Lee County Board set to vote on proposed solar farm around Whitney House

The Lee County Board is expected to vote Thursday on a proposed solar farm surrounding the historic Col. Nathan Whitney House.

Board members originally were set to vote during their June meeting, but tabled the vote until this month.

Amboy IL Solar 1 LLC, a part of Distributed Solar Development LLC owned by BlackRock, is looking to develop a six-megawatt solar farm on about 30 acres of land behind and to one or both sides of the Whitney House.

“I can’t live with that,” Whitney House owner George Breust said of the proposal. “I just can’t live with that. What am I going to do?”

Located at 1620 Whitney Road, Franklin Grove, the Whitney House has been part of the National Register of Historic Places since 1990. It was built in 1860 for Col. Nathan Whitney, a veteran of the War of 1812, who settled in the area in 1836 and founded the Franklin Grove Nursery and Orchards.

Breust and his wife, Irene, have lived in the house for 20 years and “it’s been Heaven for us.” But if the solar project goes forward, Breust said he can’t imagine them staying.

In May, the Lee County Zoning Board of Appeals did not give any formal recommendation for the project following a tie vote. Lee County ZBA members Bruce Forster and Craig Buhrow voted in favor, while Ali Huss and Mike Pratt voted against.

The project would be surrounded by a seven-foot fence, and the company would create visual buffers with small trees or bushes outside of the fence, as required by the Lee County solar ordinance.

“How do you measure the historical significance of a property?” said local historian Mark Wagner, who is part of Farming Heritage, a Franklin Grove organization that promotes local history and tourism.

In a statement to Lee County Board members read during June committee meetings, the company said the historical nature of the house would not be negatively affected and that its place on the national registry is for the house and 10 feet around it, not the entire property.

“The area of significance is architecture; however, the surrounding property does not convey any historic significance,” according to the statement, which added that the orchard and farm are no longer present.

The company has a lease agreement with landowner David Lyons, and the project footprint is sloped with terraces, as previously reported.

The company conducted a phase 1 archaeological and cultural resource survey and found that the development would not have a negative impact on surrounding structures, including the Whitney House, which would be about 425 to 430 feet away from the solar panels, said Nicholas Yuknis, an environmental scientist from TRC who testified on behalf of the solar company, during the committee meetings.

“The analysis determined that the Colonel Whitney house will not be destroyed, altered, removed or neglected as a result of the construction of this project,” according to the statement. “The undertaking will not change the character of the house’s use or physical features within its setting that contributes to its hist oric significance.”

But an archaeological survey doesn’t take into consideration the change in ambiance that a solar farm would cause for the Whitney House and Whitney Road as a whole, Wagner said. Whitney Road itself is a historical corridor, and people come down U.S. Route 30 to see the house, the Lincoln Highway, Lincoln Building and more, he said.

The Lee County Board meets at 6 p.m. July 20, in the Old Lee County Courthouse’s third-floor boardroom. The address is 112 E. 2nd St., Dixon.

The meeting also will be available via Zoom, which people can watch on the phone app or a computer, or by dialing in using the number 1-312-626-6799 Chicago. For those watching on a phone or computer, the meeting ID is 934 1205 0386, and the passcode is 080278.