The new regulations receiving a final vote this week would permit small-scale solar in rural areas.
For instance, residents outside the urban core who want to add solar panels measuring 2,500 square feet or less would likely encounter few hurdles. If the installation is between 2,500 feet and five acres, residents would have to obtain special permission from the Board of Adjustment.
Yet the big question the council has put on hold deals with large or industrial-scale solar, which has a number of detractors — many of whom see the farmland surrounding the city as too valuable to cover up.
As for Thursday's vote, Adrian Bryant with CivicLex says the current small and medium-scale regulations aren't likely to see amendments.
"I don't expect any changes will be made to them, given how late in the process it is, and also given that there's going to be a work group that's going to be studying the most controversial part of the debate over the last year-and-a-half or so," he said.
That work group will go back to the drawing board on large-scale solar policy and deliver recommendations to the full council.
The body did move to amend language regarding the maximum amount of land in the agricultural zone that can be used for large-scale solar, limiting that to 1%.