation.

So why are projects at like Millstone so important?

The answer to the question comes down to the increasing value that battery storage technology is providing to our communities.

The ability to generate and hold electricity until a time when we really need it the most is a relatively new concept or novel concept that we are starting to take advantage of at a scale that actually provides real benefits.

The result is a reduction in the need for more expensive electricity generated through fossil fuels.

And we can now charge these batteries during a day, during the day using solar, affordable energy that comes through solar technology or at night through wind, and use this stored electricity during those hours when electricity, when the electric grid is being strained, and when the cost of electricity is at its peak.

We can harness the energy from the sun, the wind, store it, and use it at a time when we really need it the most.

I also understand that these projects are being associated with large data center growth.

However, Millstone is not a data center.

Quite frankly, it's just the opposite.

And Millstone only consumes 31 acres of a hundred and twelve acre parcel.

Data centers are known for absorbing and consuming our water and energy resources from the environment, whereas battery projects like Millstone give back to the environment in the form of uh clean electricity in a way that preserves our surroundings.

Now there may be a fear that projects like this like Millstone could lead to greater industrial or data-centered growth in the area, but that's what meetings like this are for uh to find that kind of balance between the industrial growth.

So, in summary, battery projects like Millstone will take up a relatively small footprint, but offer so much more to our communities in the form of cleaner and more affordable energy.

I thank you for your time and I support this project.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item six, Mr.

Daniel Rosinski.

Good evening, members of the commission.

Director McNamara.

Uh, I encourage uh support for the Mills.

If you would state your name and address.

Yeah, 2308 Marsha Court.

Uh, and I uh encourage the Commission to support the Millstone energy proposal for three broad reasons.

The first is the need to support renewal uh local and regional renewable energy projects.

Uh the coastal Virginia offshore wind facility and the LS Greenlink facility depend on having a regional uh stable supply to store access uh wind and solar capacity.

Those projects have been under attack from Washington, D.C.

and need to be supported on the local level.

The second is uh the positive job and economic consequences of the project, and the third is the overall positive environmental impact of uh having a project that preserves tree canopy and also um is the alternative to having a peaker plant, a gas uh polluting facility that would cause problems.

I oppose data centers uh in all their forms in Chesapeake, but this project is completely separate from that and is a way to have an environmentally sustainable future with local renewable energy.

So I thank the commission for its consideration and look forward to its support.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item six, Mr.

Rogar Ross.

Good evening.

Uh Ross, I'm at 3800 River Coast Place in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Uh, I wear lots of hats, but this evening I'm speaking uh on my own behalf.

Um I am in support of this project.

Battery energy storage is a critical component in developing clean energy infrastructure.

Uh, as it was mentioned, this will take energy from the offshore wind and from the nearby solar farms and store it for later use.

Essentially, it fills that need of when the sun doesn't shine.

The facility will store sufficient energy to light and power every home in Chesapeake for about four hours, and actually a little bit more than that.

Um solar and energy storage are critical infrastructure to moving us to a carbon-free energy system.

We are already dealing with the impacts of climate change, uh, hotter heat waves, heavier rainstorms, longer droughts, and and rapidly intensifying hurricanes.

If we don't adopt new technology, these impacts will continue to get worse.

Battery energy storage projects help deal with this and strengthen our electrical infrastructure and mitigate the needs for air polluting gas and coal power plants.

Looking at the levelized cost of electricity, battery energy storage is about half the cost of a gas pika plant.

This facility is located along an existing power line corridor and has minimal impact on the surrounding communities.

It's buffered by a wooded area and will protect about 75% of the tree canopy and keep it for uh the length of this project, thus providing habitat and and so forth.

Uh overall, I believe this kind of facility and this kind of location is a net benefit to the quality of life of residents in the city and the region, resulting in cleaner air, cleaner water, protected wildlife habitats, and lower electricity electricity costs.

So please approve this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item six, Ms.

Jean Caridio.

Good evening.

Is it do I hit this?

It's all.

Okay.

Good evening.

Thank you for letting me speak.

My name is Jean Corridio.

I live at 617 Water Oak Court in Chesapeake, and I'm just speaking for myself.

I wasn't asked to speak for either side.

Um I agree with the planning department concerning approval of this project.

Some of the things that have been mentioned already, it doesn't compete with surrounding community for electricity and groundwater, as some surrounding residents may fear.

Rightly so.

This is not to be confused with the data center, and stops the chance of one being built there.

It also stops the chance of housing developments or shopping centers.

It stores electricity, including solar generated for times of need, provides tax revenue for the city.

It fits with the adopted city comprehensive plan.

It assists in lowering electricity costs.

The applicant is already proactively met with Chesapeake Fire Department and Chesapeake Schools to talk about the project.

They designate an easement for the future widening of Centerville Turnpike.

They're required to construct sound walls and keep sound levels within acceptable.

An already approved sound levels for the area.

So far, there are multiple regulations and requirements to protect the surrounding areas.

This is a heavily treed property with the tree buffer to remain.

There's no clear cutting of this land for the convenience of builders.

This is also the just the first step in a multi-year regulatory process where the city and the company will have to work together as they move forward.

And personally, I appreciated the public information session where I went with an open mind.

Demand for electricity is only going to increase.

I feel that this is a reasonable and forward-looking approach.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item three, Mr.

Dennis Floyd.

Good evening, Commissioner.

My name is Dennis Floyd.

I'm 2817 Meadowwood Drive West.

I'm also the business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 80 in Norfolk.

I represent uh roughly 800 electrical workers in the Hampton Roads area, including Chesapeake.

I'm here today, both as a business manager and myself speaking on this.

This proposed battery storage facility is going to meet the need that we have, help meet the need we have for clean energy coming up in the future.

We've done several uh information sessions about this to get the information to people and get the correct information out about what's going on with them.

Uh the lithium iron phosphate batteries, which are much much safer.

You've seen this in the planning, the setbacks.

You've heard from the others, the setbacks that are set up for this, the uh the protections that are there.

Uh met with the fire department uh to make sure that they are going to be trained for anything that could happen.

Uh worst case scenario.

Uh, but at the end of the day, this is going to provide us with an excellent source of clean, quiet energy.

Everybody's worried about solar, everybody's worried about wind.

Everybody was worried about how we're going to produce power.

This is going to take power off of our uh off of our lines when there's not a demand.

It's going to store that that energy, store that electricity in the batteries.

When we come home in the evening, turn on our air conditioners, come home in the winter, turn on our heat, extra light and extra energy.

We're gonna be able to draw off those batteries at that point.

Uh we can't, you know, unlike peaker plants and things of this nature, this is gonna be instantaneous power, comes on, goes off.

Picker plants take hours and hours uh to reach up to their max.

So uh additionally, it's gonna provide good paying jobs during construction, it's gonna be uh provide good jobs in maintenance afterwards.

So uh appreciate your time and your consideration on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in support of agenda item number six, Mr.

Seth Cogwell.

Good evening, Plan Commission.

My name is Seth Cogbill.

I live at 9630 Hill Trace Court, and that's in Henrico County.

Um I debut the weather today if anybody's concerned.

Um, I as I mentioned, um, my name's Seth.

I'm a community engagement representative with Energy Right.

We are a Virginia-based nonprofit focused on clean energy education.

As many of you may know, Virginia's electricity demand continues to grow as a result of both residential growth and commercial growth within the state.

However, concerningly our commonwealth imports more electricity than any other state in the nation.

Fundamentally, that is one of the biggest factors contributing to higher electricity costs as it reflects on our utility cost.

Um battery energy storage systems are proven technology that helps strengthen reliability.

As mentioned before, they store energy with um when demand is low.

That's usually in the morning hours before everybody wakes up, and they usually release that when peak demand is high, which is the evening hours when everybody gets home.

This helps reduce price volatility, supports homes and businesses during those hours of peak demand, and this enhances our overall energy security.

Battery storage projects can also provide significant local tax revenue that communities may use for priorities such as schools, public safety, infrastructure improvements, and because these facilities require relatively little land and can be effectively screened from the surrounding properties, they can be developed with minimal impact on neighboring communities.

We recognize that residents have raised questions about the safety and environmental impacts of these projects and those concerns, those concerns deserve top of consideration.

Modern battery battery storage facilities are built with multiple safety systems, fire suppression measures, and emergency response plans to design to minimize those risk.

And speaking with the landowner of this project, Mr.

Deal, I learned that additional access, an additional access road is being considered to help support the local fire department should an emergency occur.

Another concern I heard while attending the recent community meeting involved potential impacts to well water.

It is important to note that battery energy storage systems do not require ground water consumption for cooling and do not rely on groundwater withdrawals during the normal operation.

For those reasons and in recognition of the rights of the property owner to pursue a lawful use of their land, we encourage you to continue moving forward with the consideration of this battery storage project.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number six, Mr.

Jeff Staples.

Good evening.

I'm uh Jeff Staples.

I live at 1453 Boxwood Drive in the Deep Creek section of our city.

Um there is some opposition to this facility.

Um I would I want to say first, as many others have already, that this is not a data center.

It's not going to draw tremendous amounts of groundwater.

Um the proposed clean energy storage will have actually the opposite effect on our electrical capacity and billing.

The facility would be half a mile off the road.

It won't be seen from the road.

It is built on a hundred and twelve acres to be built on a hundred and twelve acre lot, and the facility is only going to take up 30 to 31 acres of that.

The rest will be dedicated, zoned without expiration green space.

The company asked for and agreed to have the city also zone this property as non-permissible zone for data centers.

There is no noise, there is no emissions, it will have very few employees once completed.

No trucks or heavy equipment after the build, and uh so much less traffic than uh any other thing you could put on this property.

In case of power loss, battery stored energy will kick in and the lights in many neighborhoods will stay on.

Since PICAR plants will not have to fire up when electricity is high demand.

Electric bills will be lower.

If Dominion builds, if Dominion built this facility, it would charge the ratepayers for the cost of the build plus a 15% profit that the state corporation commission guarantees Dominion.

For this private company, they would pay for everything and take all of the business risk.

This is all electric, so there's no big gas explosions that could come from this.

Training will be ongoing from what I've been told.

The fire department is not in opposition to this.

The center itself will have a number of automatic and manual methods of fire suppression that will be built into its uh new construction.

This will not increase traffic, as I said, it will not overcrowd our schools.

We won't have to pay for any public infrastructure upgrades, and the wildlife will still have a place to run.

If we do not store this clean energy here, it will go to another location that will use it to keep their lights on as we fumble around in the dark.

Please vote to approve this project.

And I'm gonna add that um we've approved much more dangerous uh natural gas infrastructure within 30 feet of uh Thurgood Marshall Elementary School and the Cuffy Center.

So this one is much less dangerous than that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number six, Mr.

Lee Damore.

Members of uh speak planning commission, good evening.

My name is Lee Demore.

I was out at 921 Whisper Hollow Drive in Chesapeake.

I'm here also in support of the Millstone Energy Center project.

Uh the company did quite a commendable job, in my opinion, of actually doing the outreach of the public.

They had three separate meetings, they were well uh very answer any questions that people had.

Um I was really not sure how I felt about this.

I mean, about a year ago we had the data center thing, um, that rested on a lot of people's minds.

This is not a data center.

I mean, that's the first hurdle people have to get over.

