By Greg Chandler
Zeeland Record
With four new commissioners attending their first meeting Jan. 13, the Zeeland Township Planning Commission held off on any substantive discussion regarding the township’s new solar ordinance until next month.
Meanwhile, the developer of the proposed $300 million Silver Maple solar project provided township officials with an update on their efforts to contact residents about the project.
Township Manager Josh Eggleston told commissioners that he and attorney David Eberle are continuing to work through a revision of the solar ordinance, which the Planning Commission agreed to last month. Because Eberle could not attend the Jan. 13 meeting and because of the new commissioners coming on board, Eggleston left the solar issue off the agenda for the meeting.
Eberle and Eggleston are working together to create what’s called a “workable incompatible ordinance” that is stricter than the current state law regulating renewable energy projects, but not so strict that a developer may bypass the township entirely and seek approval through the Michigan Public Service Commission. The revised ordinance is expected to be presented to commissioners at their next scheduled meeting Feb. 10, Eggleston said.
The new commissioners are Christian Glupker, Claire Kryger, Linda Walker and Scott Beute. Glupker, Kryger and Walker were appointed late last month to fill vacancies that had been created by an expiring term and two resignations. Beute is now the Township Board’s liaison to the Planning Commission, replacing Kerri Bosma, who could not retain her commission seat due to her recent appointment as township supervisor.
RWE Clean Energy, a German-based company with its U.S. headquarters in Texas, has proposed building the 200-megawatt Silver Maple solar project on agricultural-zoned land in the eastern half of Zeeland Township and the western half of Jamestown Township. RWE project manager Joe Brochu sent a two-page letter to township officials detailing the developer’s efforts to contact residents since first proposing the project to the township in August 2025.
RWE identified 190 properties within a quarter-mile of the project boundary and sent introductory letters to them Nov. 10 with notice of their plans. A week later, they began knocking on doors, a process that continued for four weeks. Of the properties the developer identified, 138 of them were in Zeeland Township and 52 were in Jamestown Township, Brochu wrote in his letter.
“Doors were knocked multiple times and at different times of day to increase the likelihood of successful contact,” Brochu wrote.
Contact info and door hangers were also left to provide additional notice of contact attempts by RWE.
“Some in-person meetings to discuss vegetative screening options, setbacks and other accommodations have taken place as a result and will continue through winter of 2026,” Brochu added.
In the letter, Brochu went on to discuss what’s been called “neighbor agreements” with people who would live near the project.
“The purpose of the agreement is to provide long-term compensation that would allow neighbors who are not under lease to also benefit (from the project),” he said during public comment toward the end of the meeting.
The Zeeland Record obtained a copy of such an agreement. It would compensate a landowner up front when they sign the agreement, after construction begins and then annually for the life of the project.
In the case of the agreement that the Record obtained, the landowner wouldreceive a one-time signing bonus of $5,000, another $5,000 within 45 days after construction begins and then an annual payment that starts at $3,000 within 45 days of the solar project going into operation, and increasing by 2 percent each year during the life of the project, according to the agreement document.
In an interview after the meeting, Brochu said the amount that would be paid to landowners under the neighbor agreement would vary, depending on the property’s proximity to the project.
Planning Commission Chairwoman Karen Kreuze raised two major concerns with RWE’s efforts. First, was a provision in the developer’s agreement that if someone signs an agreement for RWE to lease the land, the landowner “agrees to not publicly oppose, testify, petition against, take legal action against the developer, solar project or participant in the solar project.”
Secondly, Kreuze expressed deep concern about a portion of the lease agreement that may affect landowners should they want to sell their property.
“If you sign … it’s a burden upon the owner’s property, and there is a lien placed on that property,” she said. “My concern is if you go to sell, if you’ve got a house and you’re gonna sell it, the person that is going to be purchasing it has to realize that there’s a lien on there, and how to get the lien off. The bank or mortgage company will need to make sure that they are aware of the fact that there’s a lien, and somehow that lien is going to have to get off.”
