Buying Land in Clarke County, Iowa

Zoning: one consolidated ordinance as of 2025, administered locally

Clarke County's land-use rules for its unincorporated area now run through Zoning Ordinance #42, which as of its 2025 update consolidates what had previously been three separate documents -- the original Zoning Ordinance #10, Subdivision Ordinance #11, and a separate tower/antenna ordinance (#12) -- into a single code. A building permit is required for any new construction or expansion of a building under this ordinance, and the county's Planning and Zoning Commission reviews major subdivision preliminary and final plats, rezoning requests, and comprehensive-plan amendments before they reach the Board of Supervisors. Subdivision review applies to plats dividing land into three or more parts where any part is under 40 acres. The Zoning Administrator's office, in the Clarke County Courthouse (100 S. Main St., Osceola), is the point of contact for confirming a specific parcel's zoning district and permit requirements under the current, consolidated code.

Wind energy: a two-year moratorium ended in a genuinely restrictive ordinance

Clarke County's experience with commercial wind development has been unusually drawn-out and cautious. The Board of Supervisors imposed a construction moratorium on new commercial wind turbines in unincorporated Clarke County effective June 12, 2023, and kept extending it through six public hearings and multiple ordinance-amendment drafts -- including a pause on turbine-ordinance amendments reported in August 2025 -- before finally adopting an updated ordinance and lifting the moratorium on October 1, 2025.

The ordinance that resulted is one of the more restrictive wind-siting frameworks in the region: it caps total commercial wind-farm development at 400 acres countywide, and confines that development specifically to Madison and Troy townships, near the Madison County line northwest of Murray -- reportedly the only location where the local power grid can currently accommodate new turbine interconnection. Turbines must also maintain a 2,000-foot setback from any property line outside a 2-mile buffer from towns and public land, though adjoining landowners can waive that setback by agreement. For a buyer specifically interested in wind-lease income, this means geography matters enormously here: land outside the two approved townships, or land that would push the county past its 400-acre cap, is very unlikely to host a new commercial turbine under the current rules, regardless of wind resource quality.

Solar and other large-scale development: still being sorted out

Separately from wind, the Board of Supervisors approved a temporary moratorium on commercial solar-panel construction in unincorporated Clarke County effective December 16, 2024, giving the county time to weigh land-disruption concerns before allowing utility-scale solar to proceed; private and residential solar installations are unaffected. Unlike the wind moratorium, this research could not confirm a resolution date for the solar moratorium as of this review -- it may still be in effect, may have been extended, or may have been resolved by a subsequent ordinance not surfaced in this pass. The county also imposed a separate, temporary data-center construction moratorium in June 2025. Taken together, these moratoria show a Board of Supervisors actively managing several categories of large-scale development proposals in real time; confirm the current status of any of these moratoria directly with the Zoning Administrator before assuming a particular use is open on a specific parcel.