The Gloucester Planning Commission unanimously voted last Thursday night to recommend that a proposed electric energy storage facility is consistent with the county’s Comprehensive Plan. They also unanimously recommended that the case not need to go to public hearing.

The proposed electric storage facility would be approximately one acre in size and would be adjacent to Dominion Energy’s existing substation in the Gloucester Business Park, off Route 17 south of Gloucester Court House. The current zoning is I-1, Light Industrial. Dominion would own the facility but it would be built by Strata Solar.

During last week’s meeting in the T.C. Walker Education Center (the commission’s first in-person meeting since the pandemic), planners also had a lengthy debate regarding the holding period for the family transfer ordinance. The planning commission had previously agreed that there should be a two-year holding period after the transfer is done for the grantee and none for the parent pa...