Decision on Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Updates Postponed

By Gordon Hopkins After public input during a hearing on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners have decided the need more time to review the recently revamped County Comprehensive Plan and zoning regulations. After two years of work, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted to approve the plan and zoning regulations and sent the results to Jefferson County Commissioners for their approval.The difficulty the commissioners face is finding a balance between private property rights and community interests. Not everyone thinks that balance has been met yet. Enough people appeared for the hearing that it had to be relocated from the Commissioners’ usual meeting room to the courtroom.A familiar complaint is residential acreages in the ag district. Some ag producers feel that people who move into the ag district should expect the sounds and smells of farms and livestock and that the zoning regulations shouldn’t be protecting those residents at the expense of agriculture. One speaker who made that point was Brandon Pohlmann, “If I want to expand beyond 300 cows, I currently have 200 now, if I want to start a feed lot, I cannot. Your zoning regulations and setbacks prevent me from that. You're preventing hard working citizens in Jefferson County from growing their business because somebody has an acreage. For me to feed 2,500 cows needs a mile setback. I cannot do that because numerous people, including Danielle (Schwab, County Commissioner), live in that one mile.”Similar concerns were raised regarding solar energy facilities. Hannes Zetzsche, an attorney for BairHolm LLP, which represents NextEra Energy, also spoke. He said the setback as proposed would virtually eliminate the possibility of a solar farm in Jefferson County, “We've surveyed a number of counties, kind of in this vicinity here, and so the ones that we found were Thayer, Fillmore, Saline, Seward, Lancaster and Johnson counties, they all have setbacks no greater than 150 feet from these types of sensitive areas. So, the difference there between 150 feet and what you have here is a half mile to a mile is enormous.”Commissioner Mark Schoenrock asked, “Would you want to live 150 feet from the solar farm?” “I don't think that that would be an issue at all. I mean, especially with the screening requirements, the height limits you have, I probably wouldn't even see it from 150 feet away,” Zetzsche responded. “And, frankly, that's not the job of zoning regulations.” The board decided to delay final consideration until March 24, 2026, to review public comments and address these issues further.

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