This is not a dirty center, and it does not place demands on resources, just the opposite, stores them and releases them when it's needed.

Um currently, as far as I know, Chesapeake relies on our tax revenue from our homes for about 40 47% of the revenue.

I've been here 30 years.

I'm tired of seeing my taxes go up and up and up and up.

Chesapeake knows they rec they need alternative streams of revenue.

This is one which has got a lot of maximum benefits and minimal impacts.

I suggest that you do approve this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, in support of agenda item number six, Miss Susan Serbo.

Good evening.

My name is Susan Sherbo.

I live at 1424 Waterside Drive South in Chesapeake in the Green Bar section of Chesapeake.

Um I'm here tonight in support of the Millstone Energy Center, and I wanted to focus specifically on safety.

Um, I'm a I taught school for many years, and so safety is always on my mind.

It was on my mind.

Um still on my mind very much because of the compressor station that's in Chesapeake now, and the pipelines.

I really believe that having wind energy is a much safer alternative, and it's it's clean energy.

We have it the place that the mills millstone energy center seems like it's gonna be a wonderful place, a calm place, a quiet place, a place where people don't have to be afraid that they're living next door to it.

I understand that some people who people who are gonna be living in those neighborhoods, they have some concerns, and I I definitely understand that.

I've looked at the company, East Point Energy.

I've looked at their parent company in Europe, and I see that they're very careful about safety, they're very, they emphasize communication with neighbors with in with people in the industry, and they're they have a very preventive outlook, a preventive way of doing preventive measures, preventive for planning, preventive with safety.

I'm most impressed with their fire department training.

That when looking at other forms of energy, we we have not had very much transparency with how an emergency would be dealt with.

And with East Point, they've given a lot of detail about we only will work with you if we can train the firefighters, the local firefighters from the get go.

I think that's hugely important to have a have open communication with the neighborhood and with our fire departments that take protect us in and help us prevent emergencies.

And so that's a tremendous help as well to prevent fires and to catch something that might happen immediately.

Um they have set this company has set the industry standards following what their parent company, Equinoir, did, and in um Europe, and I like that they keep uh ongoing dialogue and they're very straightforward.

And that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much, and I hope you approve this data center.

I data center.

Hope you approve it.

Oh, the dirty word.

I hope you approve.

I hope you approve Millstone Energy Center.

And um, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number three, Mr.

Grady Palmer.

I don't know what it's not.

I don't have any volume for some reason.

Good evening, uh, Mr.

Chairman, Vice Chair, members of the planning commission.

My name is Grady Palmer.

Uh, my business address 222 Central Park Avenue in the city of Virginia Beach.

Jimmy, could you flip it to the aerial uh image?

That call back.

There you go, right there.

Just wanted to sort of visualize what this looks like around the project.

So in the middle of the yellow, uh there's a little uh cleared area, so that will be the footprint of the battery energy storage, and you see all the trees uh that are around it that's separated from Woodard's Mill and from Southeastern from Hickory High School and from Centerville Turnpike.

Uh so this is a significantly buffered facility, and so I just wanted to leave with that because I think that's really uh important and citing these facilities uh is a very difficult thing to do.

Um I've worked on three.

This is the third battery energy storage project uh in the city of Chesapeake that I've worked on.

Uh one is about to start construction in Deep Creek, uh, should be starting construction uh by the end of this year.

And so these things are really important in terms of where we're going uh with uh energy storage, with grid, uh electric grid reliability, uh making sure that there's power uh when it's needed, and so this is what this is about.

I know you've heard a lot tonight so far, and I'm thankful uh that people have mentioned it that this is not a data center, and it actually can never be a data center.

So I know there's some concerns that this is a precursor uh that will just lead to a data center.

Um the applicant is actually put in a condition to the use permit that none of the parcels can be used as a data center for as long as this thing operates as a battery storage energy system.

So we want it to be as clear and concise that this facility uh can never support a data center, and it will only support the electric uh electricity grid.

Uh and it is a that is the only thing that it will do is support the electric grid.

And so um one of the things I want to uh talk about in a couple of three minutes.

Uh, I want to talk about um the critical nature of this infrastructure.

So what I've what I've learned, what I've learned in the last couple of years working on these uh of these projects uh is that I know they're they're emerging, it's emerging technology and it's and it's new, but they are critical and they will become even more critical to to the electric grid uh to grid reliability to the reliability of flipping your switch uh to turn your light on in the evening and that your air conditioner runs.

Um, I wanted to just spend a minute just to talk about what other localities in Virginia are seeing.

And I think you've got this article.

Uh it's about cardinal news.

Um, but it says three Virginia electric utilities will add battery energy storage systems to their distribution networks this year, a move that's intended to increase the reliability of electric service and is anticipated to lower utility costs by millions of dollars over the next two decades.

So rising transmission and capacity costs have been a source of concern for some time, and these new batteries projects will begin to control these costs.

And that and that really will be what the benefit is we can see in this region for battery storage as the year approve the project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support of agenda item number six, Ms.

Maggie Howe.

Good evening, commissioners and staff and citizens of Chesapeake.

My name is Maggie Howe.

I'm the Vice President of Project Development at East Point Energy, and I'm here tonight in support of the Millstone Energy Center.

I want to tell you a little bit about our company about East Point.

We are an independent power producer that specializes in standalone battery storage projects just like this one.

Uh we're based not too far away in Charlottesville, Virginia.

And although we have projects in development across 10 or more states in the eastern part of this country, uh Virginia is a really important market for us, as well as Texas.

Those are the two uh states where we have projects that are either under construction or operational.

So I want to emphasize that we are not new, although this is an emerging technology, we are not new to this use case.

Um, we our team really has extensive experience with the development phase with the construction phase with owner uh own owning and operating these assets long term, and we, like our parent company, Equinor, have a deep commitment to safety and to operating these uh facilities as safely as we possibly can.

We've got some uh subject matter experts to tell you more about that in just a bit.

I also want to say thank you to everybody who's been involved to the really rigorous review process that City of Chesapeake puts on.

Um we've had extensive review by planning staff by all of the agencies that are involved in the review process, including fire and schools.

Um, and I also want to thank all of the citizens who have taken part in the community meetings that we've hosted and who are taking time out of their evening to be here tonight and to speak with you.

I think this is a really important part of the development process to have this rigor of um of engagement and to have this level of connection.

Because if we do move forward with building this project, we're gonna be neighbors for a long time.

So I want to make sure that we have a strong relationship as we go into that phase.

I want to speak a bit about community benefits, although they've been touched on um quite thoroughly to date.

I think the increase and the diversification of the tax base is a really important piece to emphasize.

We're able to increase the tax contributions by 60 fold or more at this location while maintaining the rural character from an external perspective.

So, although we will develop those internal 30 acres that have uh previously been disturbed and are not wooded today, we will maintain the remaining 80 or so acres, providing a visual buffer as well as protected wooded space for the environment and for neighbors to hopefully feel as though they nothing has really changed for them.

At the end of the day, our intent is to build a facility that's not seen or heard or disruptive in any way to the neighbors.

I also want to speak a bit about community engagement, although it's been discussed.

Uh, we've had three community meetings since October of last year.

We've sent out over 700 letters inviting neighbors to attend.

I believe you've received those mailing lists.

Um, and we've also been engaging in door knocking in recent weeks, which we will continue to do ahead of the city city council meeting next month.

It's really important to us again that we have this commitment locally and that we have this relationship with our future neighbors.

Uh thank you for your consideration.

I hope you support this project.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in support of agenda item six, Mr.

Brian Fink.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Brian Fink.

I live at 23 Fullwood Parkway, Farmingdale, New York.

Uh I'm here representing Fire and Risk Alliance.

It's a fire protection engineering firm who is contracted by East Point Energy to uh provide consulting services.

My background is I spent 38 years with the New York City Fire Department, last 20 as a battalion commander in the Bronx.

And since that time, I train firefighters on the systems, the equipment and response protocols for responding to these uh facilities.

I'm here to answer any fire safety-related questions that might come up tonight.

But I think it's important just to discuss some of the advancements that have occurred in this industry over a very short period of time.

Since 2018, the amount of equipment that has been deployed to the field has grown exponentially, while the incident rate of fires has dropped by more than 90%.

That has occurred because of many different uh reasons.

I'm just going to touch on a few of those.

The codes finally are catching up to the technology.

When these things first were being developed, the codes were not addressing the issues with the equipment.

It's finally caught up with that.

The requirements for these systems now, emergency response plans, firefighter training, and that's what I do, train firefighters for responding to these things so they can respond safely and keep the public safe.

Explosion prevention measures that are now required for this equipment.

Large scale fire testing that will dictate how close equipment can be to other equipment.

They need to conduct these large-scale fire tests to prove that the distances that they're looking to put this equipment is safe and will not spread.

The switch to a different battery chemistry.

Now they're all lithium-ion batteries, but they're subchemistries.

The new batteries are lithium iron phosphate batteries, no heavy metals.

I think it's important to differentiate outdoor storage from indoor storage.

Most people have vast concerns and rightly so about indoor storage facility fires that they've seen.

Moss landing, gateway in California.

Those fires were very large fires because of they were built indoors.

These facilities are outdoors with a limited amount of batteries in each cabinet, and it's designed not to spread from cabinet to cabinet.

So very different type of incident if there were to be one.

Um the detection equipment that's required in these wasn't required years ago.

It is now.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in support of agenda item number six, Mr.

Steve Carl.

Thank you.

My name is Steve Carl.

I am with Bowman Consulting Group 947, Myers Street, Richmond, Virginia.

Bowman Consulting is a Richmond, I'm sorry, is a Virginia-based uh consulting firm.

Uh my role in this as a licensed professional engineer is to oversee the civil and structural engineering contracted by the applicant.

We will have in our preparation of this project two primary goals.

Uh the first is to provide the um uh safety for access and egress to the site, and the second is to provide stormwater control and treatment that uh protects the neighboring properties and the watershed area around the site.

Our um our focus on this project is uh is going to be driven by the code and by the requirements of local state and federal agencies.

Uh we will uh abide by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Virginia DEQ, and also by uh you with your um local code, and um, and this is not done in a vacuum.

The work that we do is going to be overseen by the city, by your engineers, um, and um, and I'm here tonight to answer any questions related to the uh civil portion of this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in support of agenda item number six, Ms.

Compton Donahue, or Mr.

Sorry.

My name Opton Donahue, address 310 4th Street, Northeast Charlottesville, Virginia, 22902.

I'm a development engineer at East Point Energy.

I work at East Point because I want to be a part of building a better future with clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment.

Battery energy storage systems are critical pieces of electrical infrastructure that have been proven to be safe and reliable.

I wanna reiterate this is not a data center.

We've heard that a couple times.

Best projects are highly regulated and must adhere to many codes and standards such as fire safety regulations like NFP 855 and IFC, energy quality, cybersecurity, battery quality assurance testing, safety testing, construction operations decommissioning, stormwater, and many more.

These regulations are designed to ensure safety and reliability throughout the project's lifetime and during decommissioning.

Best projects, simply put, make the grid more efficient.

Our project is designed to improve reliability through enhanced power quality, store excess power when the grid is in low demand, and discharge that power when power is at peak demand.

The demand for electricity is increasing rapidly.

