Were they blown away?

Lake Township presents wind ordinance draft

By Kate Hessling, Tribune Staff Writer

Published: Friday, April 24, 2009 10:48 AM EDT

LAKE TWP — A drafted wind ordinance that’s been in the works for more than a year was unveiled Wednesday during a local planning board meeting.

But whether all provisions included in the draft will be adopted remains to be seen, as some of the conditions in the proposed ordinance may be interpreted as too restrictive.

“We are disappointed with what we heard at the Lake Township Planning Commission meeting regarding the draft wind turbine zoning ordinance,” said Matt Wagner, DTE Energy wind site development manager, in an e-mail Friday morning. “While we haven’t had the opportunity to review the document in its entirety, it appears that the draft ordinance would make it difficult — if not impossible — to site commercial wind turbines anywhere in the township.”

DTE Energy representatives weren’t the only ones to walk away from Wednesday’s planning board meeting with those sentiments.

“As I understand it … it’s an anti-wind ordinance and it’s overly restrictive,” said Russ Lundberg, Huron County Building and Zoning director, in an interview Thursday.

Lundberg explained he looks at wind zoning from a farmland preservation point of view, which is the basis of the county’s wind zoning ordinance.

“We don’t want to put wind turbines in locations that aren’t going to preserve the agricultural heritage of Huron County,” he said.

Lundberg said he’s made recommendations in the past that Lake Township (A) adopt a wind overlay ordinance allowing wind developments by agricultural land in the township’s southeast corner, and (B) adopt standards similar to those in the county’s ordinance that would be consistent with standards adopted by neighboring township.

By doing so, turbines would be sited away from natural preserves and the township’s shoreline, and in agricultural areas near other townships, Lundberg said.

The case for consistency

Using standards similar to the county’s and nearby townships creates a coordinated planning approach for wind farms because standards would be consistent from one township to another (and a wind farm then could be constructed in an agricultural area encapsulating more than one township), he explained.

There already are standards in place in the townships surrounding Lake Township that make such a coordinated planning approach feasible, Lundberg noted.

To the south is Chandler Township, which adopted the county’s standards (with the exception of a setback from residential structures that is 1,320-foot minimum, rather than the county’s 1,000-foot standard).

Hume Township, which is to the east of Lake Township, is county-zoned.

And while Mead Township has its own wind zoning standards, it is Lundberg’s understanding that the provisions included in Mead’s ordinance are compatible with the county’s standards (and hence also with Hume and Chandler’s restrictions).

But the provisions included in the draft ordinance presented during Wednesday’s Lake Township Planning Board are no where near compatible with the standards in place in nearby areas, Lundberg said.

“The standards utilized in (Lake Township’s) draft are much more restrictive,” he said. “It (the ordinance) eliminates any area in Lake Township to have any semblance of a wind farm that we see elsewhere.”

The call for revisions

“I don’t want to sound like I’m being critical of Lake Township, it’s just that from what I’ve seen, the standards are the same across the township — whether it’s a residential zone or an agricultural zone,” Lundberg said. “And from an agricultural preservation (point of view), it doesn’t make any sense.”

Some Lake Township officials, including Supervisor Robert T. Smith, also felt the proposed ordinance is too restrictive.

“Basically what I think is, 65 to 70 percent of it is great … 30 percent of it is too restrictive,” Smith said. “ … It needs some work, and I’d rather they do the work now, before it comes back to the (township) board.”

No adoption any time soon

Before the proposed ordinance can be sent to the Lake Township Board for adoption, a public hearing has to be held and the Lake Township Planning Board has to make a final recommendation.

Once that recommendation is made, the proposed ordinance has to be forwarded to the Huron County Planning Commission for review and comment, which is then forwarded to the Lake Township Board for adoption.

While Smith set a May deadline for a public hearing to be held regarding the proposed wind ordinance, he said a hearing likely will not take place until July.

The reason for the possible time extension is more revisions have to be made, though Smith said he feels the public hearing will be the catalyst for changing many of the provisions that may be considered too restrictive.

“The public hearing will take care of a lot of it,” he said. “The public will let them know what they think is too restrictive.”

In the meantime, Smith said he’s going to send the proposed ordinance to the township attorney for review.

Prior counsel endorses restrictive ordinance

Lake Township’s proposed ordinance already has been reviewed by two other attorneys, first by Glenn M. Stoddard, of Eau Claire, Wis., and most recently, by Susan Topp, of Gaylord.

Both attorneys noted the proposed ordinance were quite restrictive. However, each added they believe having such a restrictive ordinance is generally a good thing because there have been many problems when commercial wind turbines have been sited too close to homes, roads, nearby property lines, businesses and sensitive environmental areas.

While the two proposed drafts, which were obtained by the Huron Daily Tribune Thursday through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, are quite similar, there are some differences.

One of the most notable differences between the two drafts is height restrictions, which vary from 275 feet in the draft reviewed Dec. 10, 2008 by Stoddard, and 175 feet in the draft Topp highlighted during Wednesday’s planning board meeting.

In a Dec. 10, 2008 written review, which the Tribune obtained Thursday through a FOIA request, Stoddard recommends the township increase the height restriction to 300 feet, because “275 feet is low for today’s large WTs (wind turbines).”

“This could be challenged as exclusionary zoning or regulation,” Stoddard writes. “I think 300 feet is more reasonable and, thus, less likely to be challenged.”

During Wednesday’s planning board meeting, Topp said a height restriction of 175 feet is more than reasonable, considering wind speeds are greater near the shoreline and, because of that, turbines don’t have to be as tall as they do inland to capture wind speeds.

Topp also cited a U.S. District Court ruling court ruling that upheld a 30-foot turbine height maximum in Bay Township because, “communities frequently regulate height limitations, such as for advertising billboards, to preserve aesthetics and protect the community’s general welfare.”

In that case, Topp said, the court also found the township desired to preserve and protect tourism and property values, which are legitimate matters of governmental regulation.

Planning board defends draft

Following the presentation of the proposed wind ordinance, there were some questions as to the legitimacy of legal counsel provided, as well as to the previous studies and current guidelines Lake Township used to formulate the draft.

Board members stressed they spent more than a year researching issues to prevent problems arising from noise disturbances, shadow flickering and decreased property values.

In regard to any changing guidelines — particularly those by the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service (USFWS), which both officials from DTE Energy and Topp said currently are being revised — the board said the ordinance was crafted with the information that was available at the time board members were conducting the year-long research efforts.

“How are we supposed to create an ordinance out of something we don’t know?” Planning Board member Tim Lalley said in response to a question about the relevance of the current USFWS guidelines that currently are being revised.

On Thursday, Louis Colletta, Lake Township Planning Board chairman, said while it’s not possible to know what kinds of state and/or federal guidelines may exist in the future, it’s important to be prepared in the form of having an ordinance that can prevent problems from arising in the future.

“What we’re trying to do is take a proactive stance, if you will,” he said.

Colletta said there may be some revisions made to the draft, depending on public input that’s received at a future public hearing.

“That’s what the public hearing is all about – to see what the public views are,” he said. “Last night, the only questions (from the public) were directed to the lawyer who helped put the ordinance together. Now we’d like to hear from the people.”