Wind and Solar Leasing on Buchanan County, Missouri Land

The wind ban: a 13-month study that ended in an 8-4 vote and unanimous opposition

Buchanan County didn't arrive at its wind-energy ban quickly or without process. The county's Planning and Zoning Commission spent 13 months studying commercial wind energy, including hiring an outside consultant to draft proposed wind-energy regulations, before holding a work session on February 19, 2020. At that session, the Commission voted 8-4 to recommend a total ban on commercial wind energy development rather than adopting a regulated framework the way many counties do (with setbacks, noise limits, and a conditional-use process). Reporting on the public hearings that preceded the vote describes unanimous opposition -- everyone who testified spoke against wind development, with no one speaking in favor.

The Buchanan County Commission adopted that recommendation in March 2020, incorporating a total commercial wind energy ban into the county's zoning framework. For a landowner, this means there's no conditional-use permit, variance, or negotiated setback path around the ban the way there might be for many other restricted uses -- a commercial wind lease is not currently an available path for Buchanan County land, and reversing that would require the county itself to revisit its zoning order. If a developer or broker approaches you about a wind lease specifically for Buchanan County acreage, that's worth treating with real skepticism until you've confirmed directly with Planning & Zoning that the county's position hasn't changed since 2020.

Solar took a different path: regulation, not prohibition

Buchanan County has not banned utility-scale solar the way it banned wind. Instead, the county amended its zoning order's solar provisions in 2022, and then went further: county officials worked with an outside engineering firm (Black & Veatch) to draft a more comprehensive utility-scale solar ordinance, moving through an April 2024 draft to a finalized Section 729, Utility-Scale Solar Energy Systems ordinance in July 2024. That's a meaningfully different regulatory posture than the wind ban -- it suggests the county sees a path for solar development under its own terms, rather than closing the door outright.

What we could not independently confirm during this research pass is the specific content of that ordinance -- setback distances from property lines and residences, height limits, decommissioning-bond requirements, and any acreage or capacity thresholds that trigger the ordinance's full review process. A network restriction blocked direct access to the county's own website during this research, so only the ordinance's existence, its finalization date, and its section number could be confirmed through search results, not its full text. Before evaluating any solar-lease offer for Buchanan County land, request a copy of Section 729 directly from Planning & Zoning, or view it yourself at the county's website, and have your own attorney review both the ordinance's requirements and the specific lease terms being offered.

What this means for evaluating a lease offer

The practical takeaway is straightforward but important: a wind-energy lease offer for Buchanan County land runs directly into a countywide ban adopted in 2020, while a solar-lease offer runs into a real but still-maturing county ordinance finalized in 2024. Neither situation is well served by taking a developer's representation at face value -- confirm the county's current zoning-order language for both energy types directly with Buchanan County Planning & Zoning at (816) 271-1528 before signing anything, and ask specifically whether any additional amendments have followed the July 2024 solar ordinance.