Owosso Township sets battery storage hearing for Oct. 28

Owosso Charter Township is writing rules for grid battery installations, and residents get their say next Wednesday. The planning commission's Oct. 28 agenda lists a public hearing on a Battery Storage Text Amendment, an ordinance that would set "definitions, standards, regulations, requirements, and conditions for Battery Energy Storage Systems."

Battery energy storage systems are banks of large batteries that hold electricity and release it back to the grid, and they are increasingly proposed alongside solar and wind projects. The agenda does not say whether any such system has been proposed in the township, and the proposed ordinance text was not attached to the posted agenda.

Also new that night: the commission is scheduled to review sample data center ordinances. That is the second local government in the county to take up the subject this month. The Current reported that Chesaning's council took up a data center ban at its meeting earlier in October.

The backyard chicken fight comes back too, under old business, as "Farm Animals Text Amendment – Review Sample Ordinances." The Current reported in September that an anonymous complaint triggered code enforcement against flocks on Bock Street, and that the commission asked its planner on Sept. 23 to draft conditional use permit language that might let some chickens stay. We also reported that the draft farm-animal language the township had been working from — six hens on a half acre — applied only to the A-1 and A-2 agricultural districts, not the residential lots where the enforcement is happening. Reviewing sample ordinances is the next step in that work; the agenda does not indicate a vote.

The commission will also discuss "Master Plan – Open House Thoughts," a debrief on the master plan update the township has been working through, and hear the zoning and planning administrator's report. A call to the public for items not on the agenda comes early, before old business.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. The agenda does not list a meeting address. The commission's minutes from Sept. 23 are up for approval.

What happens next: The public hearing is Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. After that, the agenda lists the next regular meeting as Dec. 9 — meaning the commission has no November meeting scheduled, and anything not finished Wednesday waits six weeks. The Current will be asking the township for the text of the proposed battery storage ordinance and for whether any battery project has been filed here.