Grid operations satisfy grid operators satisfy peak power demand by turning on more and more expensive generators.

Electricity prices are at their highest when the electrical grid is under stress.

Our project will help reduce price volatility by supplying energy at a competitive price.

This puts downward pressure on the energy prices during peak events.

Best projects like the Millstone Energy Center project will help reduce spiking costs on your electricity bills over the next 25 years.

Additionally, this project will help keep the lights on to up to 120,000 homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, and other emergency services during an outage.

We chose this location in part because it will be able to store excess energy from the coastal Virginia offshore wind project and discharge that energy when it's most needed.

I respectfully urge the planning commission to vote yes for safe, clean, and reliable power for the years to come.

Please vote to approve this application.

As part of the East Point team, I'm here to answer any questions you have about this project.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In support and available for questions on agenda item number six, Mr.

Doug Deal.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Thomas Marin.

Good evening.

My name is Thomas Moore and I live at 613 Fords Mill Road in the Woods Mill Subdivision in Chesapeake.

I'm a Chesapeake resident, a Chesapeake business owner, and most importantly, a father.

I'm here tonight to oppose the Millstone Energy Center.

I want to be clear that this hearing is not about whether battery energy storage has a role to play in our nation's energy policy.

That's not the decision before you tonight.

The question before you is whether a large-scale battery energy storage facility belongs in Hickory, one of Chesapeake's most rural residential and family-oriented communities.

I believe the answer is no.

My family chose to make our home in Hickory because of the rural character, strong sense of community, and outstanding schools.

My children attend Southeastern Elementary School, and the quality of the schools in this area was one of the primary reasons we chose to invest our future in Chesapeake.

As a father, I believe the decisions affecting the area surrounding our schools should place the well-being of our children and families first.

The developer tells us the risk of thermal runway is extremely low.

Even if that's true, extremely low is not zero.

Today that risk does not exist in Hickory because if a little silly does not exist in Hickory.

This vote is not about reducing risk, it's about whether we should introduce new risk into community homes, families, and schools.

I do not believe we should.

It exists because previous generations made the decisions to protect it.

This proposal is not consistent with the character of Hickory.

It introduces large-scale industrial infrastructure into a community defined by homes, agriculture, and schools.

This hearing is not more than a battery facility, it's about the future of Hickory.

Families who moved here did so with the expectation that the community surrounding the homes and schools would remain rural and residential in nature.

We did not choose Hickory because we wanted industrial scale utility infrastructure next to our neighborhoods.

As a resident, a taxpayer, a business owner, and father, I respectfully ask you to reject this application, preserve the character of Hickory, and the community our families call home in the environment where our children learn and grow.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number six, Mr.

Brian Baker.

My name is Brian Baker.

I live at 533 Waterwell Road in Woodards Mill, which backs up.

My property actually backs up to this property.

I recently moved to Chesapeake after I retired from the Navy.

So following up on what is intended here, did some research.

Lithium batteries in general have hazards.

They are made of hazardous chemicals that react to produce the energy and store the energy.

And they do have dangers associated with that.

And my fear is that just like my predecessor who was up here speaking, if they do have an emergency, then the way that they control these fires is to keep everything around them cool and let this fire burn out.

Let that actually battery cell burn out.

And with that, those the chemicals that are burning off of those batteries are leaked down into the soil, which directly drains into the creek behind my property, and also goes into the well water table that my family drinks from.

So I could go on and on with the hazards that are associated with these batteries and this farm.

And again, just like my predecessor, all of us residents that moved out there, I moved out there to again preserve the agricultural way of life to teach my kids and grandkids how to live on their own, how to survive on their own and live off the land and take care of the land.

So I yield and just ask that you not support this property or this construction project.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In our position of agenda item number six, Ms.

Jane Kurt.

Good evening.

My name is Jane Cart.

I live at 321 Woodards Ford Road.

Very next, very close to where this project will start.

And I do have concerns.

I did some research on lithium battery storage.

I found out the EPA considers it an eminent fire zone, which puts some red flags.

Insurance will grow up.

We will need more highly trained responders.

And this is an area where we have established and new neighborhoods, a soccer field, schools.

We have to worry about health and environment issues.

Enhance them, and in turn, more people will be interested in Chesapeake and feel their investments will be supported.

And I encourage you to oppose it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number six, Mr.

Hibio Wing.

Wang.

Good evening.

I'm GPL Huang, a resident for 1313 Ode Coach Road at Chesapeake.

So that's why the safety and health is always my top concerns.

And uh I also looked into details.

There is two things to clarify.

One is a recent white paper publication by the Electropower Research Institute in 2024 reported a 97% reduction of bass failure globally.

S is an acronym for battery energy storage system, which is based on the equation of numbers of incidents divided by the deployed gigawatts.

And that number has been widely cited by the energy company developers and the local advocators.

However, based on that equation, if a company has one failure every year, but its capacity increased to increased every year.

So let's say the first year with one gigabyte, uh gigawatt capacity, the failure rate is 100%.

The second year, its capacity increased to two gigawatts, then the failure rate is only 50%.

If after 10 years, its capacity is a hundred gigawatt, and the failure rate becomes one percent, a 99% reduction.

Magnificent.

But the truth is it fails every year.

In reality, there are two peaks of the incidents globally.

The first one was in 2018 with 16 failures, and the second peak was in 2023 with 15 failures.

There is no clear reduction of failure within the five years of development.

Actually, um that uh gentleman already uh brought in the uh the most significant failures with 7600 acres evacuation happened in January 2025 at a Moss Land in California.

Although the setting is different, but uh uh I I will uh talk about it later.

Um so there are five uh eight hundred and fifty-eight best facilities in the US by the end of 2025, and a total of 35 facilities with large fires reported, not including unreported small fires, a rate of 4%, which is 20 times higher than the red residential fire accident rate, and uh leave such a fire hazard close to the schools and the woods is not a good idea, especially the fire is unstoppable and extremely dangerous due to the thermal runaway mechanism.

That's why the fire cannot be stopped until that burning out of the uh sales, then it will stop by itself.

No uh any fire techniques can turn it down.

And then the other one, uh consider is that your three minutes is up.

Okay, thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Next speaker in opposition of agenda item number three or number six, Mr.

Jeff Morgenthaler.

Good evening, and thank you for your time.

Uh I am Jeff Morgenthaler.

I live at 737 Forest Mills Road, that is in the Woodards Mill area, just behind where this uh construction is gonna be.

I too am in a veteran of the United States Navy.

I've been in the Navy over 33 years.

I moved my family to this area in 2021, after I had them in the Middle East for over two and a half years.

I chose this area not only because of the schools, but because it was residential and it was zoned for agriculture, and this is clearly an industrial thing that you're wanting to put in here.

There's plenty of places in Chesapeake that are industrial zoned that this battery facility can go to.

I'm not opposed to new things, but again, all the people in favor of this were speaking about aspirational um measures and future projections to include the savings for us taxpayers.

I'm a taxpayer, I've been here several times complaining about how the taxes are going up, how you're assessing our houses.

I'm very well aware of I would like that tax rate to come down.

So anything that could actually do that makes me interested.

I'm interested in what this can do, but everything they talk about is aspirational and doesn't there is no actual data to support that this is saving anybody any money.

Each one of these firms is privately owned.

East Point Energy is was acquired in 2022 by Equinora as pointed out earlier.

They are losing money.

They are made, they are in business to make money, and I just don't see how we as residents can believe that this magical battery thing is gonna save us money in the long run when these um publicly reporting companies are not making money themselves.

I'm to trust that they are so altruistic that they're gonna take greater losses in the future.

And then also, as part of what I do in the military, I'm very familiar with how gases get dispersed over long areas.

Chesapeake has a unique climate.

We have a lot of inversion layers, over 200 days a year on inversion layer.

What inversion layer does is it basically holds in any gases, so noises and gases can't escape.

The risk of the fire as described earlier, and those gases affecting not only our neighborhood, but the three main schools that are right there for Hickory.

You got the elementary, the middle, and the high school is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

And I know we say accidents are rare.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition of agenda item number six, Miss Tina Rodrigue.

Council members, thank you for listening.

My name is Tina Rodrigue.

I live at 504 Fords Mere Road in the Woodwards Mill subdivision.

I am a Navy veteran.

I am married to a Navy retiree who spent most of his career working in counterterrorism, and our concern for this particular facility actually has more to do with security.

Umtility Dive in December of 2025, utility scale battery energy storage systems, they face heightened risks of attack from nation-state and criminal threat groups, and measures to secure this facility from potential disruption have not been made clear.

Battery energy storage system deployments are expected to grow, and they are considered to be a critical infrastructure at risk for terroristic threats.

The annual summary of electrical emergency incident and disturbance reports notices an increase of 70% over the year of 2022 of electricity infrastructure compared to previous years.

Further, roughly 1700 total reports of attacks, vandalism, or other suspicious activity were reported in 2022 by the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center.

Terror threats against battery energy storage systems are increasingly viewed as critical vulnerabilities.

They are prime targets for bad actors and extremist groups, and the primary terror threats and attack vectors include cyber warfare and storage and sabotage, supply chain extortion, and physical attacks.

Violent extremist groups have historically targeted electrical infrastructure to incite fear and disrupt essential services.

We would not like to see any of these things happen in our very rural residential area of Chesapeake where we have young children and schools and lots of families.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Ms.

Monica Molinari.

Hello, my name is Monica Molinari.

I'm a wife to a Navy veteran of 30 years.

We have been in Virginia more than once, and we purchased this property about two years ago.

And I am also a mother of four children.

I have researched lithium bags.

Did you state your address real quick?

Uh 1208 Mill Run.

I'm actually one of the neighbors here in opposition.

I noticed that most of the people here that were for this did not live in this area, nor live in a zone area of an uh of an agricultural setting.

Lithium batteries adjacent to a long-established neighborhood in schools, so none of these people have that kind of experience and will not be living in that kind of a situation.

Lithium batteries are non-biodegradable.

They are not environmentally uh friendly, they are not renewable, especially in a neighborhood where well water is a concern.

They do not benefit as much as they are to the cost that would they would inquire.

They are hardly clean.

There is no longevity associated with these type of batteries.

There's non-renewable, they give off poisonous um gases when they short circuit or burn and they cause many fires as the previous gentleman's have mentioned.

They um produced more toxic waste than any other industry.

They give off cyanide leaching, they're mercury cyanide, sulfuric acid, and heavy metals.

Um they are mined in third world countries by child labor.

Um they release hazardous human health and the human healthy um, human health uh concerns with highly toxic fumes.

I see a one gentleman had mentioned, um, hydro fluor hydrogen fluoride, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen cyanide.

Um we have an energy problem in Virginia because uh governor Spamberger in her first week of office enacted the carbon tax, which basically penalizes and limits fossil fuels from our reliable and long-term nuclear power situation that we've had that is 95% carbon-free energy.

So we need you to reject this proposal entirely.

This um tax of carbon fuels also is six to seven percent increase along with other costly impacts, which is four hundred and sixty five four hundred and sixty million to five hundred uh million annually.

So she is causing this and is trying to um bring in data center or energy, other alternative energies which do not provide the energy that we need, and we already have the nuclear power that's been operational and will continue to be so until 2053, according to the research.

Um, and also I wanted to say that's pretty much it in opposition.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

David Williams.

