Edgewood Considering Windmills Without Requiring Permits
 by John Weckerle
Tonight, with very little fanfare before the fact, the Town of Edgewood will hold public hearings on a proposed amendment to the zoning ordinance to allow windmills as a permitted use in all residential areas. Towers may be up to 80 feet tall on small lots (1/2 to 1 acre) and with no limit on height on larger lots. The ordinance can be found here.
The proposed revision appears overly simplistic and indicates that inadequate consideration was given to the complex issues associated with wind turbine use in residential settings. For example, the noise requirement states that a level of 60 decibels may not be exceeded at the “closest neighboring inhabited dwelling.” In some situations, there may be many undeveloped lots between the windmill and the next inhabited dwelling, potentially rendering those lots uninhabitable and depriving the owners of the ability to build homes on them. Taken in that context, some may suspect that the windmill ordinance has a certain “anti-development” goal. Allowing wind turbines – and their associated towers, to be permitted rather than conditional uses seems to ignore the complex and varied residential configurations found within Edgewood’s rather extensive land area.
While this writer has been a strong supporter of distributed renewable energy, there are serious concerns regarding the use of windmills that must be considered – specifically, those associated with bird and bat fatalities.  Much of the area’s charm comes from its wildlife – including the hawks, ravens, and other birds that populate our skies and help keep rodent and insect populations in balance (the bats are a big help there) – and it is important that this issue be understood in detail before landowners are given carte-blanche authorization to start knocking up towers. There are also visual resources issues to consider. Many of the residents in the area purchased their land and constructed their homes with the understanding that certain height restrictions were in place. The effect of the new ordinance on visual resources should be studied in detail before any such revision to the ordinance is put into place.
While moving toward energy independence is a worthy goal, it is a journey that should not be undertaken lightly. The Town Council should table this ordinance revision and contract with a qualified environmental consulting firm to conduct, at a minimum, and environmental assessment-scale (and possibly an environmental impact statment-scale, given the significance of the issue) study to assess the environmental impacts of this complex and potentially far-reaching decision before proceeding.