East Bloomfield, N.Y.
The Planning Board has eased restrictions in a proposed law to regulate windmills for homes — but not enough for one critic, a windmill owner himself.
The Planning Board voted Aug. 8 to send the Town Board the new draft law, which incorporates suggestions made at a well-attended hearing in June. Among the changes: an increase in the maximum height from 100 to 130 feet to the top of the rotor.
“I’m glad they were open to suggestions,” said Mark Thorn, a Zoning Board of Appeals member and Brace Road resident. “They did add to the tower height. That was a good thing.”
Thorn’s own 133-foot high, 10-kilowatt Bergey wind turbine sits near his home. It operates under two town variances Thorn obtained, and its arrival indirectly sparked reconsideration of a law already on the books.
Still, Thorn said, the latest version may not make putting up a windmill easier in the town.
“This (the revised windmill law) would still require the two variances I got to begin with,” he said.
Code Enforcement Officer Mike Woodruff defended the draft.
“The Planning Board did due diligence,” Woodruff said. “I think they have taken a proactive approach.”
Other changes are as follows:
• Language regarding safety now refers to more current technology. For example, braking systems to stop rotors in the event of wind speeds so high the machine could break apart.
• The latest version would allow newer axial windmills (a vertical blade design that looks like an eggbeater) to be closer to the ground.
• The law now has language to describe each application for light industrial, commercial, and residential wind turbines.
The Planning Board passed on Thorn’s other main suggestion: to make the minimum distance of a windmill from homes the same as the height, meaning that a 130-foot tower would have to be 130 feet from a building. The board instead stuck with 1.5 times the tower height as a safe distance in the event of collapse.
Thorn said most parcels four acres or smaller with homes on them will not meet the 1.5 times setback, meaning prospective windmill owners will have to seek variances.
“It means that instead of the town encouraging wind power in the region, it may be the Zoning Board of Appeals that now arbitrates it on a case-by-case basis,” Thorn said.
Woodruff sees the windmill law as revised enough for now.
“I’ll quote the document: ‘This is a fluid document subject to change.’ It’s not cheap to do one of these projects,” he said.
So far, wind energy is evolving but not widespread enough to merit more revision, said Woodruff.
“If we see a problem, we can always come back and address it,” he added.
Thorn liked a recent account of windmill plans in the town of Gorham, as one turbine in the works is identical to his. In Gorham, the Planning Board asked the owner what tower height would be needed for the machine to function correctly.
“That was incredibly positive of them,” said Thorn. “For a minute I actually thought about moving to Gorham.”
The East Bloomfield Town Board will take up the windmill law again at its meeting on Monday, Aug. 25 at 7:30 p.m.
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