Wind & Solar Leasing in Dubois County, IN: Moratorium

Dubois County has no county-wide zoning ordinance -- but solar development arrived here anyway, and the county's response has been to regulate it directly rather than through general land-use rules. If you've gotten a lease offer, or you're buying near a proposed or built project, here's what's actually happening and why the county hit pause.

This page covers what's specific to Dubois County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

A solar ordinance exists where general zoning doesn't

Dubois County is unusual even by the standards of Indiana's genuinely mixed zoning landscape: the unincorporated county has no comprehensive zoning ordinance and no county plan commission at all, yet it adopted a standalone Commercial Solar Energy Systems ordinance in 2023 (2023 S-2). That sequencing tells you something -- solar developers were interested in Dubois County farmland well before the county got around to a general land-use framework, and the commissioners felt enough pressure to write rules for that one specific use even while leaving everything else unregulated by zoning.

The specific current setback, height, and buffer standards in that 2023 ordinance could not be independently confirmed during this research pass -- direct access to the county's code library was blocked -- so don't rely on any particular figure without calling the county directly. What is confirmed is that the ordinance exists, that it predates any general zoning ordinance, and that it's now the subject of active revision (see below).

Two moratoria, stacked on top of each other

The county council adopted Ordinance 2024-16 on October 28, 2024: a 36-month moratorium on filing, processing, reviewing, or granting any tax-abatement application tied to commercial solar or other alternative-energy generation and storage facilities. That's a financial-incentive pause, not a ban on the projects themselves -- a developer can still apply to build, just not to receive the county's tax-abatement subsidy for doing so, at least through roughly late 2027.

The county board of commissioners went further on December 15, 2025, adopting Ordinance 2025-16: a strategic moratorium on filing, processing, or accepting any application for a commercial or large-scale solar energy system in the county's unincorporated areas, running through December 15, 2026. This one pauses the underlying siting applications themselves, not just the tax break, while tasking a newly formed technical review committee with recommending updated land-use standards for siting, construction, maintenance, and decommissioning. Projects that already held a valid county permit before the moratorium took effect are exempted. If you're evaluating land specifically because of solar-lease potential, the practical upshot is that new applications are on hold until at least the end of 2026 -- confirm the moratorium's status with the county before assuming any timeline for a new project.

What triggered this: the Crossvine Solar project and its battery-storage component

AES's Crossvine Solar project, located in rural Holland in Dubois County, includes an 85 megawatt battery energy storage system (BESS) intended to release stored power during peak demand. Residents near the proposed BESS site -- including families whose property borders it directly -- raised organized concerns in early 2026 about fire risk, citing multi-day lithium-battery fires reported elsewhere in the country (a 2024 San Diego incident and a 2025 Monterey County, California fire that triggered a 24-hour evacuation of over 1,000 residents) and pointing to several schools within a two-mile radius of the site. County commissioners have acknowledged the concerns publicly while noting that Indiana state law constrains how much a county can do to block a project that already meets permitting requirements -- a useful, honest data point if you're weighing how much local opposition can actually change an outcome here.

This controversy is almost certainly why the county's Comprehensive Plan survey found real public appetite to slow solar down: 37% of respondents said they want the county to discourage solar development, against just 7% who strongly support it. If you're a landowner who has been approached about a solar lease, or a buyer looking at land near an existing or proposed site, that split in local sentiment is worth knowing -- it's shaping both the current moratorium and whatever siting standards the technical review committee eventually recommends.

If you've been offered a lease, or are buying near a project

If you're the landowner: understand that Dubois County's regulatory posture toward commercial solar is genuinely in flux right now, with a moratorium in effect and a technical review committee actively rewriting the rulebook. A lease you sign today could ultimately be governed by siting standards that don't exist yet. Have an attorney experienced in Indiana solar leases review payment structure, easement scope, term length, and decommissioning responsibility before signing, and ask the developer directly how the county's current moratorium affects their timeline.

If you're buying land near the Crossvine project, near Holland generally, or anywhere in the county where a future project might be sited once the moratorium lifts: pull recorded documents at the Dubois County Recorder's office to check for any existing lease or easement on a specific parcel, and check directly with the county commissioners' office for the technical review committee's current recommendations and the moratorium's status as of your purchase date.

Wind and Solar Energy Leasing in Dubois County, Indiana

A solar ordinance exists where general zoning doesn't

Two moratoria, stacked on top of each other

What triggered this: the Crossvine Solar project and its battery-storage component

If you've been offered a lease, or are buying near a project

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