Local installer urges council to lift ground-mounted solar moratorium, suggests community-solar sites

Ryan Cough, founder of Iowa Solar and a Davenport resident, urged the council during public comment on Sept. 24 to allow the city’s moratorium on ground-mounted solar installations to expire even if zoning language is not yet finalized.

Cough said the moratorium had followed a locally noncompliant installation that violated setback and view-triangle rules and stressed that properly installed ground-mounted systems can be low-profile and screened from view. "Solar power is cheap and contains no hazardous materials," he said, and argued the city should not make ground-mounted systems infeasible in zoning language.

Cough also proposed a community-solar model on city-owned parcels he identified near a floodplain (he cited a parcel near the East 32nd Street area as an example on the record). He told the council that federal tax credits for solar installations expire at the end of the year and warned that delays in permitting could reduce homeowners’ ability to access those incentives.

The comment drew no recorded council action at the meeting; the council did not amend the moratorium or the zoning ordinance during the session. The transcript shows the presenter asked the council to consider low-to-the-ground community solar and noted specific property parcels the city holds that he believed would be suitable for ground-mounted solar arrays.

No staff response or follow-up direction appears in the meeting record; any policy change would require formal agenda placement and council action in a future meeting.