Litchfield Adopts Wind, Solar Zoning Rules With 5,000-Foot Setbacks

Litchfield City Council | October 15, 2026

Article Summary: The Litchfield City Council approved three zoning ordinances Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, that for the first time write wind energy systems and solar farms into the city’s municipal code as special uses — imposing setbacks of up to two miles, a $250,000 application fee for wind projects and a 200-foot height limit, and extending the rules 1.5 miles beyond the corporate limits.

Wind and Solar Zoning Key Points:

• New Section 150.300 makes wind energy systems a special use permitted only in the A-1 Agricultural District; new Section 150.400 makes solar energy farms a special use permitted only in the Industrial District.
• Wind towers must sit at least 5,000 feet from participating primary structures and at least two miles from the exterior wall of any primary structure on non-participating land, two miles from school property lines, and two miles from public conservation land and river bluffs.
• Each wind application carries a $250,000 non-refundable fee, and owners must carry $10 million per occurrence and $20 million aggregate liability coverage naming the city as additional insured.
• Two residents from the Raymond area urged passage, describing an active wind development in the northern part of Montgomery County.

LITCHFIELD — The Litchfield City Council on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, adopted three ordinances writing industrial-scale wind and solar energy into the city’s zoning code for the first time, adding Section 150.300 for wind energy systems, Section 150.400 for solar energy farms, and amending the Chapter 150 Appendix B schedule of uses to list each as a special use in a single district.

All three motions were made by Alderperson Sara Zumwalt, who carries the Building & Zoning portfolio on the council’s agenda, and all three carried by roll call. The staff memo in the council packet states the city’s code “does not currently address solar farms or wind energy conservation systems” and recommends addressing both “in order to identify them as special uses and adopt regulations for the uses.” The packet records the recommendation as coming from the Combined Planning & Zoning Board.

What the Ordinances Require

The wind ordinance is the longer of the two. It applies within the city and “the one-and-one-half mile area surrounding the City,” the zoning jurisdiction the Illinois Municipal Code grants non-home-rule municipalities beyond their corporate limits. It prohibits any wind energy system or substation anywhere in the city unless prior approval has been obtained for each individual unit, and permits them in no zoning district except Agricultural, and there only as a special use.

The setback schedule is the heart of it. Towers must be set back at least 5,000 feet from any primary structure on a participating parcel, measured from the foundation of the structure to the center of the tower foundation, and at least two miles from the exterior wall of any primary structure on non-participating land. Additional requirements include two miles from school property lines; 5,000 feet from public roads, third-party transmission lines and communication towers; 5,000 feet from adjacent participating property lines and two miles from non-participating property lines; and two miles from the property line of any public conservation lands and from any river bluff on public or private property. A participating landowner may seek a waiver by variance, but in no case may a turbine be closer than 1.3 times the tower height to a primary structure or property line.

Total height, including blade or any meteorological tower used with the system, may not exceed 200 feet. Minimum lot size is 40 acres for a single system and 1,000 acres for a project. Blade tips must clear the ground by at least 30 feet. Towers must be off-white, light gray or another neutral color, carry no advertising, and use monopole construction with internal ladders and locked access doors, unclimbable from the ground to 15 feet.

Applications must be filed in 25 copies and must include a noise model predicting sound pressure at the property line of receiving properties and showing no more than 5 dBA over background, a nighttime baseline sound study at all non-participating properties within two miles, a shadow flicker study certifying no more than five hours per year on non-participating property or public roadways, an avian, bat and wildlife impact analysis, an environmental impact study, a decommissioning plan, a drainage plan, a road use plan with a pre-construction baseline road survey, and a property value protection plan requiring appraisals of non-participating property within three miles and a fund sufficient to purchase properties for which a loss is predicted. A system out of service for 60 days is deemed non-operational and must be removed within 90 days.

The solar ordinance is shorter and applies to solar energy farm installations as a special use in districts zoned industrial. It sets a minimum 75-foot setback from all property lines and 150 feet from public parks, public conservation lands and the high water mark of navigable waterways; a 20-foot height limit at maximum tilt; a minimum parcel size of 10 acres; perimeter fencing of at least eight feet in galvanized steel chain link or vinyl privacy; and a transitional buffer yard inside the 75-foot setback achieving a 100 percent screen with evergreen trees reaching at least eight feet within two years, staggered on eight-foot centers. Liability coverage is set at $3 million per occurrence and $5 million aggregate. A farm out of service 90 days must be decommissioned, with collectors, foundations and wiring removed within nine months and the site reclaimed to four feet below the surface.

Two Courts, Opposite Answers

An official briefing the council from the floor described the ordinances as a response to unsettled state law. Two appellate cases on solar siting, the speaker said, were decided in opposite directions in the third and fourth districts — one holding that a local community could not stop an application that complied with state law, the other that local authority survived.

“There’s literally two courts sitting right next to each other that came to the exact opposite conclusion about what the state statute said,” the speaker said, adding that the same state statute governs wind. “It’s vague. It’s too wide open, in my opinion.”

The ordinances, the speaker said, would “give this group a lot of discretion to take these applications apart, make sure that they make sense for the people that live here.”

Residents Point to an Active Project

Two people signed up for public participation, which is limited to three minutes per speaker, and both spoke to the wind ordinance.

A Raymond Township resident who identified himself as Dan told the council the question was not academic. “This is not a hypothetical situation,” he said, describing an active developer working in the northern part of Montgomery County and specifically east of Lake Lou Yaeger. He said other jurisdictions in the northern part of the county were considering similar ordinances, and that he had heard the development described as a 50-year project. “You guys have an opportunity to lead the county,” he said.

A second speaker, who said she lives about five miles east of Raymond and grew up in Litchfield, described being approached by Pattern Energy beginning in 2022 and repeatedly declining to sign a lease. She said she and her husband were told each time that they were among the last in the area to sign, that neighbors had already signed, that the project was coming anyway and that they would miss out on money — statements she said she later came to believe were false. She called the company’s business practices “questionable and unethical” and said the wind project was “tearing our community apart.”

She raised concerns about the water supply, noting that her well is 13 feet deep and draws the same aquifer the village of Raymond relies on, and that water from the Raymond area moves through farm field drainage tile toward Lake Lou Yaeger. She also cited noise, shadow flicker and sleep disturbance, and said the project involved more than 100 turbines. “You guys have the power,” she told the council. “Please pass this ordinance and do something great for the county.”

Neither speaker’s statements were disputed from the dais, and the council took no questions from the floor.