WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Hours after Tippecanoe County commissioners unanimously approved contentious new restrictions on solar energy developments, the West Lafayette city council followed suit on an ordinance that represents a compromise months in the making.
Monday’s county approval ended an 11-month moratorium county commissioners placed on large-scale solar developments in June 2025. 
The conversation around industrial-scale solar projects has since fallen between two poles; on one end are farmers who shudder at the thought of many hundreds of acres of prime farmland becoming unusable, and on the other are renewable energy supporters who fear that tight regulations will push out new solar development entirely. The new ordinance represents something of a middle ground.
West Lafayette is too dense to house a large solar development; a 400-acre project allowed by the new law would be more than three times the size of the land on which SK Hynix’s semiconductor chip facility will be built. But that didn’t stop councilors and residents from debating the new ordinance’s wisdom Monday night. 
“It’s better than nothing, right?” said District 5 Rep. Kathy Parker, who also serves on the county Area Plan Commission and recommended against the ordinance when that body voted to advance it, 13 to three, in April.
“Maybe we made this too restrictive,” she said. “I thought we made it too restrictive. I voted no at APC, but yes here in the city because it’s not going to happen in the city.”
Parker said the county can now proceed with solar ground rules while it waits to see whether the fears of detractors will come true, and large solar development will be stymied.
“If nobody comes for a whole year,” she said, “then maybe we reexamine … It’s a starting place.”
The approved ordinance limits new commercial solar developments to 400 acres and stipulates at least one mile in distance between them, as well as a minimum of 500 feet from neighboring property lines. It also limits total commercial solar acreage in the county to 6,000 acres. The council passed the ordinance five to one. At-large Rep. James Blanco voted against it.
APC Executive Director Ryan O’Gara told the council that the new code is structured so “with a few tweaks, it could be very different,” meaning officials could amend the size limit to, say, 600 acres without needing to make substantial change to the ordinance.
O’Gara said the county has yet to receive interest from a solar project that would fit within the new restrictions. The only development to advance beyond speculation was the 1,700-acre Rainbow Trout solar farm, planned for northwest Tippecanoe County, which ran aground in the zoning approval stage. Developers are suing the county in an attempt to reverse its rejection of the project.
At county meetings, supporters of the restrictions have pointed to dozens of industrial solar projects they say are underway across the state at 400 acres or fewer. 
“Projects of that scale are certainly being done,” O’Gara said. “We just not have not had any of those entities come to us proposing one. Before Rainbow Trout came to town, I believe I had at least two companies knock on our door. They never submitted anything; they just chatted. But their projects were of a similar scope to Rainbow Trout, hundreds of acres.”
At-large representative David Sanders asked O’Gara if, as he had heard from detractors of the new code, these restrictions amounted to an effective solar ban.
“I’m being honest when I say it’s not prohibitive,” O’Gara said. He then laid out the process a prospective company would need to follow.
“If you want to do a project of this scope, 400 acres, perhaps less, and you have a site that’s zoned properly, or perhaps you petition the commissioners to rezone a site to the correct zone, and you win them over, and all the neighbors are happy, then there are remedies in our code to achieve these projects.”
Nicole Duttlinger, a West Lafayette resident and an advocate for much smaller-scale, community solar investment — like solar panels on individual homes — said during public comment that industrial-scale solar projects could power 15,000 houses. But, she said, that power does not stay local; it goes to the power grid.
She referred to efforts by the city to install solar panels on the five public buildings able to house them. Mayor Erin Easter said the panels, on the public library and wellness center, among others, help to partially offset electricity needs. 
The city’s sustainability website says 84% of city rooftops have the potential for solar panel installation, citing Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer. That energy potential could power about 20,000 average U.S. homes.
Contact Israel Schuman at ieschuma@purdue.edu or on X @ischumanwrites. Contact Meagan Hipsky at mmhipsky@gmail.com.

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