Order Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026.

Madam Clerk, please call the role.

Mayor Sarger.

Present.

Thanks, Mayor Greenberg.

Here.

Councilman Haney?

Here.

Councilman Duffy.

Here.

Councilman Melton.

Present.

Councilman Hastings?

Here.

Councilman Judge.

Here.

Thank you, Mayor.

We have quorum.

Thank you.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Here I'll do this in the meantime.

All right, Madam McClerk, please read item number one.

Item one presentation, discussion, and public comment pertaining to a prep hosed zoning text amendment to the surprise land development ordinance to establish a new battery overlay zone related to battery energy storage systems.

FS twenty-three one zero four one.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Just waiting for my presentation to load real quick.

So the purpose for tonight's work session is to provide you with some background and information.

So to give a background on the timeline, we've been working on this for a few years now.

Um our initial outreach meeting was back in January of twenty twenty-five.

Tonight we're here for a work session with City Council.

Overall, the commission was generally supportive of us doing the text amendment, um, created an avenue for the use and the approach that we provided with the the proposed amendments.

Some specific topics of discussion were noise.

There was some feedback that our approach to addressing noise was not clear and defined enough.

Um, our response to that was that it's just mirroring and referencing a different part of existing code.

There was some feedback that our exception for residential and multifamily um projects in relation to like rooftop solar, for example, did not uh was not expanded to commercial purposes.

Um, so our our staff's proposition would be to revise that um exception to include um commercial type uh rooftop solar installations.

There was a discussion on the acceptable distance um from uh residential and the setback requirements.

We had discussion on the economic impact of these facilities and then flexibility and administrative discretion that we're proposing within this text amendment.

Overall, the commission's consensus was to reduce the uh proposed separation from 1,500 feet down to 100 feet, and we'll get into the details of that here in a second, and then clarify the exemption for commercial type best installations.

So, first um, part of our text amendment is to define some terms that we're going to use.

So, battery energy storage systems, also known as BES, uh, is being defined herein, where um it's a facility consisting of all the components that go into a best facility in order to store energy and to release it at a future time.

Um, that last statement where not to include any batteries or systems that are located within single or multifamily residential projects.

That's where we could add that additional clarification that it would also exempt this from like I think the example that was provided was a Walmart has rooftop solar and they want to have batteries associated with that rooftop solar, exempting that from these standards.

And then for battery cabinet, um, this is a term that is used throughout our um proposed text amendment.

So defining what those individual battery cabinets are as well.

So our approach with this is to create a zoning overlay district um to accommodate uh best facilities.

So first um giving an overview of what is an overlay zoning district.

This is a special zoning district that can be combined with one of our existing zoning districts, essentially layered on top of it to modify certain regulations that come with um standard zoning applications.

Um combined with uh existing zoning districts, these can these types of overlay districts can provide flexibility.

They can create specific standards or additional standards, increase protections that could be area specific, um, all while not um affecting the existing underlying zoning designation.

Uh the process for applying uh an overlay zoning district to an existing property is the same as the standard rezon process.

It'll have neighborhood outreach and notification, go through public hearings, and it's ultimately uh at the council's discretion.

So our approach for this and why uh is essentially to create that overlay zoning district specifically for best.

Um, we're calling it a battery overlay district.

It would provide the path for development of these facilities and create that use allowance.

It would ensure that um there's public outreach involved and council discretion.

That is something that we wanted to maintain throughout this process, regardless of the approach, was that uh it would ultimately go to the city council for final approval.

The the overlay would be permitted in all character areas of the general plan because it is that overlay district, it wouldn't create an issue with the underlying zoning district having any conformance issues with the general plan land use designation.

It wouldn't affect any of those existing zoning districts or other sections of our code and makes it very clear and straightforward for us to do a text amendment.