News
The board reviewed those conditions and heard concluding remarks from two representatives of the project's developer when the board met Thursday night at Pontiac Township High School, with about 50 people in the audience. The board agreed not to begin deliberations because one member, Don Thorp, was unable to attend the session. He will get a report on what the board discussed.
Monday's reconvening, at 7 p.m. in the PTHS auditorium, will be the final stage of a public hearing that began on April 28 and was continued several times. The hearing was an opportunity for the developer of the 155-turbine wind farm, Iberdrola Renewables, to present evidence why the project should receive a special use permit and for county residents or property owners to question them and present evidence in favor of or against granting the permit.
The Livingston County Board's Ag and Zoning Committee is expected to consider the special use permit at its meeting on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the county's Public Safety Complex in Pontiac.
The full County Board is scheduled to vote on the permit in July. The board can accept or reject the zoning board's recommendation.
Thursday's session of the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) began with a 20-minute, PowerPoint-aided closing statement from Iberdrola attorney Mike Massie and Jesper Michaelsen, project manager.
Then Steve Walters, who has been chairman of the public hearing because ZBA chairman Gibs Nielsen recused himself, noted that the the 24 conditions for the permit, drawn up by county staff, were discussion points that could be part of the ZBA's recommendation to the County Board. If the ZBA recommends conditions to the permit, the County Board can accept, deny, modify or add to them.
The nine pages of conditions include provisions involving decommissioning and security, complaints and resolution, soil erosion, wildlife monitoring, and aviation.
The wind farm would be spread across 15,000 acres, between Odell and Emington.
ZBA member Mike Cornale was the first to comment on the conditions to the permit, after the board received and read them during Thursday's session. He favored adding to the conditions that the "ultimate responsibility" for decommissioning each turbine would be with the landowner, said that each landowner with a turbine on his property should be named as an additional insured on Iberdrola's insurance liability, and that each tower be lit.
Cornale also questioned a condition that Iberdrola provide the county "with security in the form of an irrevocable letter of credit or cash placed in a county escrow account." He said he would prefer cash in a non-biased escrow account and that the money should not be held in a Livingston County escrow account. A bank or financial institution in Livingston County. Staff will provide more information in this subject area at Monday's reconvening.
Cornale, noting pamphlets that are available at a rest area near the wind farm visible from Interstate 39 near Mendota, said another condition should be to use Livingston County's first wind farm "as a form of education" for residents and those driving by the towers. "Let's educate people about what we're doing here," he said.
Walters and the other ZBA members agreed that further discussion be delayed until Monday so that Thorp could be included in that, before the board moved on to deliberation and then voting.
The closing statement by the two Iberdrola representatives included a "right time, right team and right place" argument for the Streator-Cayuga Ridge South Wind Farm.
"We believe we've made a very strong case why this application meets all requirements" for a special use permit for a wind farm in an agriculturally zoned area, project manager Michaelsen said. He said the company's research found wind conditions in the farm's area "among the best in Illinois." He said Iberdrola was "a long-term owner and operator" of wind farms, and that local employees would have access to company offices in Portland, Ore., and near Philadelphia for any situations where they need help.
Iberdrola has said that construction will provide 300 jobs, and when the farm is operational 15 to 23 local jobs will be in operation and maintenance. Landowners will receive annual payments, and school districts and other government units will get millions of dollars in property taxes over the expected 25-year life of the turbines, the company has said during the public hearing.
Ninety-nine percent of the land on which the turbines are erected can continue to be used for agriculture, and local roads will be upgraded during construction and will be maintained thereafter, the developers have said.
Massie said the farm's design and other aspects of it "go far beyond" the county's eight points that must be met to approve a special use permit for a wind farm. The farm will generate enough electricity for 97,000 households, he said.
| < prev | next > |