As solar booms in Michigan, townships tackle land use questions

With the declining costs of solar energy and Michigan’s increased renewable portfolio standard, small townships throughout the state are confronting challenging land-use questions amid the increase in large-scale solar proposals. Reactions have varied from blocking utility-scale solar projects until local zoning rules are adopted to accommodating developers as they amass land for projects that require hundreds of acres.But in most of these cases, there were no local regulations permitting large-scale solar projects when developers came. Local planners are now revisiting their zoning rules and figuring out where large-scale solar projects could be located. It is similar to the way communities first responded to wind development here roughly 10 years ago, though solar brings a unique set of land-use questions.