Editor's note
Jeff Rea is the president and CEO of the South Bend Regional Chamber
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 100 people, and you might get 100 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 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.
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