Sawyer County tasks legal review of draft solar and battery storage ordinance; members debate scope and data-center language

The Sawyer County Zoning Committee on Jan. 7 directed legal counsel to perform a full review of a draft solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) ordinance, after an extended discussion about scope, ground-mounted accessory systems and whether to include data centers.

Zoning Administrator Jay introduced "version 2" of the stand-alone ordinance and said he hoped to refine language, task legal counsel with review, send the revised draft to towns for comment, hold a public hearing in March and seek county-board ratification in April. Committee members raised specific concerns: Kaye Wilson asked whether ground-mounted accessory solar arrays should be permitted only on parcels that already contain a principal structure or allowed on vacant land by conditional use permit. Jay and other members said they did not want to broadly restrict agricultural uses that rely on accessory arrays for on‑site needs.

Rebecca, the committee's legal counsel, cautioned there are state-law considerations. She told members she could "foresee where somebody would want a ground-mounted accessory solar energy system on vacant land even without the building of a principal structure" and recommended detailed review of how accessory definitions in the general ordinance (section 4.26) interact with the draft. She also recommended keeping data-center regulation separate from the solar/BESS ordinance given the unique environmental and infrastructure impacts data centers present and potential state legislation.

Chair Jay said he would prefer progress on the solar/BESS ordinance without pausing to draft data-center rules. "I would not wanna see a data center come to Sawyer County," he said, citing concerns about land, water use and disturbance of natural resources.

The committee voted to task legal counsel with the full review and to return a polished draft for town review. Members asked staff and counsel to consider: explicit cross-references to accessory-structure rules, how to treat ground-mounted systems on agricultural land, scale thresholds (community, mid and large scale), and enforceable conditions for battery storage systems.

Next steps: Legal counsel will review the draft and prepare amendments for the committee to consider next month; the committee anticipates town review and a public hearing in March if legal and staff revisions are complete.