Sitting on his back patio in Newfield, John Rancich glances across Ithaca and points west to a ridge along the horizon and says, "That's where the wind farm will be."

He later says he'd be happy to see the hills that surround Ithaca lined with wind mills.

Rancich appeared before the Enfield Town Board more than a year ago to lay out his business plan for the wind farm. A group of residents fervently opposed the idea, arguing about land rights, illnesses related to the turbines and concerns of dying birds.

That hour-long meeting was loud - at times unruly - and for a bit, it made people in attendance wonder whether wind energy would ever come to Tompkins County.

These days Rancich, 54, shows up to town meetings and sits through typical town business with nearly no chatter on wind, aside from discussion about where the planning board is on developing a local wind law. The law would determine in what manner windmills can be built in the municipality.

He also spends time in front of several Town of Ithaca boards with hopes that his energy-efficient housing development project, Carrowmoor, will some day become a reality.

A long-time Ithaca businessman, Rancich is still coping with the deliberate speed at which municipal bodies move - he'll tell you it's snail-like compared to his business pace.

"I always tried to avoid them," Rancich says of working with the town boards. "It's the most frustrating work I've done. There's an enormous process to wade through."

Steve Bauman, Rancich's associate, said the wind turbines' cost is increasing at nearly $1,500 per day while Rancich waits for the developer's agreement he submitted to the Enfield board to get approved.

But a drawn-out process comes with the territory when you're investing in the potentially lucrative emerging business of alternative energy.

Each Carrowmoor condominium would come with an option for an electric car, and the goal of the project is to have zero carbon footprint in the neighborhood. The hope for the wind farm is to use the power regionally.

Wind brings new ideas

At first glance, you wouldn't think Rancich is the man way out in front on energy and development. He doesn't even use e-mail.

"This is just cool stuff to do," he says of working on energy projects.

Rancich made his money in housing developments, mostly in the South, during the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s, so energy markets were unfamiliar ground for him. And the ideas came from nothing more than days of hard work and time spent outdoors.

On his patio, drink in hand, he discusses business and greets guests at one of his infamous Thursday parties. Party-goers, who he says range from professors to planning board members and at times, a town board member or two, pour themselves drinks and join people sitting outside.

The wind farm was born while Rancich sat on his back porch, which overlooks a pasture for his eight horses, and he thought that with all the wind on the Hines Road hill, there's got to be a way to harness it.

It was not long after a small turbine was added to his property, which Rancich characterized as "junk," that he did some cost analysis, put a meteorological tower on Connecticut Hill and determined that wind energy makes the most sense in Enfield on the scale of 10 to 15 towers. The Enfield wind farm would be a 30-megawatt farm.

The size of the proposal is small when you consider that T. Boone Pickens, an oil man from Texas, wants to build a 4,000-megawatt wind farm in Texas.

If Rancich can get the wind project off the ground and the Carrowmoor development moving, he'd be able to power his development with the energy he gets from wind.

"I had (the two projects) as ideas and thought one would die," he says. "And then every month, each project seemed more and more doable."

Critics say the two projects are Rancich's master business plan. He agrees that it's a business plan but points out he's not duplicating his wealth with these projects.

"If I wanted to make another $5 million, I'd be doing what's comfortable," he says.

What's comfortable is real estate and development.

He adds that the most important part of these projects is that they're "good for everyone."

Concerned neighbors

Even though most of the naysayers for the wind project have quieted down, some are still out there. Rebecca Coulter, a Newfield resident whose house would be next to the wind farm, maintains the same stance she did a year ago when she protested the farm - wind power is fine, just not next to her.

She said she and her boyfriend built their home on Black Oak Road partly for the peace and quiet, which she says would be gone with the arrival of wind turbines.

Elizabeth Allen, a Black Oak Road resident, said the same thing about not building there if she knew a wind farm was coming. She said she'd be happy to have the wind farm west of Buck Hill.

Another concern shared by Allen and Coulter is that Rancich has yet to announce firmly how many turbines he's interested in erecting, which is true. Rancich has estimated the project will have between 10 and 15 turbines since he began pitching the wind farm to the town.

He says he's held back on fully developing his proposal because of how quickly the Enfield wind law could kill the project.

Other neighbors are more amenable to the idea.

"I couldn't ask someone else to live next to (a turbine) if I can't. I'm an IMBY, not a NIMBY," Michael Shultz, a Black Oak Road resident, says smiling and referring to people with Not-In-My-Backyard arguments.

Shultz built his home on Black Oak Road last year.

Green housing project

With Carrowmoor, Rancich isn't facing the same landowner complaints as with the wind farm. The $110 million project is something Rancich developed about 20 years ago, and now he has some of the funds to do it. He said his goal for the project is to make "everybody want to live there."

He emphasizes "everybody" and explains that the Carrowmoor homes would not only create some 115 permanent jobs, but would also add to the supply of homes in the Ithaca area's median price range. Ten percent of the homes in Carrowmoor would be priced at mid-range.

Rancich thinks Carrowmoor would draw enough residents that it would free-up median homes in the county.

The trick to making Carrowmoor work will be getting the Ithaca Town Board to rezone the land Rancich owns from agricultural land to combined residential and commercial properties.

One of the keys to Rancich's success is his willingness to take on risk, he says. He has more than $1 million invested between his two energy projects that could both be quashed by a single vote in either Enfield or Ithaca.

With risk can come reward. Both projects have risks, but Rancich believes he's minimized the downside potential by sound planning.

He has known enough to craft a homebuyer's plan for Carrowmoor that will keep property prices at market value while keeping homes affordable to middle-class folks. And he has known enough to plan a wind farm next to power lines on a hill with an average of 16.5 miles per hour of wind.

"It almost never stops up here," Shultz says, referring to gusts of wind near the proposed wind farm site.

"Lucky me," Rancich says, smiling, as if that's an accident.