Will County Planning and Zoning Commission Recommends Denial of 6,099-Acre Earthrise Solar Project After Court-Ordered Hearing

Will County Board Special Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting | May 12, 2026

Article Summary: Following a court-mandated cross-examination hearing, the Will County Planning and Zoning Commission voted 1-4 to recommend denial of a special use permit for the massive Lincoln Solar Energy project spanning three townships.

Earthrise Solar Project Key Points:

• The PZC voted 1-4 against the special use permit for the 600 MW solar facility (Ordinance #26-109 / Case ZC-25-129) proposed by Earthrise Energy.

• The special meeting was mandated by a court order (26CH79) from Judge Breslin to allow plaintiffs to cross-examine developers due to alleged due process violations.

• Plaintiffs argued the application was incomplete, citing missing field data for “farmed wetlands” and public safety risks.

• The $1.2 billion project footprint encompasses roughly 6,099 acres across Manhattan, Green Garden, and Wilton townships.

The Will County Board Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, voted 1-4 to recommend denial of a special use permit for a sprawling 6,099-acre commercial solar facility, following a contentious, court-ordered cross-examination hearing.

Earthrise Energy, operating under Lincoln Solar Energy, LLC, applied for a special use permit to build a 600-megawatt solar facility across 96 parcels in Manhattan, Green Garden, and Wilton townships. The facility would connect to the grid via the existing Lincoln natural gas peaking plant. While the PZC had previously voted to recommend denial in March, Tuesday’s special meeting was mandated by a temporary restraining order from Judge Breslin. The court order allowed plaintiffs to cross-examine the developers, a process the plaintiffs’ attorney claimed the county had illegally bypassed for years.

“The reason you haven’t heard this before is for some reason in this county there’s not been any cross-examination for years during a special use application,” Plaintiff Attorney Steven Becker told the commission. “That’s what we won in front of Judge Breslin… this is a new procedure that was apparently being bypassed by Will County unbeknownst to me.”

During the cross-examination, Becker grilled Earthrise Lead Developer Robert Kalbouss over the company’s environmental reviews, specifically focusing on the delineation of wetlands and the potential for heavy metal leaching into the groundwater. Becker argued that the application was incomplete because Earthrise relied primarily on a National Wetland Inventory (NWI) data set from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rather than waiting for fields to lie fallow to properly field-delineate “farmed wetlands.”

“If a field is being tilled, you cannot determine hydrophytic vegetation. You have to wait until it is fallow,” Becker argued. “This application is woefully incomplete.”

Earthrise attorney Ben Jacobi fiercely defended the application, noting that the company updated its site plan on March 5, 2026, and submitted a supplemental memorandum on May 8 detailing complete field delineations. Jacobi stated that the project was designed to completely avoid all permanent impacts to wetlands.

“They’re going to avoid them all. They’re going to assume the jurisdiction of the wetland, and they’re going to avoid them all,” Jacobi said. “And so, that’s really important that that eliminates the wetland as an issue entirely.”

The developer also faced questions about why outreach meetings were not held in Green Garden or Wilton townships. Kalbouss confirmed that public information meetings were only hosted in Manhattan Township, citing “the hostility that we observed online from the township” as the reason for not holding open forums in the other jurisdictions.

Prior to the final vote on the special use permit, the PZC voted unanimously to amend conditions 3, 5, and 6 of the permit to match language recently approved by the Will County Board for the Plum Valley Solar project.

However, when the amended special use permit was called to a vote, it failed in a 1-4 split. Commissioner Lewis Navarat voted yes, while Vice Chairman John Kiefner, Commissioner Matt Garland, Commissioner Karen Warrick, and Chairman Hugh Stipan voted no.

The 192 variances associated with the project—allowing for 36-inch ground cover plant heights and a reduction in mandatory mowings—were previously approved during a March 31 meeting and were not subject to Tuesday’s vote. The PZC’s denial recommendation will now move forward to the Will County Board for final consideration.