Good evening.

My name is David Williams.

I live at 736 Forest Mills Road, Chesapeake, obviously.

Uh I'm not against somebody rezoning their property, making a few bugs.

Uh even putting your your battery center there, your best station, uh, but it's the location.

Basically, what we're concerned about is the safety of the neighbors around the area.

I live in that neighborhood as well.

We have the schools around the corner.

I'm not gonna sit here and preach what everybody else is telling you it's going by you, there's no way you can remember all these facts and figures.

Bottom line is is there gonna be something there, some kind of alarm system if something goes south, or is it gonna be three hours away in Charlottesville and they gotta take two hours to get somebody on the phone to alert the neighbors?

Yes, it doesn't use water to supply the facility, but if something goes wrong and it's not when it's gonna happen.

It's gonna happen.

It's not a if it's the water groundwater going to be contaminated.

We have wall wells.

Is somebody gonna set up regular testing for our wells?

Who's gonna be responsible?

What is your uh backup plan when it burns down and it's covered in trees?

There's not a fire break anywhere.

How are you gonna stop the fire?

You're gonna go in my neighbor's backyard and protect his house, are you worried about the trees?

There should be a fire break.

There should be some kind of monitoring system in the air that if something goes wrong, something squeals like um some of them out of twister, so all the neighbors can hear it and evacuate the area.

Uh more safety protocols gotta be in place.

I can't take somebody else's word for it.

It's gonna be alright.

I live three hours away, but you're gonna be safe.

I'm sorry, I'll live here.

I don't care, I respect everybody's opinion, but coming over from Deep Creek telling me what's best for my neighborhood and my other fellow Chesapeake neighbors, stay in Deep Creek, please, no disrespect.

But we have to live over there.

We're not worried about the sight of what it looks like or what it smells like.

At the end of the day, we care about the fumes, we care about our well water, and we care about the soil around us.

That's the bottom line.

If you can ensure all that, you'll get a whole lot more people on your side.

I'm not gonna get a tax break, and I guarantee you, my power bill is not going down.

So I don't think you guys are gonna send me a rebate because they put the battery center right beside our houses.

That's all I got to say.

Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Hi.

And I know everybody's got opinions, but if we can keep that down, please.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Justin Smith.

Hello.

Good evening, members of the Planning Commission.

My name is Justin Smith, and unlike some of the paid proponents, I not only live in Chesapeake, but I live adjacent to the facility at 505 Woodsmere, where the emergency access lane for the project is being proposed.

My wife and I bought our uh home on Woodsmere Road because it was our dream property, a quiet, safe agricultural neighborhood to raise our three children.

But now my kids are learning to ride their bikes on the very street that this project wants to turn into an industrial access route.

We paid a premium to live here, and like many families in southern Chesapeake, we have accepted a heavy, steadily increasing property tax burden because we value the rural character of the community.

Now we face the specter of living next to a massive industrial-scale lithium battery storage facility.

It threatens to devastate our home equity, effectively punishing us financially for investing in Chesapeake.

The developer has promised city council a massive bump in tax revenue from the facility, but at what cost?

Destabilizing the property values of an entire established high-value residential neighborhood will permanently erode the predictable long-term real estate tax base that Chesapeake actually relies on, all to force a project where it simply doesn't belong.

This is a conditional use permit request for a use that is completely inconsistent with A1 agricultural zoning.

This site features a commercial scale infrastructure security fencing, heavy electrical equipment.

And let's be honest, these industrial items are just what we know of today.

Once this heavy infrastructure footprint is anchored on the 112-acre property, what is to stop them from coming back to expand the site or add even more industrial elements down the road?

We also have to look at the broader picture of responsible land use.

Why are we placing high-risk uh industrial infrastructure in a rural wooded area next to families while urban areas suffering from property vacancies are ignored?

Vacant commercial lots of heavy industrial zones already have the infrastructure to support utility uses.

Furthermore, from a public safety standpoint, a concrete industrial zone is a far safer environment to contain and manage a severe chemical or battery fire than placing it next to a heavily wooded residential area.

Utilizing vacant commercial or industrial land creates a true win-win for Chesapeake and injects new tax revenue into a flailing sector that desperately needs investment while completely preserving the stable high value residential neighborhoods that already anchor our city's tax base.

As commissioners, your job is to ask: is there a compelling reason to force an industrial facility into an agricultural area right next to established neighborhoods and schools?

There is a reason the city has land specifically zoned for industrial and utility use.

This facility belongs there, not next to my children's home.

I strongly urge the commission to recommend denial of this conditional use permit, protect our neighborhoods, protect our property values, and protect our way of life.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Miss Eileen Horowitz.

Good evening.

I'm Eileen Horowitz, 509 Fordsmere Road, Chesapeake.

First, I want to thank you for providing me with this opportunity to voice my concerns about this battery battery energy storage system.

Tonight, a number of speakers in favor of this project, all seem to have a financial interest in this project, whereas I have a Chesapeake interest in this project.

To be honest, as I searched the web, I was confronted with a massive amount of information, which was overwhelming to me.

I did attempt to filter out the pajama wearing crazy guy in the basement on YouTube and focus on what appeared to be legitimate sources.

When I attended the town hall meeting on 527, 2026 at Hickory High School, I spoke to a nice gentleman who appeared to be representing the company.

I asked him about the hazardous of toxic fumes during a potential fire.

He turned the question on me and asked, what chemical was I talking about?

Even though he was nice, his reply struck me as guarded and less than transparent, which caused me concern.

In my limited research, I learned these batteries release hazardous gases upon burning.

The specific gases produce very battery chemistry, state of charge, and surrounding materials, but generally fall into the categories such as fluorinated compounds, hydrogen fluoride, one of the most dangerous and corrosive emissions, when combined with moisture included in human lungs, it forms hydrofluoric acid, which causes severe respiratory damage and deep tissue burns.

There's also phosphorous fluoride and phosphorus pentafluoride, which is highly reactive and toxic from the batteries lithium salt electrolyte.

There's also toxic gases, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, which is extremely toxic even at low levels.

There's flammable gases, VOCs, hydrogen, which releases in massive quantities, highly flammable, and can easily fuel flash fires or explosions if trapped in an enclosed BESS container.

There's particulate matters, heavy metals.

Additionally, there are explosive risks, which, while I could not find the universal BES list of explosions, I found there are about 10 to 20 incidences globally, most notably the ones in the US.

Moss Landing, Edmonton, Arizona.

Moss Landing had two, a secondary incident as well, and Chandler, Arizona.

So notwithstanding, I understand the idea of BESS, but I significantly question why we should place this type of facility so close to residential communities.

Yes, life poses many daily risks, but why not move the risk to a more remote location that possesses less potential danger?

Sometimes potential monetary gain does not outweigh the risk.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, we have a solar farm close by, and I've not experienced any great decrease.

Ma'am, the three minutes is up.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening.

Thanks.

Next speaker, in opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Cecil Bomber.

Cecil, I'm sorry.

Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you guys.

I am here 100% opposed to this project.

Could you state your name and address?

I'm sorry.

My name is Cecile Bomber, 1748 Centerville, Turnpike South, Chesapeake, Virginia.

Thank you for this opportunity.

I am here 100% opposed to this project.

Why?

Because this project is near residential and school.

When my husband and I decided to move here in Virginia, we chose to live in Chesapeake because of the school systems and the safe area, so that we can build you know our own family.

And then now I have my son, my five-year-old son, that dealing in this what's really going on.

Because I am living right now across the street, where is the solar farm job site?

And we are unpleasant, unexpected, you know, experience what we're dealing right now until this time.

And then hearing these battery stories behind my property.

Absolutely no.

Because my I want to protect my property and my community.

This battery system, I am not really agree in this in this project.

Because my community is, you know, um better than this, you know, this opportunity.

And a lot of people are in here like saying, you know, it is easy.

Oh, it's fine, everything is fine.

They're not living in Chesapeake.

We are the one living in Chesapeake, and we're gonna deal with this project in the future if you guys can approve.

Hopefully, I am begging with you because I have five-year-old, and of course, everyone in here have children also.

And I hope this one is not gonna be approved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Ms.

Deborah Egress.

Hello, my name is Deborah Egress.

I live at 712 Forest Mills Road, Chesapeake.

Good evening, members of the planning commission and city officials.

Our family and community strongly oppose the proposed lithium battery storage facility in the Hickory neighborhood, Woodard's Mill area, because it is directly incompatible with our residential community.

The public was inadequately informed, and the site poses significant health, safety, environmental, environmental, and quality of life risks for homes and nearby schools.

Woodards Mill residents received very limited notice.

A single letter arrived to my home dated May 13th after two meetings had already occurred.

And the loan sign regarding this project is posted in a cul-de-sac in my neighborhood where few neighbors will ever see it.

The May 27th meeting occurred with a format that prevented a true town hall conversation, provided limited transparency, and kept neighbors from hearing one another's questions and concerns.

Our primary safety concern is fire.

Large lithium-iron battery systems, as we have heard, can undergo thermal runaway.

And the January 2025 at the Moss Landing facility in California burned thousands of batteries, produced a large smoke plume, and required prolonged response and cleanup efforts.

This incident resulted in evacuations, ongoing environmental testing, and widespread community concern about air and water contamination.

When batteries combust, they can release corrosive and toxic gases that cause respiratory and other acute symptoms.

Residents near the moss landing reported widespread health complaints following that fire.

Furthermore, children are especially vulnerable to these kinds of accidents.

Their lungs and immune systems are still developing.

They breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults, and they are more likely to spend time outdoors at schools and playgrounds.

This means that any release of toxic gases, smoke, or contaminated dust from a battery fire could disproportionately affect children in the nearby homes and schools.

While companies point to improved designs, no technology can guarantee zero risk.

And statements that smoke will travel only upward, which we were told at the meeting in a straight line ignores basic weather and dispersion.

Local emergency response is a real limitation.

Our area is heavily wooded and lacks fire hydrants, relies on private wells, and has narrow roads.

All these factors can complicate fire fighting and dramatically increase the risk that a battery fire could contaminate groundwater soil and private wells as talked before.

In addition, this proposed facility is located in an area where military jets and regularly train and where they regularly train and where many residents hunt and use firearms.

Even a low probability impact event could be catastrophic and have catastrophic consequences when it involves a lithium ion battery fire.

So this site selection should be especially conservative in this kind of environment.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Carl Every.

Good evening.

My name is Carl Every 521 Ford's Mere Road.

I'm asking I'm asking the Planning Commission to deny this conditional use permit, or at a minimum, defer it until additional review can be completed.

The first question should be simple.

Why does this use require conditional use permit in the first place?

It's because it's not normal.

It's not normal A1 agriculture.

Conditional use permits exist for activities that did not naturally fit the character or intent of the zoning district.

If this were a routine agricultural use, we would not be here.

The applicant's asking for special permission because this project's fundamentally different from the A1 zoning and created to accommodate it.

The second question is whether there's a compelling reason to play place this use here next to an established residential community in southern Chesapeake.

I have not heard one.

No one's arguing that the battery storage facilities cannot exist anywhere.

The question is whether this is the right place.

This is where projects belong.

Instead, we're being asked to place a large industrial energy storage facility beside schools, homes, neighborhoods, and simply trust that everything will be fine.

