Indiana
Buying Land in Pulaski County, Indiana
Seat Winamac, in north-central Indiana. Pulaski County updated its entire zoning ordinance in 2025 and is now home to Mammoth Solar, a roughly 13,000-acre, up-to-1,600-megawatt utility solar project that county commissioners have kept moving forward over a recommended moratorium.
Zoning: a freshly rewritten Unified Development Ordinance
Pulaski County zoning and land-use regulation for unincorporated territory runs through the county's Advisory Plan Commission, with day-to-day staffing handled by the county's Building Department, which doubles as planning and zoning staff out of the Pulaski County Office Building at 125 South Riverside Drive, Room 150, in Winamac (phone (574) 946-7858). The Advisory Plan Commission typically meets on the fourth Monday of each odd-numbered month at the courthouse.
This is a genuinely recent ordinance: the county adopted Ordinance 2025-03, its current Unified Development Ordinance, on March 3, 2025, replacing a 2012 ordinance that county officials themselves had described as containing internal contradictions and gaps -- particularly around planning for future growth. Because the ordinance is this new, be careful about relying on any secondhand description of Pulaski County zoning rules that predates 2025; confirm current district boundaries, permitted uses, and setback requirements directly with the Advisory Plan Commission rather than an older summary.
Mammoth Solar: a genuinely enormous project, with genuine local pushback
Pulaski County is now home to one of the largest utility-scale solar developments in the country. Doral Renewables' Mammoth Solar project spans roughly 13,000 acres across Pulaski and neighboring Starke Counties, with a reported nameplate capacity around 1,600 megawatts DC (1,300 megawatts AC) -- construction-industry coverage has described it as the largest solar farm under construction in the United States, with commercial operations for its later phases targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026 and beyond. Part of the site doubles as a real agrivoltaics demonstration: roughly 2,500 sheep, along with some pigs and chickens, graze among the panels on about 1,200 of the project's acres, eating vegetation that grows beneath and around the equipment and resting in its shade.
That scale has produced real friction locally rather than uniform support. Pulaski County's Advisory Plan Commission recommended a 12-month moratorium on new commercial solar energy systems with a unanimous 6-0 vote -- but the county's Board of Commissioners then rejected that recommended moratorium by a 2-1 vote, allowing new proposals to continue moving forward. A local resident group organized specifically as "Pulaski County Against Solar" has continued to push back, and county officials have separately discussed (without yet adopting, per this research pass) additional moratoriums covering battery energy storage systems, carbon capture projects, and data centers. The adopted zoning ordinance does include a specific commercial solar setback of 500 feet from the property lines of nonparticipating landowners -- notably stricter than the 250-foot setback from dwellings the state itself has recommended as a baseline. Our dedicated wind-solar-leasing page for Pulaski County covers these setback terms and the moratorium fight in more depth.
Septic and other things to check
For a standard septic system, the Pulaski County Health Department provides site evaluations and permitting for onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS) under statewide ISDH rules, out of its main office in the Pulaski County Office Building in Winamac, with a satellite office available in Francesville on the first and third Tuesday of each month. The department updated its fee ordinance (Ordinance 2022-11) effective February 5, 2024, so confirm current fees directly rather than relying on an older posted figure.
Beyond the solar development, Pulaski County remains a genuinely rural, agriculturally oriented county with real recreational amenities of its own -- Tippecanoe River State Park sits within the county, giving it public river and forest access separate from the utility-scale solar footprint reshaping other parts of the county. If a large-scale energy project's proximity to your target parcel is a real concern, checking current Mammoth Solar site boundaries and any additional proposed phases directly with the Advisory Plan Commission is worth doing before you buy, given how quickly this particular story has moved.
Who to Call Before Buying Land in Pulaski County
Direct WebFetch access to pulaskionline.org and related domains was blocked by a network egress restriction in this research pass; contact details come from WebSearch-indexed content rather than a full site read, so confirm current hours, fees, and the solar moratorium's status directly before relying on this page.
Planning & Zoning
Pulaski County Advisory Plan Commission / Building Department
Zoning district, setback, and permitted-use questions under the county's 2025 Unified Development Ordinance; current status of any commercial solar or wind proposal.
Septic / Onsite Wastewater
Pulaski County Health Department
Onsite wastewater treatment system (OWTS) permits under 410 IAC 6-8.3.
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Sources
- Advisory Plan Commission - Pulaski County — Pulaski County, Indiana Government (accessed 2026-09)
- County planning commission unanimously approves Unified Development Ordinance — Pulaski County Journal (accessed 2026-09)
- 061-25 - Pulaski County Ordinance 2025-03 — Pulaski County Journal (accessed 2026-09)
- Environmental Services - Pulaski County — Indiana State Department of Health / Pulaski County (accessed 2026-09)
- Mammoth Solar — Wikipedia (accessed 2026-09)
- Pulaski County's green era: a vertical farm, solar panels and green manufacturing — Cardinal News (accessed 2026-09)
- Farmer tells ABC57 why he's leasing land to Mammoth Solar as Doral Renewables proposes expansion — ABC57 (accessed 2026-09)
- Pulaski County Commissioners Discuss Moratorium on BESS, Carbon Capture, Data Centers — WKVI Information Center (accessed 2026-09)
- About - Pulaski County Against Solar — Pulaski County Against Solar (accessed 2026-09)
Last reviewed 2026-09