IBERIA PARISH, LA. (KLFY) — After more than a year of heated debate, public comment, and legal back-and-forth, the Iberia Parish Council has passed a long-awaited solar ordinance but not without making a key amendment. In a move aimed at compromise, the council voted to reduce the originally proposed one-mile setback between solar farms and nearby structures to just half a mile.

“I brought up a substitute motion to at least let’s try to meet halfway,” said Councilman Brian Napier, who introduced the amendment during Tuesday night’s meeting. “The mile is too much; we can lose in court. Let’s go a half mile.”

Napier said the change is meant to protect neighborhoods while still giving landowners the opportunity to lease or develop their property for solar projects.

However, not everyone sees the amendment as a fair middle ground.

Joshua Trosclair, a New Iberia resident and longtime supporter of clean energy, said the ordinance effectively blocks most solar development in the parish.

“The ordinance as it is going to make it pretty much impossible for any solar to come in,” Trosclair said. “So, it might as well be a ban. But at the same time, a lot of [the council] aren’t going to get the credit for it being a ban with the anti-solar side, because you’re not calling it a ban. You’re giving it this incredibly large barrier.”

Trosclair worries that the half-mile rule will discourage investment and hinder job creation especially given the recent arrival of a billion-dollar solar panel manufacturing facility in Iberia Parish.

“I think it’s a big mixed message to then basically say, ‘Okay, well, we’ll make [solar panels], but we don’t really want [solar farms],’” Trosclair added.

Napier acknowledged the concerns but said the ordinance was written with community balance in mind.

“We want to protect our residential people,” Napier said, “but we also want our landowners to be able to do what they can within reason on their own property.”

The ordinance now sits on Parish President Larry Richard’s desk. He has ten days to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.

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