The rejection of a plan to build one of Louisiana’s largest solar farms in St. James Parish has drawn lawsuits from the developer and a land company that allege local officials acted in defiance of “objective evidence” and the public will in denying the 2,200-acre complex. 

In two separate suits, the New York-based developer, D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, and the Vacherie-based land company, Ten-R Company Inc., have asked state district judges in St. James to overturn the Parish Council’s decision last month to deny the 360-megawatt solar farm.

The dispute highlights the difficulty in building out large solar farms as energy companies seek to expand renewable power sources. The burning of coal or oil and gas for electricity is an important contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, which cause climate change. 

SJ Louisiana Solar LLC project would have been built in the Vacherie area on sugar cane land along La. 20 and River Road and sold power to Entergy Louisiana. Entergy officials have said they wanted the solar power to meet demand from its industrial customers, but the large facility sparked local and official opposition.

That opposition stemmed from fears about noise and fires as well as worries about aesthetics and the loss of sugar cane land along the Mississippi River. Some also noted the site has industrial development potential and that the solar facility had promised few permanent jobs.

After more than two years of review and revision — including a moratorium to allow the council to develop a solar ordinance — DESRI came back with a scaled-down version of its earlier plans that was designed under the new parish solar ordinance.

Those provisions included sizeable setbacks that cut into the space for solar panels, as well as perimeter fencing and vegetative screens behind roads and homes to block the view of the panels, the suit claims. The company also alleged concerns about noise were mitigated and fears over fires and land contamination were overstated or false.

But, on June 18, in a 4-3 vote after more than two and a half hours of public discussion and council debate, the Parish Council denied the revised plan, which still would have been one of the largest solar farms in the state.

In the two suits brought Wednesday in Convent, SJ Louisiana Solar, which is a subsidiary of DESRI, and Ten-R allege the Parish Council acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it backed the Planning Commission’s recommendation to deny the project.

“The council’s denial of petitioner’s application constitutes an irrational abuse of power,” the DESRI subsidiary’s lawsuit alleges.

Victor J. Franckiewicz Jr., a parish planning attorney, said the lawsuits were not unexpected.

“We’re going to have to look at it in detail. I’m sure the parish will respond,” he said on Friday.

Council members who voted against the solar complex last month said they were responding to the public will, but the DESRI subsidiary argued that, in the council meeting and in an earlier planning commission meeting, public sentiment was decidedly in its favor, including from a host of letters, some unsigned or with illegible names, read out-loud by council officials.

In the suit, the DESRI subsidiary also argued the parish went against the Planning Commission and council’s own reasoning five years ago when they approved a far smaller DESRI solar facility, now built in the parish, without buffer lands because of its “benign nature” and “inconsequential impacts.”

The DESRI subsidiary also noted in its suit that the Louisiana Public Service Commission, in 2021, had found that the earlier version of its proposed complex, which then called for 300-megawatts of electricity, served the public interest and that the solar farm promised $141.3 million in tax revenue over its lifetime.

The company also detailed what it says were its efforts to tailor its plans to address public concerns and its decision to pass on lucrative property tax exemptions. It suggested that the complex would have no air emissions and less impact than currently allowed agricultural and residential uses.

“The council’s decision is not supported by any objective evidence in the record,” SJ Louisiana Solar, the DESRI subsidiary, alleges.

The subsidiary and the landowner, however, were seeking a project on land not designated for solar farms but for agriculture and future homes. The company and landowner, as parish officials have noted, needed an exception to those designated land uses to allow the solar farm.

Franckiewicz, the parish lawyer, has said previously that means the decision remained in the discretion of the Parish Council and was not a use by right.

In the court papers, the DESRI subsidiary pointed out, however, that no parish land use designation allows solar farms and that the council did not follow its solar ordinance consultant’s recommendation to make solar farms permitted activities in industrial and agricultural land uses.

In the DESRI subsidiary’s and the landowner’s suits, they allege some council members who voted on the project had possible conflicts of interest; DESRI also added some on the planning commission had conflicts too.

The suits don’t name the officials nor the source of the alleged conflicts.

The suit brought by SJ Louisiana Solar, the DESRI subsidiary, has been assigned to 23rd Judicial District Judge Keyojuan Gant-Turner. The suit from Ten-R has been assigned to Chief District Judge Jason Verdigets.