The Linn County Board of Supervisors has set meeting dates and times for three separate readings of proposed ordinance changes for utility-scale solar projects.
The readings of the proposed ordinance changes are scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 5, Wednesday, Sept. 13, and Wednesday, Sept. 20.
All meetings will take place at 10 a.m. at the Jean Oxley Linn County Public Service Center, 935 Second St. SW in Cedar Rapids.
Each meeting will have an opportunity for public comment at the beginning and end of the meeting. The Sept. 5 meeting will also include a public hearing, which allows the public to provide comments during the agenda item.
Comments will be time-limited, which is standard for all public comment periods.
The board of supervisors will consider the updated draft utility-scale ordinance during the meetings.
In October 2022, the board placed a moratorium on accepting utility-scale solar applications to allow time for Planning & Development staff to create Renewable Energy Committees to examine and analyze Linn County’s renewable energy standards, taking lessons learned from utility-scale solar rezoning applications for the Coggon Solar and Duane Arnold Solar projects.
The Renewable Energy Review Committees are four special-purpose advisory committees formed with the specific goal of exploring parts of Linn County’s renewable energy overlay zoning district requirements for utility-scale renewable energy projects.
The four committees focused on: Good Neighbor Practices (setbacks and screening), Battery Energy Storage Systems (placement and safety considerations), Balancing Agriculture and Solar (vegetation requirements, agrivoltaic considerations) and Lifecycle Costs (decommissioning plan requirements and considerations, operation and maintenance plan requirements and considerations).
Linn County Planning & Development staff used statements from the Renewable Energy Review Committees, the board of supervisors, and the public to draft the proposed ordinance changes.
A draft of the proposed ordinance changes is available on Linn County’s GIS website.
In addition to the proposed ordinance changes, staff also created a utility-scale solar scorecard to assist in the evaluation of utility-scale solar project applications. A draft of the solar scorecard is also available on the Linn County GIS website.
At a special meeting Aug. 13, the Linn County Planning & Zoning Commission voted to accept the proposed ordinance changes for utility-scale solar projects in Linn County and recommended the updated ordinance for approval by the full board of supervisors. The board has the final decision on a utility-scale solar ordinance in Linn County.
The current solar moratorium is set to expire Sept. 30.
