News
That backyard windmill may be more trouble than it's worth
Fearing noise and bad looks, some communities are banning them.
May 29, 2007
by Paul Weber
in Associated Press
MELISSA, Texas - An orange flag marks where Gary Lisle planned to put up a 33-foot windmill behind his house. But that's about as far as his green idea got in this Dallas suburb.
Denied a building permit in March, Lisle joined the growing ranks of frustrated homeowners across the United States whose hopes of harvesting wind energy in their backyards have been dashed.
Some communities have outlawed residential turbines. Others entangle applicants in so much red tape that they simply give up.
"The fact is, we're dealing with ignorance," said Lisle, whose turbine would resemble a big pinwheel with three small blades spinning atop a flagpole.
Standoffs between cities and green-minded homeowners are becoming more common as interest grows in residential turbines. Backyard windmills already are an $18 million-a-year industry in the United States, and manufacturers believe that could triple if wind got the same local acceptance and federal incentives as solar-energy systems, which typically involve nothing more intrusive than panels on a roof.
Residential windmills start as low as about $12,000, and industry officials say one can cut household bills anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent, depending on the wind and the height of the tower.
Zoning boards and neighborhood associations have heard complaints that the windmills would be unsightly, that the blades could break loose and fly into someone's yard, that a twister could knock a pole down or send it flying like a missile, or that the spinning blades would make too much noise. (Unlike big industrial wind turbines, the backyard varieties are barely audible.)
"Planning and zoning are the single biggest obstacle to wind energy in the United States," said Roy Butler, owner of Four Winds Renewable Energy in western New York, who often consults with local governments faced with turbine permit requests.
Local officials insist they are not environmentally closed-minded, saying they are just following regulations and taking into account their constituents' concerns.
In Melissa, a community of 5,000 squarely in sight of suburban strip malls and encroaching cookie-cutter subdivisions, Mayor David Dorman said he embraced green thinking. And in neighboring McKinney, Wal-Mart built its nationally lauded "green" store, which includes a 120-foot turbine spinning above the entrance.
But Dorman said the city code did not provide for residential turbines, an omission not uncommon outside energy-progressive places such as California.
Dorman also said it might be unfair to allow some people to have a technology that was not available to others who did not have the money or the yard space. So rather than grant variances to individual homeowners for windmills, he would like to see ecologically minded neighborhoods designed from the ground up.
Southern California's well-to-do Bear Valley Springs community also forbids windmills, even though most of its 9,000 residents probably have the large yards and the money needed to join the estimated 2,000 residential turbine owners nationwide.
Michael Bennett, general manager of the Bear Valley Springs homeowners' association, said the community's environmental board recently had begun drafting rules that would enable the community to catch up to the rest of the state.
"The No. 1 concern has been visual blight," Bennett said, "and No. 2, the noise level."
Rhode Island Renewable Energy owner Dave Anderson said promoting turbines in some wind-fertile areas could be almost futile, since neighbors there "want to be green, and they think it's a great idea and, you know, we've got to do something about the Middle East. But 'Just don't do it in my backyard.' "
Denied a building permit in March, Lisle joined the growing ranks of frustrated homeowners across the United States whose hopes of harvesting wind energy in their backyards have been dashed.
Some communities have outlawed residential turbines. Others entangle applicants in so much red tape that they simply give up.
"The fact is, we're dealing with ignorance," said Lisle, whose turbine would resemble a big pinwheel with three small blades spinning atop a flagpole.
Standoffs between cities and green-minded homeowners are becoming more common as interest grows in residential turbines. Backyard windmills already are an $18 million-a-year industry in the United States, and manufacturers believe that could triple if wind got the same local acceptance and federal incentives as solar-energy systems, which typically involve nothing more intrusive than panels on a roof.
Residential windmills start as low as about $12,000, and industry officials say one can cut household bills anywhere from 10 percent to 50 percent, depending on the wind and the height of the tower.
Zoning boards and neighborhood associations have heard complaints that the windmills would be unsightly, that the blades could break loose and fly into someone's yard, that a twister could knock a pole down or send it flying like a missile, or that the spinning blades would make too much noise. (Unlike big industrial wind turbines, the backyard varieties are barely audible.)
"Planning and zoning are the single biggest obstacle to wind energy in the United States," said Roy Butler, owner of Four Winds Renewable Energy in western New York, who often consults with local governments faced with turbine permit requests.
Local officials insist they are not environmentally closed-minded, saying they are just following regulations and taking into account their constituents' concerns.
In Melissa, a community of 5,000 squarely in sight of suburban strip malls and encroaching cookie-cutter subdivisions, Mayor David Dorman said he embraced green thinking. And in neighboring McKinney, Wal-Mart built its nationally lauded "green" store, which includes a 120-foot turbine spinning above the entrance.
But Dorman said the city code did not provide for residential turbines, an omission not uncommon outside energy-progressive places such as California.
Dorman also said it might be unfair to allow some people to have a technology that was not available to others who did not have the money or the yard space. So rather than grant variances to individual homeowners for windmills, he would like to see ecologically minded neighborhoods designed from the ground up.
Southern California's well-to-do Bear Valley Springs community also forbids windmills, even though most of its 9,000 residents probably have the large yards and the money needed to join the estimated 2,000 residential turbine owners nationwide.
Michael Bennett, general manager of the Bear Valley Springs homeowners' association, said the community's environmental board recently had begun drafting rules that would enable the community to catch up to the rest of the state.
"The No. 1 concern has been visual blight," Bennett said, "and No. 2, the noise level."
Rhode Island Renewable Energy owner Dave Anderson said promoting turbines in some wind-fertile areas could be almost futile, since neighbors there "want to be green, and they think it's a great idea and, you know, we've got to do something about the Middle East. But 'Just don't do it in my backyard.' "
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