04-27-2015 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, April 13, 2015 7:00 o’clock p.m. __________________________________________________________________________________ Page 4 of 40 (PUBLIC COMMENTS continued) Nygard stated first of all he would like to remind the Council that Orono’s current land use plan under Page 3B-17, Item 12, calls for the following: All landowners must have equal land use opportunities and no landowner should be denied the right to develop his land, etc. Nygard stated equal rights for all is a very basic principle but that the way this ordinance is being written is not even close at all. Nygard stated the Council is limiting opportunities for wind turbines to approximately five percent of all Orono properties and to three commercial properties, which not only violates the spirit of the policy but also contradicts Judge Bush’s ruling in Hennepin County. The ruling quotes the MN State Legislature, which put into law in 1995 the idea that any person may harvest the wind. Nygard stated he is not sure what any person means to the Council, but to him it means any person or every person. Nygard stated that happens to be any person who lives in Minnesota since it is a Minnesota Statute. Nygard stated to that end, City Staff has developed an ordinance which precludes him from harvesting the wind many times over. The ordinance also prevents more than 95 percent of the residents within the community from harvesting the wind, which is a state given right. Nygard stated the ordinance prevents him from having a wind turbine for a number of reasons. First of all, the Council wants to require a shadow flicker study. Nygard stated he finds it kind of ironic that City Staff has admitted that there is nowhere local where someone can obtain a shadow flicker study but yet the Council is going to enact an ordinance that would require people to comply with that. In addition, Staff quoted a company out of Michigan as being able to provide a shadow flicker report. Nygard stated he is not sure whether Staff has called that company, because when he called them, he was informed that they had not done any of them for three years for small turbines and that they found out it was pretty much a silly idea, which is why they went away from it. Nygard stated shadow flicker studies are always done for large wind farms. Their shadow flicker report also focused on conventional three- blade turbines that were over 15 hertz 82 percent of the time. Nygard stated what that means is that if it is over 15 hertz, it is something the eye cannot register, and that as a result there could not be any shadow or flicker 82 percent of the time, and that is if it is sunny and if the sun is located in the right position Nygard stated in rare cases there have been health effects, which is basically for people with epilepsy. Nygard stated his son happens to have auto-accident induced epilepsy and that he has stated publicly many times that turbines do not bother him but that he complains that leaf blowers and lawnmowers tend to mess with his head. Nygard stated if the Orono City Council chooses to go ahead with this over-the-top requirement, the German regulations, which are the international standard, should be followed. Nygard stated he has no idea why the Council is completely ignoring them since most of those requirements are based in common sense and real world effects. Staff has also pulled out some articles that have been submitted to the Council. One is a shadow flicker assessment of the Goodhue wind project. In that situation the study was looking at large wind farms, which is what the Council was looking at when making up this ordinance. Nygard stated he is not sure how that makes sense since there is nowhere in Orono where someone can put up a large wind farm. In addition, Nygard stated the study says that sighting shall be to diminish shadowing or flickering, with no specific limits being given, and that a person should avoid unreasonable adverse shadow flicker. City Council Meeting April 27, 2015 Page 6 of 257