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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Environment - "NW Indiana counties stop residents' wind tower ventures"

Gitte Laasby of the Gary Post-Tribune has a very long story today on the premise: "County ordinances aren't prepared to deal with wind towers and spires." Some quotes:

Four months ago, Jackson Township retiree Tom Martin put down about $15,000 for two 30-foot wind spires, which he hopes could cut his electricity bills 60 percent. He's still waiting for permission to put them up. The problem? Porter County has not yet finished its ordinance relating to wind generation. * * *

Potential buyers in Lake County are facing similar issues.

That's costing business for George Kontol Jr. He owns DeMotte-based Northwest Geothermal, which sold Martin the wind spires. The aluminum cylinder spires contain no propellers but have a rotor that turns with the wind in any direction and that's an appealing design.

"People want it, but when I tell them there's no permitting right now, it derails it then and there. We don't want to derail anything. We can sell a lot of them, but we're getting a lot of slack from the counties," said Kontol. "Everybody says they want one, but it's counties across the state."

Sales representative Nick Serena of Lowell said he called Lake County twice to find out whether he needed a permit before he put up his wind spire.

"They basically told me there was no building permit for it, because it's only 30 feet tall, under the height variance. I assumed it was OK for me to do," he said.

Serena installed the spire, but after he appeared with it in a newspaper article, he received a letter from Lake County stating the spire is an illegal use because he got no building permit and no variance.

"There isn't a wind ordinance so how can they come back and say I'm not following the rules?" Serena said. "I don't appreciate it because when I called in, they told me it was OK. Now they tell me I have an illegal structure. It's kind of asinine if you ask me."

Lake County has threatened a lawsuit and fines of $10 to $2,500 per day of violation. The county's ordinance doesn't specifically mention wind towers, but Lake County planning and building administrator Steve Nigro said Serena should have obtained a variance to be allowed to use the land in a way that's not listed as allowable.

"We don't allow for use of wind towers and cell towers," Nigro said. "If a use is not mentioned in a zoning ordinance, the way to do that is to go for a variance of use."

He said a variance would go to the board of zoning appeals, which recommends to the full county council, which can then approve, deny or modify the request.

"I don't know how he's going to correct the fact he put a structure up," Nigro said. "It's just a shame it came to this if the gentleman did ask and got bad information."

Nigro said county officials have discussed creating a wind tower ordinance, but have not put anything into action yet.

Some townships treat wind towers like TV antennas and apply the same rules.

In Porter County, the plan commission has worked on a comprehensive wind ordinance for about seven months. Plan Commission Director Bob Thompson said the commission is finishing an ordinance involving large turbines for a potential wind farm near Kouts. The ordinance for smaller turbines was contracted out to a consulting company.

"We wanted to get through the large ones first, then we wanted to look at the small," Thompson said. "There's interest in the small ones, but we can only do so much at a time. We wanted to make sure we did that one right."

Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper said the consulting company handed in its draft Wednesday. It's likely to appear at the next plan commission meeting in September, but would require public hearings in both the plan commission and the full commission.

"It takes a while for these things. It's not like it's some unusual thing. You just don't have someone come up with an idea, next week you have an ordinance. It doesn't work that way," he said. "What takes time is, the devil's always in the detail on these things ... How high can it be? How near neighbors can it be? All these kinds of issues. It's never just sitting down and slapping something together. It takes time to devise a good ordinance that applies to your county."

Martin said he believes noise and height concerns are minor issues because the spires are no louder than a whisper and no taller than a flag pole. He said he understands that the ordinance takes time, but would like to move on energy independence as soon as possible.

"It seems like the wheels of getting something accomplished are kind of slow at times. I understand they don't want to pass something quickly and do something wrong," he said. "I'm not a big ecological person. I don't worry a lot about the environmental things, but I do have a concern. I think it's just good common sense... After a while you just feel like you're spinning your tires."

Rather than spinning your rotors ....

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 15, 2009 10:53 AM
Posted to Environment