We've heard similar promises before.

When the solar facilities were approved.

What many of us see today is a chain link fence, overgrown bushes.

Has anybody driven down Blue Ridge Road recently?

Like a terminator hellscape.

This commission should not assume that today's promises will become tomorrow's reality.

The property owner has every right to seek profit from the land, but neighboring residents have the right to expect zoning regulations will protect the character of the community.

If this facility is truly appropriate, then it should be located in an industrial facility area.

Before approving a project that challenges the character of this area for decades, I respectfully ask the commission to consider the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens and people nearby.

The property already has a viable use that is consistent with the zoning and character of the area.

There's no reason to change it.

Once the permit is granted, it cannot be ungranted.

Please deny this application or defer it for further review.

Thanks.

Thank you.

All right.

At uh this time it's 8 45, and uh we've been in here for an hour and 45 minutes.

So we're gonna take a five-minute break, and then we'll come back and uh we'll continue with the rest of the speakers.

Five minutes.

Sorry.

So we figure one, two, three, four, uh, six, seven, eight, like nine, and then we gotta read.

He's gotta read it.

There's like twenty-nine degrees.

Something like that.

I think that's what he takes.

That's what we're gonna do.

Yeah, I'm not gonna say next to the next.

There's like nine, just out of the same way.

All right, we're now back in session.

Thank you for that little recess just to get up and stretch our legs.

Alright, this time we'll go ahead and continue with the uh speaker.

Uh Mr.

Secretary, if you call the next speaker, in opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Gerald Chebiter.

See if I got that right.

Good evening.

I'm Gerald Chevatar residing at 1318 Old Coach Road, Chesapeake.

I live within about a half mile of the proposed facility.

These folks at Woodard's Mill are my neighbors.

I am not going to uh talk about all the hazards.

I think they've been pretty well explained to date.

But I do want to take the city back to 1980 when the city of Chesapeake began taking water out of the Northwest River.

And in order to do it, they built that plant treatment plant center on South Battlefield, and one of the byproducts of the water was what they call sludge or slurry.

We live very close to where the city was dumping this, and we talked to City at that time, and this is a byproduct of water into building a pit with a liner because they didn't know what the future effects would be.

They have well water, and I'm very, very concerned about what fire burnoff chemicals and whatever could drain into the water system.

Very informative, got a lot of great information from them, but they all work for the company, they want to profit from this.

By any means, I checked with the city of Chesapeake Fire Department today and inquired if they had any large water trucks.

He may train them, he may do a great job training, but there are first responders.

Charlottesville has a TV screen.

Oh God, they got a fire down there.

What do we do?

What do we do?

Please consider not approving this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Michael Dudley.

Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much for your time.

You often don't get thanks.

We appreciate what you're doing here for our community.

I live, my name is Michael Dudley.

I live 708 Fords Mere Court in Woodards Mill.

My wife and I moved here over 30 years ago, and we have created a homestead where our six children and now our 29 grandchildren love to come and play and be part and partake of the beauty that surrounds Woodard's Mill.

In fact, one of our sons and his good wife, who's here today, actually live in Woodard's Mill.

And for the past year, we've been enjoying our first great grandson who's enjoying Woodard's Mill.

We want this area to continue to be what it has been and what it should always be, which is a place where families and friends can come together without worry or concern of any nature.

It's interesting to note, as has been pointed out, much of what I'm going to say is redundant, but I think repetition is probably helpful.

It's interesting to note that for the speakers in favor of this, as I listened as careful as I could, I heard that there was no resident of Woodards Mill.

As near as I can tell, no resident of Hickory, not even a resident of Great Bridge.

That should tell us something.

On the other hand, we've heard from some very distinguished professionals, whom I tip my hat to with respect.

They've done their homework, they know the pros and the cons.

They've educated us very well.

But most of but they're from New York.

They're from Richmond, they're from Charlottesville, and as has been stated by others, they have a different interest in this project than what we have.

Given their credentials, I think it would probably be very easy and wise for them to find another more suitable location for this project.

It may add a little bit of time to their calendar, it may take a few more resources for consultants, but that's business.

This project does not need to be put where it's proposed for fear of destroying our neighborhood.

After we were uh able to sit into your educational segment on the um smart growth 2045, does this really fit that criteria?

I don't think so.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Dr.

Stephen Restino.

Dr.

Stephen Rustano, uh 705 Forest Mills, I live within 1100 feet of this project.

And I like to read from AI, with while lithium iron phosphate batteries are chemically safer, they are more combustible, they still experience thermal runaway, they emit flammable gases, in this case hydrogen fluoride, which is six times more toxic than any other gas out there.

If you know anything about hydrogen fluoride, they use it to take rust off of things.

It's incredibly acidic.

It still causes catastrophic explosions and fires.

Most recent one was a Tesla battery factory in that burned for weeks.

There was an OTE Mesa in California, which burned for weeks, had a seven-month EPA cleanup.

EPA cleanup has run to 110 million dollars, and the company is having looking at property damages of 500 million dollars, not including lawsuits.

There was a Monterey uh California battery uh that exploded.

My house is within 1100 feet.

Can you tell me that when these batteries explode from the hydrogen gas, think Hindenburg?

Will these particles wind up in the forest behind me or on my house?

It is not safe.

This is the wrong place for this.

I have no problem with the concept, but clearly it is agriculture, not industrial, and you're putting a great number of lives, women, children, etc.

at great danger.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Eric Minden.

Good evening.

My name's Eric Minden.

I live at 749 Forest Mills Road, which is in the neighborhood.

I'm actually one house over from it.

One of my biggest objections besides the safety thing that everybody's touched on so well is also they're going to open up that street.

And that's going to increase traffic in our neighborhood, which our neighbor is not filled for.

And then if we get into the safety thing, we're all on well water.

There's no fire hydrants there.

And everybody can speak, and they do speak so well about how safety it is.

But the people that did the one out in Moss Landing, they had several meetings, and you can find these words where how safe it was.

And they're wrong, because things do happen.

This is a project that belongs in an industrial area.

It doesn't belong in a residential rural area like ours.

I've lived in Southern Great Bridge for 60 years, went to Great Bridge High School, raised five kids there, and we love it out there.

And now we are planning to retire in the house we live in now.

I'm currently fixing it up that way.

But with this coming, if this gets proposed, I will not stay there.

I'll leave Southern Chesapeake and it'll be sad.

This belongs in industrial park.

I think they can find a site for it.

I think the safety concerns that all the neighbors have spoke about.

It's got to be overwhelming.

It's got it's got to be the biggest thing on y'all's conscience, I would hope, is protect your citizens, and that's who we are.

I thank you for your time.

I know y'all have been here all night.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Next speaker, in opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

John Boyd.

Good evening.

My name's John Boyd.

I live at 524 Fords Nair Road here in Chesapeake, Virginia.

You've heard from my extended family in the neighborhood.

Uh they have done their due diligence, a lot of homework.

The only point I really want to ask you about tonight is within a thousand feet of this site, there's three schools, and you get to vote on the health and well-being potentially of all those youngsters.

If there's a problem at this facility, they could be in danger.

I ask you to think about that.

There's a lot of people that have uh offered their opinions on how to minimize risk, and we've heard from a lot of experts, experts in their individual fields about minimizing risk.

There's only one way to take this risk away from those children, and that is to vote denial on this request.

A lot of other points we could talk about, but would be rehashing the same things.

So with that, I say good night.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In our position to agenda item number six, Mr.

Jonathan Boring.

Good evening, members of the board.

My name is Jonathan Boring, and I live at 1513 Charlie Street.

I'm here tonight to strongly oppose building this battery storage facility within a well-established residential corridor and right next to three schools, as we've all heard.

At this point, all of my points are really just being a dead horse.

But at least that's an activity that can be done on agricultural.

So we don't have to guess what happens when these industrial sites fail.

In January 2025, the world's largest battery storage facility in Moss Landing, California suffered a major chemical fire, forcing mandatory, a mandatory two-mile evacuation and shutting down a major highway.

That fire reignited in February of 2025.

Again, after all of that, a landmark study published in Nature Scientific Reports revealed that the smoke dropped over 55,000 pounds of toxic metals, specifically nickel, cobalt, and manganese onto the surrounding area.

Over the following months, rainwashed these chemicals deep into the soil and water while nearby residents suffered from chronic breathing problems, skin rashes, and a persistent toxic metallic taste.

Everybody's talked about the well water.

This is exactly what would happen in this case.

We acknowledge that the battery storage adds reliability to the regional power grid, but a multi-state grid reliability asset belongs in a heavy industrial corridor, not crammed into a residential zone shared by three schools.

You can stabilize the grid from an industrial park just as effectively as you can from a site right next to the high school.

The developer behind this project is East Point Energy, based in Charlottesville, which operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Equinor, a multi-billion dollar corporate conglomerate based in Norway.

They do not live here in Chesapeake and they do not send their children to these schools.

All of the financial profits from shifting energy on our local grid will leave our city, while 100% of the explosion, fire, and toxic gas risks are left entirely on our local families and students.

Any potential energy savings from this project simply are not worth the degradation of our neighborhood, the disruption of our peace, or the direct endangerment of our community.

I urge the board to fill your highest duty, protect our children, safeguard our families, and align with the city of Chesapeake's own smart growth initiative.

Please deny this permit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

In opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Nathan Diaz.

Hey, good evening, members of uh planning council.

My name is Nathan Diaz, and I live at uh 748 Forest Mills Road, Chesapeake, Virginia, in Woodard's Mill, right here in Hickory.

Uh, I am in here today to speak uh in uh in opposition of this uh proposed 150 megawatt millstone energy center at 912, 19 to Centerville Turnpike South.

While grid modernization is uh recognizes a need, uh planning a massive industrial-scale chemical energy facility in the center of a semi-rural uh residential area introduces unacceptable risks that haven't been mitigated.

The developer promises financial benefits uh to the city, but real rule real-world incidents prove uh prove those benefits do not outweigh the severe life safety and environmental hazards uh the families of Woodards Mill and the broader hickory community will face every day.

Uh we I ask the council to consider four critical communal community-wide dangers uh backed by recent historical events, which you've heard some of already, uh, and our local infrastructure limits.

First, the unacceptable proximity to our schools and community.

The facility is one in one to two miles from Hickory Middle and Hickory High School in the heart of our community.

When lithium ion batteries fail, they release dense pumes of highly toxic gases.

This is not hypothetical.

This is going to happen.

Uh, just in the past January, as it was mentioned, Moss Lake Landing Battery Facility, California was forced to evacuate uh nearly 1,200 personnel, uh residents due to toxic smoke.

If a similar fire occurs here, the families in Hickory and the thousands of children in our local schools will be the first to breathe in those fumes.

Second, non-existent water infrastructure and evacuation gridlock, which we haven't talked about.

As residents who live here, we know the reality of our local infrastructure.

Homes along the Centerville Turnpike South operate on a private well water, and the city is still funding projects just to provide basic water means down portions of this road.

We all know that.

Um extinguishing a hundred and fifty megawatt uh lithium iron fire doesn't take thousands of gallons of water, it takes millions, up to three million gallons of water.

And as we've heard, we have our one fire truck, which has one thousand, what's what would you say?

One thousand uh one three thousand gallons, so three thousand uh the one three million divided by three thousand, that's one thousand trips for that one fire truck.

