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County adjusts permit fees for larger private solar installations to cover staff time
Summary
Muscatine County amended its building-zoning fee schedule to charge $200 up to the first half-megawatt for private solar installations and $250 for each additional half-megawatt, aligning non-utility private arrays with the county utility-scale rate of $500 per megawatt and aiming to recover plan-review and inspection costs.
The Muscatine County Board on April 21 approved an amendment to the Building, Zoning and Environmental Office fee schedule to increase application fees for larger private or small-scale solar installations.
Eric Furness, Community Development Director, said the county's prior flat $200 fee for residential and small commercial solar did not cover staff time when larger private projects (not tied to grid interconnection) approached or exceeded one megawatt. "We had $200 flat fee for residential solar... this 1 was just over 1 megawatt, and we were only able to collect the $200 fee," Furness said, describing a recent application from Wendland Quarry.
The approved change keeps $200 for projects up to the first half-megawatt, then charges $250 for every additional half-megawatt (consistent with the county's utility-scale $500 per-megawatt rate). Furness said the fee is intended to cover plan review and inspection time for larger arrays; typical residential and genuinely agricultural arrays are mostly unaffected.
The board approved the schedule change by motion and voice vote; supervisors framed the change as a way to align permit costs with staff workload and to avoid subsidizing larger private commercial projects with property-tax dollars.
