In November 2024, a new state law was enacted regarding the siting of utility scale wind and solar facilities. The legislature felt obligated to deal with this issue because many townships were passing overly restrictive ordinances that were effectively zoning out wind and solar developments. These overly restrictive ordinances were based on widespread misinformation.
These restrictive ordinances are very destructive to the townships. Townships and counties struggle to provide adequate services to the community. I was once at a township meeting where the board was struggling to balance a merger budget because they needed to find funds to put gravel on a few miles of a deteriorating road. In seemingly the same breath, they wrote an ordinance that would effectively zone out a wind development that would have doubled the township income. The decision was based on misinformation and resulted in the loss of thousands — if not millions…
