Citizens air concerns in hearing; ordinance approval still pending

With lots of information still to digest, materials to read and some changes to be made, the County Board of Commissioners took no action Tuesday night on the proposed tall structures ordinance that will regulate wind turbines and communication towers in the county.

So the floor was opened to public comments as planned for the special meeting in the boardroom of the administration building scheduled for the sole purpose of holding a public hearing on the ordinance.

Seven residents took to the podium before the board and about a dozen other citizens, and while the majority addressed concerns on rules for wind turbines, two men familiar with the communication industry remarked on the communication portion of the ordinance and suggested numerous changes and possibly even separating towers and turbines into their own ordinances.

But following the public hearing, County Attorney Rob Wheatly told the board he and the planning department were hoping to keep both sections in one ordinance.

"Let us take a shot at it first (before separating into two)," he said.

Mr. Wheatly said they were trying to keep the ordinance's focus on public safety and away from private business matters, like requiring statements on quality of service and customer demand.

"Let us see if we can give you something you're comfortable with," he told commissioners.

"This has been very laborious and confusing. No one else in the state has put as much depth into this as we have."

The public hearing follows months of other public meetings held by the County Planning Commission during the development of the ordinance. A nine-month moratorium was approved in March following concerns of wind farm proposal in the Down East community of Bettie.

That project, known as Golden Wind Farm, included three 1.5-megawatt turbines each more than 300 feet tall on 33 acres near Golden Farm Road in Bettie and is being proposed by property owners Nelson and Dianna Paul of Raleigh.

The ordinance must be approved prior to the expiration of the moratorium in December. Otherwise, the county will be without any regulation dealing with such projects.

During the public hearing, Bob Chambers, a zoning administrator with about 50 years experience in communications systems cited concerns that the proposed ordinance required too much information regarding private business matters of a communication tower, such as customer base, customer demand and quality of service - all things he said had nothing to do with land-use planning.

"It's none of your business who their (a communications provider's) customers are or who they want to serve," he said.

"I don't think it's the government's job to ask what quality of service they will provide."

To keep the county out of business matters, Mr. Chambers suggested rewriting the communication towers portion to require a special-use permit approved by the board of adjustment that could take into consideration a tower's appropriateness in a particular neighborhood.

Communication towers had become a victim of concerns for wind turbines, he said, and they should be put into their own ordinance.

Art Gill of Morehead City, owner of communication towers in Carteret and other counties, that the ordinance would keep communications providers from coming to the county.

"It's a bad ordinance, it's anti-business and I don't think it's needed," he said. "You don't need to solve a problem you don't have."

The requirements for bonds, insurance and decommissioning are outlandish, he said, and are so expensive that no businesses would use any tower someone may be able to afford to put up.

Meanwhile, concerns of the wind turbine portion of the ordinance regarded limits on small-scale facilities, health effects, noise and more.

Stephanie Miscovich, a Golden Farm Road resident who has followed the wind turbine debate closely and has spoken numerous times on the ordinance, said she felt the setbacks of six times the turbine height was appropriate for utility-scale turbines.

"In the past eight months of soliciting guidance from industry professionals, no one offered me a substantiated argument for any setback less than the one proposed on this draft ordinance," she said.

However, she said she was concerned the limits for small-scale utility systems would be too prohibitive and costly for homeowners.

"It is my hope that this ordinance does not prohibit small-scale wind development in our county," Mrs. Miscovich said. "But with the upper limits of 25 kilowatts and 75-foot height, some residential or community wind projects could fall in the category of large systems, which would make them subject to a tremendous array of tests, road analysis, insurance and other costly conditions."

Both Charles Renda Jr. and Ernie Filep, residents of Down East, said they felt their comments made on health concerns, noise and waivers had been ignored. Both men are members of the group Responsible Citizens for Responsible Siting and have also spoken at numerous public meetings on the wind turbine portion of the ordinance.

Mr. Renda said there are legitimate concerns in the medical profession regarding vibro-acoustic disease, which is caused by wind farms. But nowhere in the ordinance was health issues mentioned, he said.

He also noted that the ordinance did not properly address noise for an area like Down East that can be very quiet at times and said noise limits should be based on ambient noise of a proposed site for a turbine.

"Down East is very quiet at night," he said. "You can hear a guy running a boat and you can hear him talking a mile away."

Mr. Filep said that smaller commercial-grade wind farms may be smaller and less ominous than standard energy facilities like nuclear or coal plants, but they still serve major utility facilities.

"Wind energy development is just like any other energy development," he said.

If it was a nuclear or coal plant coming to the area, the county would "insist on a strong governing ordinance," unlike the one proposed, Mr. Filep said.

He said the ordinance "should protect the nearest nonparticipating landowner" when it comes to allowing waivers in exchange for the required setbacks.

Tony Castagna of Beaufort said he thought wind turbines should not be allowed in the county and that geothermal energy systems should be promoted instead because it is much more efficient than wind energy.

"If you approve this ordinance, there will be untold litigation," he said. "The environmental law firms will pick apart this ordinance."

Deborah Golden whose home is directly across from the proposed project in Bettie said she was concerned with health and public safety, as well as the possible negative effects on property values a wind farm could have in the Down East area.

"I don't want to look up and see this thing (turbine) towering over my house," she said.