Oshtemo Township’s Planning Commission began a detailed, line-by-line review of its draft Energy Systems Ordinance, covering solar, wind, and battery storage.
The 38-page working draft, the first comprehensive attempt to regulate all three technologies in one section of the township’s zoning code, was written in response to Michigan’s Public Act 233, which shifted state-level review authority over large renewable energy projects. Planning Director Jodi Stefforia told the commission this is only the first of what could be several meetings needed to work through the full text, and that staff used AI tools to help identify potential gaps in the draft before researching and verifying those suggestions for accuracy. Thursday’s session ran the review roughly halfway through the document before opening the floor to public comment.
What’s in the draft so far
For large-scale battery storage systems, the current draft sets minimum setback distances of 2,000 feet from “sensitive land uses” like schools and daycare facilities, 400 feet from occupied community buildings on non-participating properties, and 300 feet from public roads and neighboring, non-participating property lines. Specialty crop farms would get a 1,000-foot buffer. Sound is capped at 30 decibels at the property line, measured using an industry-standard scale.
The draft also requires extensive fire and safety infrastructure: automatic fire suppression systems, early-warning gas detection capable of identifying signs of battery failure before smoke or flame appears, 24/7 remote monitoring by a staffed operations center, and site-specific emergency response plans developed directly with the Oshtemo Fire Department and reviewed at least every three years. Developers would need to fund or conduct emergency response training drills with local responders before a facility begins operating.
On the environmental side, the draft would require groundwater and soil testing before construction, ongoing annual groundwater monitoring for contaminants including PFAS and lithium, and a hydrogeological study modeling how groundwater could move from the site over a 20-year period. Decommissioning plans would require financial assurance, held for the township’s benefit and updated every three years, to cover removing the system and restoring the site if a company abandons a project or goes bankrupt.
Developers would also be required to sign a Community Host Agreement paying the township $5,000 per megawatt of installed capacity before a facility could begin commercial operation.
Commissioners spent time during the meeting discussing how technical experts get selected to review individual project applications. Under the draft, developers would fund an escrow account to cover the cost of township-hired consultants, such as environmental engineers or hydrogeologists, with the planning director recommending experts and the commission deciding who to formally engage.
What residents are asking for
Three sessions of public comment stretched across the meeting, with residents raising both specific technical requests and broader process concerns.
A resident who said he lives directly adjacent to a proposed battery storage site laid out six specific changes he wants in the final ordinance: a decibel penalty for continuous mechanical tones on top of the general sound limit; mandatory impermeable containment basins and on-site emergency water storage for areas without municipal hydrants, given that firefighting runoff from a battery fire could carry hazardous chemicals into groundwater; increasing the non-participating residential setback from 300 feet to at least 1,000 feet; a defined two-mile radius for automated emergency notifications; restricting large battery projects to the township’s existing heavy-industrial zoning districts rather than agricultural or rural residential land; and tying host agreement payments directly to a project’s annual revenue rather than a flat per-megawatt rate.
Another resident told the commission he’d been in contact with an outside compliance engineer who has experience with a major battery storage fire in California and has reviewed Oshtemo’s draft. He relayed several of the engineer’s recommendations, including writing separate ordinance sections for battery storage, solar, and wind rather than combining requirements for all three technologies into one, arguing that bundling them risks diluting protections specific to each.
A third resident urged the commission to require formal documentation of tribal government consultation as its own application exhibit, similar to requirements at the state level, rather than treating it as a minor line item, and argued that county officials with existing expertise, such as the county Drain Commissioner and environmental health staff, should have formal review authority built into the ordinance rather than being replaced by township-level review.
Commissioners thanked the public for the volume and detail of feedback and said input from this meeting and prior sessions has already shaped changes to the draft, with more expected as the review continues.
