Planners review wind farm rules
Staff writer
Amendments to Marion County zoning regulations pertaining to wind farms dominated a meeting Thursday of the county’s planning and zoning commission meeting.
The commissioners chose to go line-by line to review the entire document. Most expressed what they did not like about wind farms.
Commissioner Dax Kannady asked planning consultant Russ Ewy whether the county could be sued for adopting the amendments.
Ewy said that question could be answered only by a judge, but in his opinion he did not think the county would be subject to litigation.
Courts usually allow communities to play a local role, while wind farms would have to prove the amendments are not legal.
Simply stated, Ewy said, any amendments approved or recommended would have to be proven they are not reasonable or sincere.
Commissioners asked Ewy to create a map and bring it to their next scheduled meeting.
Commissioner Derek Lowe said constituents were asking questions.
“The people are complaining about these damn lights, and I agree with them,” Lowe said.
Commissioner David Mueller said Marion County has 945 square miles, and three setback requirements, which would reduce the square mileage to 540.
“My numbers are rough, but they are not far off,” he said. “I only looked at three of them guys. There’s a lot more. You start doing all of those, you know how many square feet you are gonna have for wind?”
Many of the changes were clerical or reworded to read better.
Commissioner Derek Belton and other commissioners said a lot of verbiage needed to be reviewed.
“Was there anything found to be illegal, of course, to the county commission?” he said. “No, but just because it isn’t necessary illegal or whatever we could clarify the language to be better.”
Some language is too generic, Belton said.
While the planners reviewed most of the amendments, a few remain.
Commissioners conceded some of the changes to the text amendments might have to change once they view the maps Ewy will bring to the next meeting.