Questions about handing the former Haley Pike Landfill to a private solar developer have been simmering for months.
"This came up back in the fall, and in November council members expressed some concerns around transparency as this was the sole respondent to a city RFP (request for proposal) for the Haley Pike Landfill," CivicLex's Richard Young explained Monday.
That sole respondent was Edelen Renewables, which would be charged $85 per acre under the proposed deal — substantially less than the $550 to $850 estimate first floated in a 2024 study, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.
We have a very difficult project to build on here. This is a dump. It is a landfill.Adam Edelen, Edelen Renewables
Richard Dugas with the city's environmental quality and public works department, said the lower per acre charges were the result of a more in-depth study by Edelen Renewables.
"Now that Edelen Renewables has actually looked at the actual land and said this is what it's going to cost them, and they financially modeled that out, the projected revenue is a lot less than our desktop study came out," he said.
Company head Adam Edelen pointed to unique constraints on the project.
"We have a very difficult project to build on here. This is a dump. It is a landfill. It has legacy environmental liabilities that we have to make sure are protected," he told the council.
But concerns persisted about the value of the land on council, prompting city leaders to press pause on the lease, putting the future of the large solar panel installation in limbo for now.