So when the family was approached by the Arizona-based company Sunlight Partners about building a solar farm on part of their property, located on Mt. Sinai Road, they couldn’t pass on the opportunity.
Making money off the land was the Bishops’ plan until last month, when Sunlight Partners officially withdrew its application to build the solar farm.
“(We were) kind of shocked,” Bishop said. “We were told they were in it for the long haul.”
Chris Bishop said his parents never looked at making an income off the land until the company approached them about the solar farm, and he said providing support for his great-aunt — as well as high taxes — made the solar farm seem like a great opportunity.
“The solar thing really got us thinking that was something easy to pull off,” Chris Bishop said.
Orange County planner Michael Harvey said Sunlight Partners emailed the office Aug. 19 to withdraw its application for the solar farm, which was planned to be built off Cascade Drive. He said that because of an Orange County ordinance, no other company is allowed to apply to build a solar farm on that specific piece of land for one year.
The Orange County Board of Commissioners was expected to hold a quarterly public hearing on the proposed 19-acre solar farm on Monday but canceled the meeting due to the withdrawal of Sunlight Partners’ application. Barry Jacobs, chairman of the Board of Commissioners, said the commissioners didn’t learn about Sunlight Partners withdrawing its application until receiving a memo about it during the past week.
At the May 27 Board of Commissioners meeting, the Bishops’ neighbors in the Falls of New Hope subdivision strongly opposed the solar farm being built in their backyards. Ann Oliver, who lives on Cascade Drive, said the company’s reputation, diminishing property values, glare, noise, traffic and electromagnetic fields were among the issues that concerned the group about the solar farm. Oliver said it was not the solar farm in general they were opposed to — just its proximity to the neighborhood.
