Local couple seeks zoning statute to build wind turbine

After being denied twice by the Town of Dryden, there is still hope that a local couple could erect a wind turbine to power their home.
The rejections came not from any inherent problem with the application, but because the town has no zoning ordinance to regulate wind turbines, leaving applicants in bureaucratic limbo. An informational meeting was held as a next step in helping the town meet its goal of creating an ordinance by August.

The whole debate first started in May when Carol Schmoock and Ken Jupiter took their request for a 10-kilowatt, 120-foot turbine to the town board. Their residential turbine would be less than a mile down Mount Pleasant Road from where Cornell University proposed eight commercial-sized turbines last year. That plan was eventually withdrawn after protest from residents. The Schmoock/Jupiter plan got a bit further in the approval process before being halted. At the first application, the town was procedurally required to deny the request because the town's code doesn't include wind turbines, said Dan Kwasnowski, the town's environmental planner. A denial allows for an appeal, which the property owners pursued.

In the appeal, Schmoock and Jupiter requested that the town consider the turbine a public utility structure, which is exempted in the town code. The town's Zoning Board of Appeals didn't agree with that characterization, leading to the second denial. “They've just been through the mill with this,” Art Weaver said. Weaver is the president of Renovus Energy, a local designer and installer of renewable energy systems that is handling the Mount Pleasant project. “Here we have somebody who wants to make their own non-polluting, green power, and we put all these obstacles in their face. What does that say about our society?” Weaver said.

Even without the kinds of bureaucratic snags encountered in Dryden, according to Weaver, permitting for wind turbines generally averages nine to 12 months. This problem with wind turbine ordinances is not unique to Dryden. Of the nine towns in Tompkins County, only the Town of Lansing lists wind turbines as a permitted use, with some qualifications. The towns of Ithaca and Ulysses plan to review their ordinances later this year. The lack of town laws for turbines is due, in part, to the relatively few applications towns receive for their construction. According to New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), in the past five years, 16 projects have been approved and built throughout the state using their small wind program. Another 10 are in the development phase and an unknown number were done with out NYSERDA support. Kwasnowski said there are five issues most municipalities consider when drafting a law on wind turbines: the fall zone of the structure, potential noise, radio signal interference, possible bird and bat impacts and potential aesthetic impacts. “Little issues seem to get bigger with proximity to neighbors,” Kwasnowski said.