The City of Highland Park recently received Bronze designation from SolSmart, a national program that recognizes cities that that foster solar energy usage and remove obstacles to solar development at the local level. Highland Park made changes to our permitting, inspection, planning and zoning processes that will help solar companies reduce the cost of installations and pass those savings on to consumers. To make it easier to navigate the process, the City has posted a solar permitting checklist on its website.

Metropolitan Mayor’s Caucus worked with Highland Park and 14 other Chicago-area municipalities and counties to achieve SolSmart Designation. There are now 18 SolSmart designated municipalities in Illinois, the highest number of any state in the country. Our participation in this program shows that we are open for solar business.  SolSmart is an initiative led by The Solar Foundation and the International City/County Management Association and funded by the US Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office.