Linn County officials are seeking public input on the latest statements from county-appointed committees tasked with revamping the county’s renewable energy regulations.
In October 2022, the Linn County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve an ordinance placing a moratorium on accepting rezoning applications for the Renewable Energy Overlay District, a designation applied to projects involving utility-scale solar applications.
The moratorium, which has since been extended twice in three-month intervals, was imposed to allow staff time to examine and analyze Linn County’s renewable energy ordinance, taking lessons learned from the utility-scale solar rezoning applications for the Coggon Solar and Duane Arnold Solar projects.
The period also allowed Linn County Planning & Development officials to appoint Renewable Energy Review Committees to help look at specific areas of the renewable energy code including, but not limited to, setbacks, vegetation, screening, agrivoltaics, and battery energy storage systems. The committees are composed of residents (selected through an application process) and one staff liaison per committee.
The committees met multiple times over a three-month period to help evaluate current code and provide input on future code changes. After fully exploring each area of the code, the committees prepared final statements to deliver to the Board of Supervisors on the effectiveness of the current code.
Prior to presenting their final statements to the supervisors, the committees are seeking feedback from the public, which will be summarized and presented alongside the committees’ final statements.
Residents are invited to read the final statements, which are available on the Linn County website, and to submit any feedback via the online form. Feedback is requested by May 5.
For more information on the utility-scale solar permitting process in Linn County, visit www.LinnCountyIowa.gov/SolarFarms.