Township Zoning Administrator Lori Castello said that any liens tied to a lease would most likely show up in a title search.
“Ninety percent of people that are buying property, their closing agency or title agency is going to run a title search. So it would come up then,” Castello said.
Brochu denies that the neighbor agreement is a non-disclosure agreement, “nor it is similar.”
“This is a legally binding agreement offering long-term compensation to neighbors, and in exchange for signing it we ask that before taking any public action against RWE, that they first bring any concerns related to the project to our attention and afford us the good faith opportunity to resolve their concern or complaint,” he wrote.
Silver Maple opponents say the neighbor agreements fail to address core concerns they have about the project.
“The information provided focuses heavily on process - outreach efforts, door knocking, and private agreements - but it does not address the substantive land-use, environmental, or long-term governance questions that remain unanswered.
Procedural compliance is not the same as substantive adequacy,” said Cadence DeVree, a Zeeland city resident who owns property in the township.
“From a regulatory and planning standpoint, the structure of the so-called Good Neighbor agreements raises a transparency concern. While characterized as voluntary and not nondisclosure agreements, they function to redirect operational complaints and impacts away from public processes and into private resolution with the developer. This has the practical effect of limiting what information enters the public record.”
DeVree went on to say that such agreements handcuff the Planning Commission and community because they “are unable to fully evaluate ongoing impacts, compliance issues, or patterns of concern over time. Agreements that remove information from public visibility undermine effective oversight and are not a substitute for enforceable zoning standards and public accountability mechanisms.”
DeVree called on the township to begin work on a separate ordinance regulating data centers, which have become a hot-button issue across the state. More than 60 data centers have been built in the state, with countless more on the drawing board from companies such as Microsoft.
“Data centers are not benign uses,” DeVree said. “They bring enormous and continuous power demand, high water consumption for cooling, noise, heat output, backup generators, and minimal long-term employment. These impacts are fundamentally incompatible with rural farmland zoning.”
Zeeland Record
With four new commissioners attending their first meeting Jan. 13, the Zeeland Township Planning Commission held off on any substantive discussion regarding the township’s new solar ordinance until next month.
Meanwhile, the developer of the proposed $300 million Silver Maple solar project provided township officials with an update on their efforts to contact residents about the project.
Township Manager Josh Eggleston told commissioners that he and attorney David Eberle are continuing to work through a revision of the solar ordinance, which the Planning Commission agreed to last month. Because Eberle could not attend the Jan. 13 meeting and because of the new commissioners coming on board, Eggleston left the solar issue off the agenda for the meeting.
Eberle and Eggleston are working together to create what’s called a “workable incompatible ordinance” that is stricter than the current state law regulating renewable energy projects, but not so strict that a developer may bypass the township entirely and seek approval through the Michigan Public Service Commission. The revised ordinance is expected to be presented to commissioners at their next scheduled meeting Feb. 10, Eggleston said.
The new commissioners are Christian Glupker, Claire Kryger, Linda Walker and Scott Beute. Glupker, Kryger and Walker were appointed late last month to fill vacancies that had been created by an expiring term and two resignations. Beute is now the Township Board’s liaison to the Planning Commission, replacing Kerri Bosma, who could not retain her commission seat due to her recent appointment as township supervisor.
RWE Clean Energy, a German-based company with its U.S. headquarters in Texas, has proposed building the 200-megawatt Silver Maple solar project on agricultural-zoned land in the eastern half of Zeeland Township and the western half of Jamestown Township. RWE project manager Joe Brochu sent a two-page letter to township officials detailing the developer’s efforts to contact residents since first proposing the project to the township in August 2025.
RWE identified 190 properties within a quarter-mile of the project boundary and sent introductory letters to them Nov. 10 with notice of their plans. A week later, they began knocking on doors, a process that continued for four weeks. Of the properties the developer identified, 138 of them were in Zeeland Township and 52 were in Jamestown Township, Brochu wrote in his letter.