So who are we calling in to take care of that?

Which fire department?

Not Chesapeake.

Um, because hippie lands the high-capacity municipal water flow required to fight an industrial fire.

Our fire department will be forced to use tanker shuttle operations.

Uh standard fire truck, as I said, 3,000 gallons.

Uh moving three million gallons of water equates a thousand trips.

Uh driving back and forth down our two-lane turnpike.

Uh, this massive logistical operation will completely shut down the primary evacuation route.

Our families and neighbors rely upon.

Um I just I I have a couple other things, but I'm not gonna go on.

I just I I I ask that you thank you for your time, and I urge you to deny this permit.

And I want to call out that one last thing that everybody who's in favor of this uh who supports this project does not have it going on in their backyard.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Speaking in opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Owens Turner Jr.

Good evening.

My name is Owens Turner.

I live at 325 Millstone Road in Woodards Mill, 49-year resident in that neighborhood.

Um, been in Chesapeake pretty much all my life.

My family's grown up here.

My daughter teaches school in Southeastern Elementary, right in the backyard of this proposed environmental crisis that could happen.

Um, and that is of concern to me.

I look at this whole thing as risk.

My background is security and business.

What are the risk that the planning commission has to take?

And the risk to me are high if there is a chance that some child in Woodruck's Mill or more importantly, the congregated students at Southeastern Elementary are affected in the least possible way from something that we make a decision on here tonight and other meetings we have.

I ask you to deny this, um, because one way or another, all of you know some child that goes to Southeastern Elementary, either family related, friend-related, even the mayor's grandchildren go to Southeastern.

Why in the world would you take a risk to do this if it's the least possible chance that a child would be affected by this?

And when you mess with children, we all know what we do, we get upset.

So please, please really take this to heart and think about it.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker, speaking in opposition to agenda item number six, Mr.

Edward Bach.

Final speaker.

Yeah, evening commissioners, Ed Bach here, 328 Millstone Road.

I ask you to oppose this project simply because it's not compatible, it's industrial, and we have a residential area, agricultural, rural area, and this industrial development isn't uh compatible with it.

Um except for the chief, which had a lot of good information on hazards and uh hazard controls.

I appreciate that.

And I think even the chief would cede the point that you know training once is good, but you got to continue that training, and then you got to have the resources to execute that training during some type of fire or hazmat release.

I haven't heard anything about noise or noise pollution, I haven't heard anything about uh light or light pollution, so there's a lot of questions I have about this technology, and certainly the risks it uh imposes on this residential and this agricultural area leads me to oppose it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, at this time we have uh more speaker cards uh for people who had signed up for questions only at this time.

Um we'll have Secretary Malone read those into the record.

So available for questions, uh Doreen Selsano, Emily Jamison, Barbara, TechSuck, Donna Brown, Anna Parker, Chuck Agris, Michael Rommel, Kathy Rumish, and Paz to Alexandra Igris, Olivia Egris, Miles Sinova, Donna Nash, Mark Saratella, Alfred Brooks, Richard Hayes, Jennifer Morgenthaler, Said Haider, Jonathan Bullsen, David Hankins, Leslie Stroud, Martin, I don't know.

Snyder, Martin Snyder, maybe uh Sean Stroud, David Stroud, Cynthia Leary, Robert Leary, Pamela Honey, Heather Dudley, and Laurie Miller.

All right, that concludes our speakers.

All right, at this time, Commission, is there any discussion for this item?

Commissioner Gilman.

I have questions for the application.

Um, and I don't know if this is best for Mr.

Fink from a emergency response plan perspective.

Would you be the best to answer those questions?

I can't, I'll pass it all.

Okay.

Uh my understanding is this site is not manned and it's solely um remote monitoring by the rock.

Correct.

How many facilities does the rock the rock man?

I probably am not the one to answer that.

That would be for East Point Energy.

Okay, is there someone they can answer the questions about that?

We do not have a provider selected.

The construction of this facility is still many years away, and we're many years away from operation.

So it's kind of like hiring somebody to mow your lawns five years from now, right?

We don't know exactly which vendor we'll select.

I can say that there are really strict requirements put out by NURC and FERC that mandate how many facilities an individual can be watching at one time.

Um so there are really strict rules to make sure that there are eyes on cameras and that there is direct monitoring of each individual facility that may be under surveillance.

Any ideas how many employees would be responsible for monitoring the facilities that got a time?

Yeah.

I'm sorry, I don't think I can really answer your question specifically.

Can you maybe ask it in another way?

Well, I'm just like how many if you don't know the vendor, maybe you can't answer yet, but I'm just wondering how many employees would be working for the rock.

Again, that's sort of like asking how many employees will the future lawn knowing service employ.

I I don't have an answer for you today on that.

Is there maybe a heart of that question, though, that you're is the I assume that the intent is to understand will there be supervision sufficient to monitor what's happening at this specific location?

Is that the core of your question?

Yeah.

Uh again, I can tell you there are really strict guidelines, not just for our projects, but for any energy project that is um operational on the grid today in terms of monitoring and understanding and tracking whether that facility is able to deliver in real time.

Um so it's it's not just about the safety of the facility, but also about its charge and its ability to participate in the electrical grid real time.

So there was information added to the packet just before on response times.

Can you speak to that?

A remote battery subject expert will be available within 15 minutes of the department's request, and then in 4.6.2, it talks about a SME will respond within four hours.

Is that a response time of an incident or question, or could be any of it, that there's a four-hour SLA?

Yeah, thank you for asking that question.

So this is taken from the requirements in New York State, which are the leading in the nation, and it's something that East Point has committed to across its portfolio.

So within 15 minutes, a subject matter expert, 15 minutes or less, someone would be able to hop on the phone and answer questions and provide real-time data plugging into the instant command structure that Chesapeake Fire would be setting up, and then within four hours, we would have a physical person on site to assist um with in-person response.

And that's inclusive of an incident.

If there's an incident, there's a four-hour.

If you could please keep it down in the audience so we can hear the person answering the questions.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am, within four hours or less.

Okay.

Um there's no on-site personnel, so how often are inspections testing maintenance performed?

How often will people be on site?

Yeah, uh, for a facility of this size, we would expect corrective and preventative maintenance to be happening weekly and in some cases daily.

Um so there could be one to two people on site, certainly weekly.

Okay.

And one of the sections 3.2.2 talks about an audible alarm.

How audible?

Is that something that residents are going to hear if there's a catastrophic emergency, or is it going to be audible enough for them, or is it just audible to somebody who's there at the facility?

So that's dependent on how they set up the site.

If that's one of the requirements you would want, I would say you put that in the permitting package that they have to have LA County does that.

They they put up audible alarms around the perimeter of the um facility to notify the public.

But typically, the way these are set up is that any alarm that goes off inside of one of the containers reports back to a central station, central station notifies the fire department.

On the containers themselves, there is an alarm, typically audible and visual alert on the particular container that's involved.

And these can containers are designed to automatically shut themselves down or isolate themselves from the rest of the equipment just by alarms going off or the battery management system seeing an abnormality.

So I know you were asking questions about the rock, they actually don't have to take any action for that piece of equipment to automatically self-isolate itself.

Okay.

In the event of monitoring failures, what is the backup plan?

There's redundancy in that.

So I'm not quite sure what you mean about a uh monitoring failure.

There's multiple alarms typically in each one of these containers.

So if you had one detector that was bad, didn't go off.

There's multiple detectors in each container.

But it's also the battery management system that oversees the health of the batteries.

That's really what the ROC is looking at more than anything.

That usually will notify them long before there's a any kind of an event, they start seeing abnormalities.

And again, if it's out of range, it will automatically isolate that piece of equipment.

So there's redundancies that if the rock loses connection, there's a backup to regain.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it immediate or does it take time?

Immediate.

Okay.

I think those were the questions that I had on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um one for the gentleman before he leaves.

Commissioner Malone.

Sir, before you take off.

I'm I wanted to catch you before you started moving.

One of the residents earlier mentioned uh an imminent fire zone, and and they I think the statement was that uh the battery um uh facility is an imminent fire zone.

Can you speak?

I think what they're conflating there is the EPA came out with guidance this past year stating that if there is an actual fire at one of these facilities that the fire department should consider 330 foot exclusion zone.

That's where they would start doing their air monitoring and determining it's much like a hazmat operation.

They determine the cold zone, the warm zone, and the hot zone.

So EPA gave guidance of 330 feet.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Commissioner Howard.

Good evening.

You and I met back in the fall at the Hickory High School in uh community engagement meeting.

I remember you told me about a really great apple pie stand.

There you go.

Okay.

You'd indicated at that um meeting on a couple of occasions that if it would provide a level of comfort that you are not opposed to putting the residual portion of the acreage, uh what 80 acres into a conservation easement.

That's not in here.

Uh, it does exclude one use, the data center use.

Now I heard what uh Mr.

Palmer said earlier that this would be all there that there would be there for the duration of your application, but is there any reason why you chose not to uh enter it into a conservation easement?

We have not heard that that would add value from um from the Planning Commission interactions.

We would absolutely be happy to propose that and would have be happy to add it as a condition to the permit tonight.

A um a conservation easement would provide a very broad range of protections for the remaining 80 acres, yes.

Right now, the way it would be is that um this could potentially be a pathway for incremental uh industrial development throughout southern Chesapeake.

Um, it it begs the question: does a 31-acre utility scale uh facility preserve the long uh term rule and agriculture uh character of Hickory of the Hickory area?

Um that's the big question that we're all facing here this evening.

Um I went there, I went to the site with uh Miss Kaiser the Saturday before last, and I did ask her.

I said, Well, where's the duty person gonna stay?

She showed me where all the uh batteries were gonna be.

But I said, where's the duty person?

Are they gonna remain in the dwelling that's on there?

And I was really surprised to find out there won't be anybody there.

Um tonight we receive uh uh like Commissioner Gilman just said, this other information and about response, and under tactics, it says upon receipt of an alarm or report of a fire, the fire department personnel should not encroach within a hundred feet of the facility fence line until the trouble battery cabinet has been identified.

I thought that would happen in the monitoring.

When when does the if there's a failed cabinet, when does that get how who's notified?

How is that notified, and when does action start being taken to there are a number of questions in there?

I'll start with the conservation easement and just reiterate that is a condition we would be happy to propose and to add to the vote tonight to put the remaining acreage outside of the limits of disturbance into a conservation easement.

That can only happen at the time of site plan approval or start of construction.

We don't own the property today, and so we don't have the ability to put it in a conservation easement today.

So that would have to take effect as the project moves forward if the project moves forward based on additional approvals down the line.

Um so the second question you had was around identifying which facility may be uh malfunctioning or which unit.

Is that right?

Um so we will know each facility is numbered, and then the numbers are represented in the battery management system.

So we'll know, okay, unit 12 is having issues, and we'll be able to see looking at a map of the site, okay.

Okay, this is where unit 12 is.

This is the one that we need to be focusing in on.

For an operation and maintenance tech, um, depending on the type of issue that we're seeing, likely they would go directly to unit 12, conduct whatever maintenance needs to be done.

In the event of um a thermal runaway or a fire event, I would prefer to pass to my colleagues who have more experience in that area, but generally the recommended practice is to stay back and to monitor the real time data that's coming from that uh unit having issues as well as the neighboring units to ensure that there isn't any spread to additional containers.

