A group of Boone County property owners believe the answer to the country's energy and other woes is blowing in the wind -- but opponents of a proposed wind farm in the western part of the county remain unconvinced.

More than 75 people attended a meeting Tuesday to discuss contracts offered to area landowners by Gestamp Wind North America.

Local attorney Kent Frandsen, who has represented homeowners in Benton, Tipton and Howard counties in wind farm discussions, told homeowners the foreign-owned corporation had agreed to negotiate certain elements of the contract, but not the financials.

The company is offering landowners $14,000 per 400-foot turbine annually, a figure several people at the meeting said was above average for the area. It plans to install 130 turbines in Jackson Township, in southwest Boone County.

A second company, enXco, reportedly plans to erect another 130 turbines north of there in Jefferson Township, paying property owners $7,000 per turbine a year.

The number of turbines proposed worries resident and wind farm opponent Richard Fyffe, who said the structures might spoil the picturesque countryside.

"I moved out here because I like the country," he said after the meeting. "If these windmills are approved, it's all going to be destroyed."

Frandsen said Gestamp could take seven years to build the turbines and would lease them for 35 years.

The contracts also allow Gestamp to place the turbines anywhere on a landowner's property, and landowners would be legally bound from discussing lease terms.

Although an unknown numbers of contracts have already been signed, the wind farms aren't a foregone conclusion. Boone County doesn't have a land-use ordinance concerning wind farms and may decide against creating one.

An informational meeting is set for Sept. 8 at the Boone County Fairgrounds. Area Plan Commission Director Kevin Schiferl said Tuesday afternoon an ordinance could take up to six months to be created and reviewed.

"We're coming from a sort of clean slate," Schiferl said. "We're going to listen to the experience of other counties and determine what's a good fit for Boone County. . . . No decision has been made yet if they will be part of our landscape."

Several residents worried a wind farm would damage property values and ruin the area's aesthetics, but Schiferl said if people were serious about western Boone County remaining an agricultural community, the turbines would be one way to make that happen.

"If we were to lock in these wind farms, they'd be locked in for good," Schiferl said. "We wouldn't have any subdivisions out there."

Although the proposed wind farms wouldn't be in Zionsville, County Council member Dave Rodgers said tax revenue generated by the billions of dollars in equipment and investments could lower taxes throughout the county.