Three companies in the state have come together to develop, construct and own solar assets located in what are known as Indiana Opportunity Zones and Starke County is being looked at to be included in a solar farm project.
Starke County Economic Development Foundation Executive Director Larry Wickert told the commissioners Monday night that 71 square miles of land north of Knox has been identified as Indiana Opportunity Zones to arrange solar farms.
Wickert explained, “What an Opportunity Zone does is they allow people to put money into projects and then they get tax credits off of the capital gains. It brings money into those areas. Opportunity Zones are areas that were judged as poor areas. We have one in Starke County that goes from roughly the Yellow River up to U.S. 30 and then from the Kankakee over to the Marshall County line. That’s a lot of room to put solar farms in.”
Wickert noted that when he heard about this development, he submitted three different Opportunity Zones in Starke County for consideration and only one was selected.
He said with the solar farms the developer gets a benefit from a capital gains tax relief there is not a tax abatement.
Overall, the project would be a benefit to Starke County in personal property taxes.
“When they put these panels in that’s huge investment in personal property tax, and that’s the new tax. They have a large amount that comes in the first few years and then it depreciates. Then there’s a floor and it would be taxed on that the rest of the way.”
Wickert said his department has been in conversation with this consortium that is made up of ESN, Advantage Capital and Inovateus Solar and officials are already working with land owners for the development.
“The project is ready to go forward as long as they can go ahead and get the landowners signed up. They’ve been talking to landowners and I think they’ve got enough land signed that they can go forward.”
According to the timeline, construction wouldn’t begin until the fall of 2021, as long as everything moves forward with planning.
Wickert presented the information to the commissioners with no action required.
