The solar farm at Huntley High School on Friday, June 30, 2023. Multiple solar farms across McHenry County are being presented to the McHenry County Board creating concerns of watershed, farmland and pollinator issues. (Gregory Shaver — gshaver@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver Shaw Media )
Developers looking to build solar farms along McHenry County-maintained roads now have to pay extra transportation fees.
County officials first took a look at the potential fee changes at the end of May but took no vote.
According to county records, “McHenry County Division of Transportation staff were asked by the County Board to investigate reasonable fees associated with Power Generation and Energy Storage Sites.”
The county’s aim is to recoup expenses incurred by county staff “for negotiating, executing, constructing, or implementing a road use agreement” with solar farm developers, according to the document.
“Given that McHenry County has an Access Control and Right-of-Way Management Ordinance, which governs many of the items that would fall under a road use agreement for smaller units of local government, the requested fee … is an estimate of the expenses MCDOT staff incur with permit implementation of these types of facilities. This fee would be in addition to the Major or Minor Access Permit Fee, as well as Temporary Access, as appropriate for the development.”
County officials have expressed frustration that the state and the courts have effectively forced the county to approve solar farms. The county has been sued multiple times for denying solar farm approvals and was ordered by the court to revote and green-light solar farms that had been rejected.
County staff said they were only tasked with reviewing fees around power and energy storage sites but weren’t asked to review any other fees.
The county agreed to a $7,500 application fee for “administration and implementation of permits related to Power Generation and Energy Storage Facilities such as Solar, Wind, and Energy Storage System sites,” according to county documents. McHenry County DOT spokesman Hans Varga said the $7,500 fully recoups what the county spends on such reviews.
Developers also will need to pay for a temporary construction permit and minor access permit, Varga said. Minor access permits are for projects with 50 or fewer trips per day, which most solar projects fall under, Varga said.
The changes could bring in about $25,000 annually in revenues, but county officials say they aren’t predictable revenues. According to county documents, the MCDOT gets two to five power generation site applications per year on average.
Board member Michael Skala asked if it was a new fee, to which transportation officials said yes. Officials said it’s only proposed new fee for the current fee schedule.
Skala asked if staff reviewed other applications to justify associated costs. The response was that fee increases were approved last year to bring transportation in line with other county agencies for their fees.
“We do not recoup dollar-for-dollar,” County Engineer Joseph Korpalski said.
Korpalski said the county could set the fee schedule based on length of review, how many times it has to be reviewed and who is involved. The fees would be “substantially higher” if the county went to hourly rates, he said.
Skala asked about the justification. County staff said they were asked to review just the solar fees. Skala said he wanted to review all of the fees because the state’s attorney’s office said the county would need a justification in order to uphold something.
The state’s attorney’s representative told the transportation committee in May that, as it relates to roads, the county can only charge a developer for reasonable costs of improving or repairing roads. Building and stormwater fees are handled differently, the attorney said.
Permit fees must be directly tied to the county’s costs, and it has to be a money-in, money-out situation, the attorney said. If the county goes with a flat-fee structure, it could be on the hook for large attorneys’ fees if it gets sued.
Board member Jim Kearns, who is the chair of the transportation committee, said solar is something that the state has directed the county to do and the county has updated costs on that. Kearns said the directive was to go through and justify the cost. He said the county didn’t direct staff to review other fees but could do that later on.
Kearns said with the county planning and development department reassessing its fees, transportation needs to keep up with that.
Board member Matt Kunkle said the fee is not going to penalize developers.
“It’s not going to slow down the solar at all,” Kunkle said, adding it would recoup costs for the county. He said the county isn’t considering the fee to stop solar.
“We’re simply doing it to recoup our actual losses from another, yet another state unfunded mandate that we are forced to do this and have no say,” Kunkle said.
The county’s transportation committee unanimously approved the change, followed by final approval by the County Board, and the fee went into effect Aug. 1.
Claire O'Brien is a reporter who focuses on Huntley, Lake in the Hills, Woodstock, Marengo and the McHenry County Board. Feel free to email her at cobrien@shawmedia.com.

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