“Doors were knocked multiple times and at different times of day to increase the likelihood of successful contact,” Brochu wrote.
Contact info and door hangers were also left to provide additional notice of contact attempts by RWE.
“Some in-person meetings to discuss vegetative screening options, setbacks and other accommodations have taken place as a result and will continue through winter of 2026,” Brochu added.
In the letter, Brochu went on to discuss what’s been called “neighbor agreements” with people who would live near the project.
“The purpose of the agreement is to provide long-term compensation that would allow neighbors who are not under lease to also benefit (from the project),” he said during public comment toward the end of the meeting.
The Zeeland Record obtained a copy of such an agreement. It would compensate a landowner up front when they sign the agreement, after construction begins and then annually for the life of the project.
In the case of the agreement that the Record obtained, the landowner wouldreceive a one-time signing bonus of $5,000, another $5,000 within 45 days after construction begins and then an annual payment that starts at $3,000 within 45 days of the solar project going into operation, and increasing by 2 percent each year during the life of the project, according to the agreement document.
In an interview after the meeting, Brochu said the amount that would be paid to landowners under the neighbor agreement would vary, depending on the property’s proximity to the project.
Planning Commission Chairwoman Karen Kreuze raised two major concerns with RWE’s efforts. First, was a provision in the developer’s agreement that if someone signs an agreement for RWE to lease the land, the landowner “agrees to not publicly oppose, testify, petition against, take legal action against the developer, solar project or participant in the solar project.”
Secondly, Kreuze expressed deep concern about a portion of the lease agreement that may affect landowners should they want to sell their property.
“If you sign … it’s a burden upon the owner’s property, and there is a lien placed on that property,” she said. “My concern is if you go to sell, if you’ve got a house and you’re gonna sell it, the person that is going to be purchasing it has to realize that there’s a lien on there, and how to get the lien off. The bank or mortgage company will need to make sure that they are aware of the fact that there’s a lien, and somehow that lien is going to have to get off.”
Township Zoning Administrator Lori Castello said that any liens tied to a lease would most likely show up in a title search.
“Ninety percent of people that are buying property, their closing agency or title agency is going to run a title search. So it would come up then,” Castello said.
Brochu denies that the neighbor agreement is a non-disclosure agreement, “nor it is similar.”
“This is a legally binding agreement offering long-term compensation to neighbors, and in exchange for signing it we ask that before taking any public action against RWE, that they first bring any concerns related to the project to our attention and afford us the good faith opportunity to resolve their concern or complaint,” he wrote.
Silver Maple opponents say the neighbor agreements fail to address core concerns they have about the project.
“The information provided focuses heavily on process - outreach efforts, door knocking, and private agreements - but it does not address the substantive land-use, environmental, or long-term governance questions that remain unanswered.
Procedural compliance is not the same as substantive adequacy,” said Cadence DeVree, a Zeeland city resident who owns property in the township.
“From a regulatory and planning standpoint, the structure of the so-called Good Neighbor agreements raises a transparency concern. While characterized as voluntary and not nondisclosure agreements, they function to redirect operational complaints and impacts away from public processes and into private resolution with the developer. This has the practical effect of limiting what information enters the public record.”
DeVree went on to say that such agreements handcuff the Planning Commission and community because they “are unable to fully evaluate ongoing impacts, compliance issues, or patterns of concern over time. Agreements that remove information from public visibility undermine effective oversight and are not a substitute for enforceable zoning standards and public accountability mechanisms.”
DeVree called on the township to begin work on a separate ordinance regulating data centers, which have become a hot-button issue across the state. More than 60 data centers have been built in the state, with countless more on the drawing board from companies such as Microsoft.
“Data centers are not benign uses,” DeVree said. “They bring enormous and continuous power demand, high water consumption for cooling, noise, heat output, backup generators, and minimal long-term employment. These impacts are fundamentally incompatible with rural farmland zoning.”
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