Adams County board nearing completion on updated wind, solar regulations | News

(Corning) — Adams County officials are narrowing in on updated regulations regarding commercial wind and solar projects in the county.

During its regular meeting Monday morning, the Adams County Board of Supervisors continued discussing updates to the county’s wind ordinance and a new solar ordinance. After beginning the process last year, the county zoning commission made its recommendations to the supervisors back in May. After the discussions this week, Supervisors Chair Scott Akin tells KMA News the board hopes to finalize the wind turbine regulations next week.

“Hopefully this coming Monday we will have this set in stone and be able to move on with our lives,” said Akin. “This was a pretty contentious issue and we appreciated all the participation we had in it. But, we felt this was a fair ordinance to those that don’t want it and those that do. So, that’s kind of where we’re at .”

Akin says some of the changes include a turbine cap in the county of 225 turbines, with 121 already in the country, requiring aircraft detection lighting systems on all new projects, limiting shadow flicker on non-participating properties to 30 hours a year, and setting a maximum sound level of 55 decibels. He adds that they also plan to increase setbacks from non-participant dwellings and property lines.

“Setbacks for non-participating (landowners), I believe it was 1,200 feet and we’ve increased it to 1,800 feet from an inhabited structure,” Akin explained. “Also on setbacks, they’re going to be I believe about 1.5 (times the turbine’s height) from the property line.”

Akin says they looked into updating the ordinance as more turbines entered the county. He says three projects had used what they felt was a more “feeble” regulation.

“As you get more turbines in, it gets to be a little more of a delicate issue,” he said. “So, we felt like we wanted to give the non-participating people a little respite and move things back for them.”

Multiple public meetings were held on the topic, with Akin adding they had also worked among themselves while also consulting the state and some energy companies, such as Alliant Energy. Meanwhile, Akin says more work remains on the solar ordinance. He noted one item discussed was a 400-acre cap on the area of ​​commercial solar projects in the county.

“It seems like we’re losing revenue of what we could gain off of ag land value–it’s close but it’s still a loss for us,” Akin said. “So, we’re trying to figure out what can be done to equalize that.”

Akin says they hope to wrap up a solar ordinance in the next few weeks. In other business Monday, the board also received a public measure petition with the necessary signatures to reduce the board of supervisors from five to three members. Akin says the auditor’s office will review the petition to verify the signatures before it is placed on the general election ballot.