Nik Rajkovic / news@whmi.com

Cities and townships across the WHMI listening area continue to pass what are called working ordinances and overlay maps to comply with the Michigan Public Service Commission's new rules on wind and solar.

Wixom became the latest last week.

"I think this is an exercise in attempting to exercise local control over something that ultimately you will not have local control over, the way this is written," City Manager Steven Brown told council.

"If there was ever anything that was possible to be implemented in the city of Wixom, (PA) 233 preempts. And they use the word 'reasonable.' They could interpret that yours is not reasonable, and so on and so forth."

Wixom city leaders ultimately set aside 350 acres for possible wind, solar and battery storage, mainly south of Pontiac Trail.

"Something to consider with these projects is that they can be on non-continuous sites, meaning you can have one on this part of town, or this part of town, and actually they can cross municipal borders," said City Planner Matteo Passalacqua.

"One of the rules though, is that the sites are all connected via transmission lines and have one tie-in back to the grid."

An appeal against the PSC rules involving about 200 municipalities is still pending.

Wixom's city council agendas and packets are linked below.