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Supervisors pick starting points for a county solar ordinance; set 500‑foot residential setback and 30‑acre/10‑MW utility‑scale threshold
Summary
Kossuth County supervisors agreed on core parameters for a draft solar ordinance: utility‑scale defined as roughly 30 acres or 10 megawatts; a default 500‑foot setback from occupied residences with waiver options; and drainage protection setbacks of 100 feet from district tile and 300 feet from open ditches.
The Kossuth County Board of Supervisors held a workshop on a proposed solar ordinance and reached preliminary consensus on several key elements for drafting.
Definition and scope: The board agreed to treat projects meeting either of two thresholds as "utility‑scale" for ordinance purposes: projects with 30 or more acres of contiguous project area or installations producing about 10 megawatts or more. Projects below those thresholds would follow standard zoning/compliance procedures but not the full utility‑scale review process.
Setbacks and screening: Supervisors agreed on a working residential setback of 500 feet from an occupied residence as the default buffer for utility‑scale projects, with a formal waiver option allowing adjacent landowners and applicants to negotiate alternate arrangements. For drainage protection, supervisors accepted a 100‑foot setback from the centerline of drainage‑district tile and a 300‑foot setback from an open drainage ditch centerline to preserve access for future maintenance and improvements. The board also discussed measurement conventions (occupied residence vs. property line) and asked staff to produce clear definitions for the draft ordinance.
Other design and public‑safety items: The board asked that draft language include decommissioning plans, site‑plan requirements, security fencing and safety signage, a maximum panel/array height in the 15–20 foot range (20 feet cited as a typical upper limit), screening/landscape requirements (board to refine plant size and timeline), and a separate approach to battery energy storage systems (BESS) rather than folding BESS rules solely into the solar section.
Process and next steps: Supervisors asked staff to use Clayton County's ordinance structure as a template for organization, prepare a draft ordinance capturing the agreed items, and route the draft to the county attorney and outside reviewers (attorney/financial consultant as appropriate). They also discussed organizing a field visit to a nearby commercial project to give supervisors a visual reference. The board's preliminary decisions will be forwarded to legal counsel for drafting; no final ordinance was adopted at the meeting.