Okay, thank you.

Does that answer your questions?

Yes, ma'am, thank you.

Um Commissioner Williams.

Um yeah, I'm not sure who'd address this to, but someone for the define thermal runway.

I can try, but he'll do a better job.

Yeah, it's a excuse me, it's a it's a chemical reaction that occurs within the battery that it's uncontrolled heat release inside the battery itself.

I'm not an engineer, I can't talk to the to the physics of it, but it's basically an uncontrolled release of that energy that there is no extinguishing agent that will stop that.

And you I understand you're not the engineer, but I think you are the engineer.

So let me ask, maybe this is to you what's the statistical probability of a thermal run runaway with lithium, lithium, iron, phosphate battery systems.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I can't answer that.

I'm not sure if anybody can answer that.

Give you a set number, but uh thank you for your question.

Yeah, I don't have a specific statistic to point to as it relates to the statistical possibility of an of a thermal runaway event occurring.

I'll comment again, like as the HVAC system, like kind of the climate control and all the other monitoring equipment and safety checks, those are all to ensure that like a thermal runaway event never occurs.

But if basically if a if the heat within an individual cell becomes like sufficient that it like kind of kicks off this, like it just gets hotter and hotter and hotter until it's like kind of yeah, out of control until there's no energy left in that cell.

Um, and that's kind of the thermal runaway reaction because it is a stored energy, and the energy will dissipate as heat when in the way these systems are designed is that, like uh, yeah, there's a set number of racks of batteries in an enclosure that has fire protection around it and sensors and everything to keep it uh monitored, but the idea is that it wouldn't, although in the unlikely event an uh thermal runaway or fire were to occur, it shouldn't expand beyond that individual container.

Can you pause for one second?

Sir, could you be so kind and pull up the picture of the um what the inside of this one of the batteries will look like?

I'm a visual person, I kind of need to have something to look at while you're going over it.

I don't believe we have a slide that shows the um interior of the battery, it's included in the staff report though.

I think there was an image of like a rendering, like a close-up, and maybe that's what you're referring to.

Like, yeah, is that what you were thinking of?

No, I was talking about in the packet you guys gave me.

I thought there was one we could project for everybody to see.

I was talking about that.

Uh, yes.

Um easy enough.

But um, so in one of the things that I'm looking at, and unfortunately y'all can't see it, but um, if thermal runway takes takes place in one of these cells that are inside of this battery, the systems are what are the systems that keep it from spreading to the rest of that rack in that containerized element?

Yeah.

Happy, I'm gonna hand this off to Brian in just a moment.

For everybody for visual, hopefully it's simplified visual.

A good way to think about a battery storage container is kind of like a bookshelf in a library or a library, where there's books on a shelf, and those like and then a full shelf is like an enclosure.

And each book has money in many pages, and each page would be a cell in this case.

So there's like cells, modules, and then a container and shelves that they sit on.

But I'm gonna leave it to Brian here to answer your question of what safety mechanisms are in the container to help prevent uh the thermal runaway from going to another cell in the enclosure.

So again, that would depend on the manufacturer because there's many different forms of how they're doing that between thermal protection between the individual cells and modules.

What I would recommend is whatever equipment that I any developer is looking to use, make sure you get a copy of the 9548 test results.

It will tell you what an event will look like.

What I'm seeing in those test results is especially with the lithium iron phosphate batteries, rarely does it get beyond one module, and many times it's just a few cells inside that module.

But I think it's very critical that you do take a look at that.

It is required now as of 2026 that they provide that information, and your firefighters would probably be a good resource to take a look at that and and see what a possible event would look like.

Well, I think we're lucky because we got a firefighter in the back of the room that maybe if he wouldn't mind, um chief.

If you wouldn't mind coming forward, I can call him, right?

Yeah, he said he's he said he's staff, so he he's fine.

Good evening, sir.

Thank you.

Appreciate you coming out to help us.

Yes, sir.

Hey, um, help me out.

The um the good folks from the company there laid out a bunch of information.

Um you're our honest broker.

I'm not a firefighter, never been one, didn't play one on TV either.

And um, I need what what's your opinion on this?

So I spoke with uh I think it was Mr.

Halliard a couple of days ago, and I'll share with with you all what I shared with him.

Um with my position in the city being the fire marshal, I don't really have I can't give you my opinion of what it is.

Uh I can tell you that we have a comprehensive ordinance that has been researched and it meets NFPA 855, which is kind of the Bible for uh battery energy storage systems, and the way that uh standard was created is it took representatives from the fire department, design engineers, uh end users, and all sorts of other people that have an interest in battery energy storage systems, not just representatives of companies.

They all came together and they create a set of standards, and from what this company has presented to us, they are meeting and exceeding the standards that are outlined by NFPA NFTA 855.

Okay.

Did y'all any other questions?

Not right now.

Um Secretary Malone.

I have a question for staff.

So I understand that there is a similar facility in Deep Creek.

Can you compare that facility to the one that we're discussing this evening in terms of um what's geographically located near that facility?

So uh all things considered, this facility has not been constructed as of yet.

I believe it's in the site plan phase, so it's certainly you know going through that, and I do have the previous staff report that was pulled up for that one.

This facility the facility in Deep Creek, I'll just kind of hit some of the highlights here, was a 100 megawatt, 400 megawatt hour battery energy storage system.

It was proposed uh, what I'd say close to an existing uh substation, the location of that site, as far as distance between uses, the approximately, I believe it was a 700-foot distance between the that use and the closest residential at that time.

Um the site was also located to the north of Interstate 64, and the if you look to the south, Deep Creek elementary school and high school uh are located in that general proximity as well, and just a as the crow flies analysis shows that those schools appear to be a little closer than the schools that we're talking about for this site.

Thank you.

Um, Taylor.

So, I don't know who this um is going to be referred to, but me, myself as a farmer, I farm land right there, and we also have other farmers right in that same vicinity.

If there was a fire to break out as dry as it is right now, do you all understand that the time limit?

I think she said four hours before you could even get a um uh mandatory person here.

What's gonna happen to the farms that's located here?

Not only the farms, but the the citizens' houses, it's dry.

We had just um just an uh an eighth of an inch of rain.

That's nothing.

What are your backup plans for that?

Because you got woods that you're thinking that's gonna preserve and save the fire from spreading, that's not gonna work.

You know why?

If the woods is if the ground is dry, the trees are dry as well, correct?

So the way these sites are set up, there is no combustible material around the battery containers.

When a battery container is on fire, it's limited to that container.

It's not producing um embers like many fires do, like a structural fire does, that could spread to farmland or wooded area around it.

It is just burning vapors off those batteries.

So, what I'm saying to you is, basically, if you read the Bible, what is it?

When he comes back, it's gonna be what?

Fire.

When that fire spreads, it's gonna spread.

I don't you can't contain a fire in a in a in a facility like that.

You can try, but what did they say?

Incidents happened, accidents happen.

What are you gonna do in that case?

So there have been fires in outdoor storage facilities and there have been documented cases of it will involve one container.

Sometimes it will spread to a second container.

But the way these sites are set up, especially your codes in Chesapeake County, which are very good, you require fire blocks between the four containers.

At most, you would have four containers on fire, and that is highly unlikely, especially with the new codes that just came in in 2026, where they have to test those containers and the distances they want to put them near their other equipment.

They need to light the one container on fire and see if it would spread to any equipment at the distances they want to place it.

If it does, it's a fail, they can't put the equipment set up like that.

Did you?

Alright.

So the other thing, other question is, you say you can contain the fire, right?

That's what the containers are contained.

But if my fire trucks are 150 feet away and they gotta stand back.

They give that time, they give that fire time to ignite or explode because batteries do explode.

I've had batteries to explode at my phone.

So trust me, I know.

Yeah.

There's no way around saying that it won't spray it.

Because if an explosion, I mean, you look at TV, you look at the facts and the fixing in TV.

You've seen it in different movies.

I've seen things that we don't think will happen, happen.

My career has been that, yeah.

You can't you can't predict it.

Yeah.

So that's but I can give you data on a on prior events, and that's how fire departments do their training, is from prior events, and these fires never leave the site when it's outdoor storage.

And the big concerns that everybody brought up tonight was a very different animal.

Those were indoor storage facilities where there are thousands of racks of open batteries inside of a facility.

That's why those fires got so big.

The scale of that is exponentially larger than anything that could ever happen on an outdoor site.

You've got a limited amount of batteries in each one of those containers inside those indoor facilities, moss landing, gateway.

Most of the fires that were talked about, those were indoor facilities where it involved the entire facility.

Fires at an outdoor container, basically best, it involves one or two containers, and that's the extent of the fire.

Not a single one has ever left the confines of the actual area.

And to tell you the truth, I've worked on probably about a hundred of these sites at this point.

This one has some of the best setbacks and distances that I've seen in those hundred projects.

That's all I have.

Commissioner Howard.

With regards to thermal runaway, isn't that the event where the temperatures can actually spike very high, like north of 500 degrees and cause the chain reaction of explosions, which results in the uh in the release of the toxic gases?

Yeah, so when when batteries go into thermal runaway and and really when they change the the sub chemistries, so when you look at a nickel manganese cobalt battery fail, it fails differently than in lithium iron phosphate fails.

It blows itself apart, it goes on fire immediately.

The lithium iron phosphate batteries vent flammable gases, and I'm not telling you there is no hazard, there definitely is.

Anytime you have flammable gases inside of a confined space, there's a possibility of an explosion.

Now they have systems designed to contain or prevent that explosion.

They have to have ventilation systems built in so it doesn't get into the flammable range, and many of them will have deflagration panels.

So if there was a limited, and deflagration is just a fancy name for a slow speed explosion, it will release that energy through the roof rather than the doors.

But they do produce flammable gases, and they can ignite.

Okay, and now that these are outside, correct.

So is the toxic gas going to be released at a greater rate than the battery center that was on the inside?

The scale is gonna be far small, smaller, far less because you don't have the amount of batteries in thermal runaway.

Okay, I couldn't find any uh what they call plume modeling to show how far these gases will travel.

You can request that.

If that's what you want, have them do a plume modeling study on that.

Now, at the the distances that I'm seeing from residences and schools and things, I have not seen any plume modeling that would ever come close to those houses or schools.

But is there any quantifiable evidence to say that it would never?

Anybody who tells you never or always is is a fool, right?

But I would request a plume modeling study on a specific equipment because it takes into consideration the environment here, the winds here, and the equipment that they're specing for this site.

Okay, um, thank you.

You're welcome.

Uh that's not conclusive enough for me, and I'm I can't support this application.

Commissioner Williams.

Yeah, I've got a couple more.

Let me say here.

Um, you're you spoke about the other places that had these big fires, and some of the folks over here brought those up.

Yes.

Were those lithium, ion, phosphate batteries at those facilities, or they were lithium ion.

They're all lithium ion.

It's just sub chemistries.

Mm-hmm.

All of those were nickel manganese cobalt batteries, not the lithium iron phosphate batteries at those indoor facilities.

If you would please hold it down.

Okay.

Um, it somebody somebody did you say there was a difference, sir?

I'm sorry.

Oh, the gentleman in the back.

Lithium iron phosphate.

Well, okay.

