Zoning Approach could put the brakes on St. Joseph County Development

What types of businesses or activities would you prefer not to have next to your home? Or, which use do you think has the most negative impact on the value of your home? Industrial Plant? Data Center? Solar field? Fast-food Restaurant? Grocery Store? Adult bookstore? Freight terminal? Landfill, Junkyard, or salvage yard? Mining?

Ask one hundred people, and you might get one hundred different answers.

The St. Joseph County Council last month determined that the one use that you shouldn’t have next to your home is a solar farm, deeming it the most objectionable use of them all by passing new property value guarantee zoning restrictions.

Those restrictions will, in effect, stop any future solar farms from being built in the County. No other land use in St. Joseph County has a similar requirement, including all of those I listed above, for now. In the future, the Council could expand the new ordinance to other uses that citizens find objectionable.

Indiana state law says that communities can’t prohibit the development of solar farms. In response, communities, like St. Joseph County, have sought to prohibit the use, without explicitly stating that it is prohibited. They did this by enacting a new property value guarantee ordinance that is so complicated and cost-prohibitive to navigate that no solar developer would ever again consider St. Joseph County for a project.

The Council had already placed strict requirements on the development of solar farms, with an ordinance passed in 2024, that was then amended shortly thereafter. But apparently, those two actions didn’t go far enough, hence the new requirements that apply to only solar farms, passed in July. The new requirements were put in place despite multiple studies that have found no measurable or consistent difference in property values for homes near solar farms as compared to similar homes farther away.

Under the new ordinance, solar developers would first identify all properties within one mile of any part of the solar field. Two appraisals would be required for each parcel, to be paid for by the solar developer, to develop a baseline property value. This will help ensure that property values near solar farms are maintained and property owners are compensated for any losses.

If a property's value decreases due to the solar farm, the developer will compensate the owner for the difference or potentially buy the property at its pre-solar value. Solar farm developers will be required to provide a surety bond and enter into agreements with all property owners within a one-mile radius.

The cost and time involved in administering all the ordinance requirements imposed on the developer will simply keep developers away from St. Joseph County and the other six counties in Indiana that have passed similar ordinances.  

I’m sure the County Council had good intentions. After all, it is part of their job to do zoning. Zoning exists primarily to organize land uses in a way that promotes public health, safety, and general welfare. When done right, it promotes orderly growth and development, helps separate incompatible land uses, and generally helps protect the character of an area.

But singling out only one specific use, solar farms, goes too far. And it tells me they don’t trust their own ordinance, which already placed strict requirements on this type of development.

I think there is a dangerous precedent being set here, and any future expansion of this ordinance could grind development to a halt at a time when we have some nice momentum, with new jobs, new people, and new capital investment happening in our county for the first time in many years.