Buying Land in Sherburne County, Minnesota

A 3,000+ Acre Coal-to-Solar Conversion Is Underway at the Sherco Site

Could not confirm

Xcel Energy's Sherburne County Generating Station (Sherco) in Becker is a three-unit coal plant on the Mississippi River; Unit 1 retired at the end of 2023, Unit 2 is scheduled to retire in 2026, and Unit 3 in 2030. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved Xcel's plan to replace generation on and near the site with a large solar project (reported in the roughly 460-710 megawatt range) covering on the order of 3,200 to 3,250 acres, plus battery storage and synchronous condensers. For a buyer looking at land near Becker and the Sherco site, this is a genuinely large-scale, multi-year land-use transition -- worth asking the county and Xcel directly about project boundaries, any related land acquisition or easement activity, and expected local infrastructure and tax-base effects for a specific nearby parcel.

The County Runs Both Zoning and Wetland Conservation Act Determinations In-House

Generally favorable

Unlike several neighboring Minnesota counties that delegate Wetland Conservation Act (WCA) determinations to a separate Soil & Water Conservation District or watershed organization, Sherburne County's own Zoning Office has served as the WCA local government unit since the Act's 1991 adoption. For a buyer, that's a practical convenience -- one office can generally address both a zoning/shoreland question and a wetland-determination question for the same parcel -- though any specific wetland replacement plan still runs through the standard state WCA process (technical evaluation panel, no-net-loss standard) described on our Minnesota state page.

The County's 1971 Shoreland Ordinance Doesn't Cover Baldwin Township

Case-by-case / verify locally

Sherburne County's Shoreland Ordinance, in effect since 1971, is administered by the county for all of its townships except Baldwin Township. Below the ordinary high water level (OHWL, set by the Minnesota DNR), the DNR itself issues permits; above the OHWL, the county issues permits under its own shoreland standards. A buyer with a parcel in or near Baldwin Township specifically should confirm with the county which entity (the county, the township, or another body) actually administers shoreland regulation there, since the countywide default described above does not apply to that one township.