Commissioners: 400-acre cap on large-scale solar farms sounds right
Solar advocates say that could amount to a ban, as commissioners weigh in on size limits, larger setbacks from neighbors and more in rewritten zoning codes for solar energy systems.
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Commissioners: 400-acre cap on large-scale solar farms sounds right
With advocates calling for Tippecanoe County to get on board with large solar farms and residents who pushed back on a recent industrial-scale project proposal near their homes in the western part of the county pulling in different directions on a rewrite of zoning codes covering fields of panels, county commissioners suggested Wednesday night that they’d be willing to go with rules that caps acreage for projects, spreads them out farther, offers larger setbacks from neighbors’ property lines and out of tens of thousands of acres labeled “select agricultural.”
County Commissioner Tracy Brown told the Area Plan Commission’s Ordinance Committee – a group assembling recommendations for large-scale solar energy systems for new zoning codes before a one-year moratorium ends in June – that he backed a proposal to limit solar projects to 6,000 total acres in the county.
Brown said he also wanted to see a 400-acre cap on individual solar projects, with each one at least a mile apart.
He also said he backed 500-foot setbacks between project footprints and properties neighboring a solar farm on one side – a move that would go well beyond the current 50 feet. The setbacks suggested by Brown would increase when neighboring properties had panels on two or more sides, as well.
By comparison, the Rainbow Trout Solar Project – one rejected by a single vote in August 2025 by the Area Board of Zoning Appeals – would have covered 1,700 acres stretching from near Division Road to Montmorenci in western Tippecanoe County.
“I know that there’s an old saying that you have to be able to crawl before you walk, walk before you run, and run before you sprint, and sometimes this feels like it’s been a little bit of a sprint,” Brown said, referring to a study of solar regulations that started in September.
“What we have seen in counties around us is a rush to put a big system up, and what you end up with is a lot of unhappy citizens and a lot of unhappy elected officials because they didn’t get it right the first time,” Brown said.
Solar advocates and those in the industry, among nearly 100 people at Wednesday’s hearing, argued that the county was closing in on effectively shutting out large-scale solar projects.
Commissioner David Byers, a farmer in the western part of the county, said he understood that claim.
“I’ll be honest from the get go – I’m against it,” Byers said about a push for solar.
