Wind farm makes its case for approval - Some dispute land values study

Backers of the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project made a case for approval of their 64-turbine wind farm on Tuesday saying it has reduced visual impact compared to a previous proposal, poses no significant safety risks and won’t hurt land values.

Horizon Wind Energy, a Houston-based firm, brought experts before the Kittitas County Planning Commission and the Board of Commissioners and testified that the project, reduced from 121 turbines to 64, is compatible with the zoning and surrounding land uses.

“This is a dramatically changed project with reduced impacts across the board,” said Dana Peck, Horizon’s project manager, as he stood before an audience of an estimated 130 people at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds.

Peck also said the project, once constructed, will create five to 15 permanent jobs, but the larger benefit will be at least $1 million or more in annual property taxes that will reduce the tax levy rate for property owners.

He also said the Agriculture 20 and Forest & Range zoning at the wind farm site calls for natural resource development as a primary activity, which is compatible with wind generation.

Barton DeLacy, a consultant with the Portland firm of Cushman & Wakefield, said his property sales and values study in and around the 6,000-acre project site 12 miles northwest of Ellensburg, concluded that the project won’t have an impact because land sales are continuing with high and increasing values despite knowledge that a wind farm may be located there.

“We just don’t have evidence to support the contention that wind turbines will reduce property values,” DeLacy said.

He said the appreciating land market in the general project area indicates the market is indifferent to the prospect of a wind farm, or those buying land and building homes there don’t have a personal preference against wind turbines.

Roger Weaver, owner of three RE/MAX Community Realty offices in Kittitas County, said he testified and challenged the consultant’s study. He said there was “no way a wind farm won’t have a significant impact on residential development in the Kittitas Valley.”

“I challenged them to show me another wind farm of this size that went into a similar area where there are the same high scenic and recreational values like in our own Kittitas Valley,” Weaver said. “Show me a project like that and prove to me that it has had a positive impact on residential development.”

Weaver said the bottom line is that a wind farm hasn’t gone into an area similar to the scenic, subdivided properties on both sides of U.S. Highway 97.

Weaver said he knows of a landowner who has sold his property in the Reecer Creek area because he believed a wind farm was coming, and others, including homeowners and business people, who have said they will leave the valley if they come.

Lee Bates of Brick Road, an opponent of wind farms, said some opponents left in frustration before the hearing ended about 10:20 p.m. and didn’t speak. He said Horizon was given a lot of time to make its case and this reduced time later in the evening for other testimony.

The hearing will continue at 7 p.m. tonight at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds. Planning Commission Chairman David Black said it was likely tonight’s hearing will be continued to next week.

Wind farm hearing continues tonight

# The public hearing on the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project continues at 7 p.m. tonight at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds.

# The hearing is before the Kittitas County Planning Commission and the Board of County Commissioners.

# Ninety-two signed up to speak and about 80 are still signed up to give public testimony on the proposal.