Well, actually, I did, and it's lithium ion, and that's what the higher phosphate.

Um if we want to address, yeah.

If you want to address a question, we'll have to call them up.

Right.

Um, let me let me ask you this.

Change in subjects.

Why there?

Why do why do you why did why?

I mean, I I understand the property for sale and all that kind of stuff, but what why there?

Why is it important to be right there?

Yeah, this is a really important question that we get asked a lot.

So siting looks at a number of different layers of reality.

So one layer of reality that we're looking at is what's the zoning and what does the zoning ordinance allow for?

So in the city of Chesapeake, there is actually a very strict zoning ordinance that limits um all battery energy storage facilities to either an agricultural or an industrial zone, and they require specific setbacks of 300 feet from the property line.

So that requires a pretty large property of a specific zoning that you have to be able to even start the process to consider siting.

Then there are the factors of, you know, what's the buildable area on site?

What's the topography?

What are the wetlands?

What are the limitations to where we could actually construct within that property?

That limits eliminates another sort of wave of sites in an area.

Then you have to overlay that physical world with the electrical world.

So where on the electrical grid is there existing capacity?

Where could the grid uh make best use and highest use of a project like this?

And so that's by doing interconnection studies with PJM.

Um that's a multi-multi-year process and um really complex.

It's very hard to find a site that is both compatible with the electrical limitations as well as the physical and zoning limitations.

On top of that, you then have to find a landowner that's willing to work with you.

So we don't have the benefit of imminent domain, we are an independent power producer.

All we can do is outreach to landowners and say, hey, are you interested in selling your property?

And if they say yes, then we try and see if we can figure out a business deal.

And one last one, I promise.

Um your company using remote act remote monitoring and so forth.

How many sites do you have currently running that with that you do that with?

So we have two sites in Texas that are fully operational today.

We have four sites in Virginia that are under construction, and we have various stages of that monitoring in place depending on where it is in the construction process.

So two in Texas that are up and running, full speed, and they're monitored from Charlottesville.

I think that the rock for those is actually situated in Texas, but I I would need to fact check that.

I'm not actually sure.

But we do have OM or uh operations and maintenance uh subcontractors who do work on site and have that specific response time that we specified earlier.

Um I'll add that we are open to alternative response times.

That's something that could be applied as a condition of the project or could be integrated into the emergency response plan later on.

Uh that's just the standard again that New York State has set and is among the strictest in the nation in terms of response times.

But to but as you know, don't know as you know right now, you're not 100% sure that you all do the remote monitoring all the way from Charlottesville there.

It's so we have something else.

We have access from Charlottesville, but for facilities of a certain size, there are very specific requirements for what type of entity, what controls are in place, how many redundancies in the communication system there are.

Um there's like a very specific qualification process to become a rock or a remote operating center.

Um we at East Point don't have that at our Charlottesville office.

That's something that we outsource to somebody who specializes in that type of activity.

Okay, fair enough.

Thank you.

Vice Chair Squalia.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

If I could have our fire marshal, please.

Thank you so much for your service tonight.

I know it's been a super super long day for you.

Um, quickly, I'll put a two-part into kind of one.

Um, if you could talk about what your understanding is of sort of the impact radius, if you know there were a big emergency, and with that, what would be the recommendation for nearby schools, for example, if an incident occurred during school hours?

Sure.

So it depends on the size of the fire that you know we encounter.

Um, and everything that we've seen with the plume modeling that I've managed to find on the internet, um, we haven't seen anything that exceeds 300 feet in any of the fires outside of the um the uh the cabinet.

Um we haven't done a plume model for the city of Chesapeake, um, and that's not something that we would do.

Sure.

Um, but from the ones that I've been able to find from other events, uh, nothing outside of 300 feet, and a matter of fact, it was significantly less than a lot of them.

So essentially what a response system for us would look like is we would show up on scene, and we're not going to put the fire out.

Our 100% goal is to stop it from spreading anywhere else.

So we would activate our hazmat team, and if it warranted it, we would step it up to a regional hazmat response, and then we would start air sampling at that 300 feet radius, and then keep increasing it out more and more if we need to.

With that air sampling piece, what about the schools?

So the schools are, if I remember right, they're about 3,500 feet away.

It's somewhere in that ballpark.

Um, so sure, we would, you know, go there as well, because we're gonna start with you know the most uh concentrated areas of people if we need to, but yeah, for specific it would depend on the size of the fire that we're dealing with and the wind conditions, and you know, any the weather patterns that we're dealing with.

Okay, thank you.

I just had a statement.

What is yours?

Any other questions?

Of him.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, Mr.

Chair, this application asks us to place a large industrial utility use in the middle of a community that has spent decades protecting its rural character, investing in its schools, and building neighborhoods where families want to live.

I've heard a great deal tonight about what this project is.

What I haven't heard is why it belongs here.

Hickory should not be expected to absorb every use that no one else wants simply because there's open land available.

The burden is not on the residents of Hickory to prove that this is the wrong location.

The burden is on the applicant to prove it's the right one.

And when I look at the surrounding area, I see homes, I see families, I see schools, I see a community that has been very clear about its vision for itself.

While the applicant has presented extensive information regarding safety measures, I'm not convinced that the remaining risk is appropriate given the proximity to homes, families, and schools.

As planning commissioners, our responsibility is not to simply determine whether a project can be engineered, it's to determine whether it's an appropriate one for a location.

Communities spend decades building an identity and only a few decisions changing it.

I don't believe that this proposal reflects the vision residents have fought hard to preserve for hickory, and I don't believe the applicant has demonstrated why this use belongs here, and I'm not convinced the safety risk is acceptable for this location.

And for those reasons, Mr.

Chair, I'll be building no.

All right.

Do we have any other questions?

Um Mr.

Fink, I do have a just a couple questions for you.

If just with the the just the fire fire training.

So uh I know you said you'refighter out in New York.

And so thank you for your service number one.

You know, we had a lot of incidents.

We had uh 9-11 that occurred, and a lot of our first responders ended up getting illnesses from that response.

Um Virginia Beach, we had a we had a jet that crashed uh that luckily nobody was killed.

Um Virginia Beach firefighters responded, and I think it just recently, not too long ago, we actually had one that passed away from cancer with the fumes and stuff.

So this is kind of new technology, and and somebody made it that you know there are firefighters, and and and they are.

Um so can you talk to me a little bit about how far we have progressed with these units?

What the risk is to the public uh to our firefighters that are going to respond, or even our police officers, because uh, you know, they're they're gonna be there as well.

What is the risk that we know of now?

Um, and then what type of training goes into this?

I know we're gonna have regional, you know, this is probably gonna call for regional hazmat, I would I would probably assume.

Um, but we've got I don't know, well over 400 firefighters.

Um, you know, there's a lot of training, there's a lot of specialty units.

So can you talk a little bit about what we know of potential risk?

And then number two, what type of training do they get?

Sure, potential risk.

I mean, everything the fire department responds to is potential risk.

And you know, we talk about chemicals that come off batteries.

Like there's some unique chemicals.

They're not, they're the same chemicals that come off structural fires.

So I mean, we're we're putting this into like a category.

Okay, these chemicals don't exist and anything else that's burning.

That's not true.

They they are in those things burning, and and the risk inside people's homes are far greater.

The the devices that you have with batteries in your own homes are much more likely to injure or kill you than these batteries in a field for the firefighters.

If they perform their duties as trained, they will not be close enough to these batteries to have any kind of substantial risk.

Now, they any time they respond to any fire, there is a risk.

They respond to electric vehicle fires, they're coming much closer to those vehicles than they ever will to one of these battery containers.

So, from a risk perspective, in my opinion, the fire department is at less risk if they operate correctly at one of these facilities than they are at a structural fire or at an EV fire or just a regular car fire.

And I and I do see that you have train lines that go through this area as well.

You get an overturned or a derailed tanker coming off those trail train tracks.

That's a far greater risk to the community and to the firefighters than the batteries are.

Now, as far as training goes, they need to be trained on the specific site with the specific equipment, and it needs to be done annually.

It's a classroom to get them up to speed on batteries and this equipment, and then it's a site walk to go out and actually see the equipment on the site so they know what they're looking at when they respond to a facility like this.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Chief, I do have one more question that that hopefully you might be able to answer for me.

I was just short of my steps for the day, so I'm making them up now.

I'm usually the last one, so you're good.

Uh, I'll let all the other commissioners get get the get the questions out.

So we talked a little bit about training.

We talked uh, you know, this is you know, we've got one approved uh off Yadkin Road that's hasn't been built yet.

Um I don't think there's any others in the area.

Um so we talked about uh a response, a regional hazmat response.

Is that something that regularly occurs within our fire department?

I know there's a lot of mutual aid, and you know, you can see beach trucks help Chesapeake and vice versa.

Um is that something that regularly happens if if this was to get approved?

And and and actually, I guess because we've already got one that's been approved.

Is that something that the regional training does as well?

Um would that be an issue uh with the regional response?

No, excuse me.

That would not be an issue in the least bit.

Uh they do quarterly drills, and they go around to different localities.

I think I may uh stop me if I'm not answering your question correctly, but they go around to different localities and to different uh facilities to train on the hazards that are present in those areas.

So this would be certainly one that we would bring a regional drill to Chesapeake to review in the event that it's approved.

Okay, thank you.

All right, do we have any other questions?

And do we have any discussion?

And if not, then uh a motion would be in order.

Chairman.

Commissioner Gilman.

I had a lot of the same concerns that the citizens have raised, specifically around the wells, the well water, the chemicals potentially leaking.

I think some of the safety concerns, there's no fire suppression system, there's no on site water storage, the closest hydrant is 2.5 miles away.

There's an SLA of four hours.

These are just concerns that I share with the citizens.

And for that reason, I move to deny public hearing item six PLN USE-206-002, Millstone Energy Center.

And for the following reasons, I'll restate this.

Because all conditional uses are presumed incompatible with the surrounding area.

Surrounding agricultural uses and wildlife that are incompatible with the environment and resilient resilience policies of the adopted comprehensive plan.

Mr.

Chair, I second the motion.

All right.

So we have a motion by Commissioner Gilman, seconded by Vice Chair Squelia.

The motion is to deny.

So if you vote uh green, you are voting to deny this item.

All right.

Commissioners, please prepare to vote.

Please vote.

Mr.

Boswick, please record the vote.

By a vote of seven to one, the motion carries.

All right.

Thank you very much.

At this time, um, Mr.

McMahor, do you have any items to bring up?

No, sir.

Alright, the cancellation of the June 24th, 2026 meeting is now being considered due to there being no business.

Do the commissioners have any objections to counseling the meeting?

Hearing no objections, the June 24th, 2026 meeting is canceled by unanimous consent.

Is there any other unfinished or new business to be brought up for the good of the commission?

If there's no further business to consider, the meeting stands adjourned at 10.02 p.m., I have a lot of time, and then we have to do that with that, and then you can see that we can do that.

How do we do all H Well, okay, well, I'm so Hand.

How do we Hm, s'est And How does this be?

L'autre, c'est.

Oh, c'est.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

L'autre, c'est.

Oh, I'm.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm I'm not.

I'm calling it.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

Oh, I'm not, I'm not.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Oh.

Oh, I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not allowed.

I'm not allowed.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm still I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I'm