Committee Wants Wind and Solar Leases Recorded Under Draft County Ordinances

Montgomery County Board Development & Personnel Committee Meeting | July 6, 2026

Article Summary: The Montgomery County Board Development & Personnel Committee on Monday, July 6, 2026, reviewed proposed new wind and solar ordinances drafted by contracted attorney Andrew Keyt and asked for three additions: language requiring leases to be recorded, requiring drainage district agreements, and requiring setbacks recommended by manufacturers’ operating manuals.

Wind & Solar Ordinance Key Points:

• The proposed ordinances are consistent with state and federal statutes, would add building permit requirements, and would require applicants to supply more information up front, according to the minutes.
• They also appear to give the County Board more decision-making criteria during the public hearing process.
• The committee requested three additions: recorded leases, drainage district agreements, and operating manual recommended setbacks.
• No motion was made and no vote was taken; any ordinance would require adoption by the full County Board.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — The first look at Montgomery County’s rewritten wind and solar rules came before the County Board Development & Personnel Committee on Monday, July 6, 2026, and the committee came back with three things it wants added.

The committee reviewed proposed new wind and solar ordinances suggested by Attorney Andrew Keyt under contract, according to the minutes. The proposed ordinances are consistent with state and federal statutes, would add building permit requirements, require applicants to supply more information up front, and appear to give the County Board more decision-making criteria during the public hearing process.

That last clause is the record’s own hedge. The minutes say the drafts appear to expand what the board may weigh at a public hearing — a characterization, not a conclusion, and one the record attributes to no one in particular.

The committee requested adding language requiring leases to be recorded, requiring drainage district agreements, and requiring operating manual recommended setbacks.

Each of the three points at something concrete. Recording a lease means filing it with the county recorder, where anyone may look it up; an unrecorded lease is a private contract that the public cannot see. Drainage district agreements generally govern how a project developer must deal with the tile and ditch systems that keep farm ground farmable — and Montgomery County has at least three drainage districts appearing in its recent record. Setbacks recommended in a manufacturer’s operating manual are the distances the equipment maker itself specifies; requiring them in ordinance would make the manufacturer’s own guidance enforceable by the county.

The minutes record none of the discussion behind the three requests — who raised them, whether anyone objected, or what the drafts currently say about any of the three subjects. They also do not state whether the requests are connected to anything else the committee took up on July 6, and this newspaper will not supply a link the record does not.

The Attorney Behind the Drafts

Keyt is a partner in the Peoria office of Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, P.C., the firm the full County Board engaged on June 9, 2026, to advise on renewable energy projects. The engagement letter set the firm’s scope as representation on renewable energy projects including establishing policies and procedures, as assigned by the State’s Attorney, and priced partners and of-counsel time at $400 an hour with no retainer.

At the time of that engagement, Keyt had already furnished draft model solar and wind ordinances based on the most recent legislation. The July 6 minutes do not say whether the drafts before the committee are those models, revisions of them, or something new. Keyt did not attend; the minutes list him nowhere on the attendance line.

No motion was made and no vote was taken. The item was titled “Update/Approval.”

The committee cannot enact an ordinance. Whatever emerges from this drafting process would have to go to the full County Board, and county zoning ordinances of this kind ordinarily run through a public hearing process before they get there. Until the full board adopts them, no permit requirement changes, no setback binds, and no applicant owes the county anything more than it owes today.