On National Wind Watch

filed: July 3, 2009 • Nova Scotia
Turbine strategy delayed; Wind farm calls Digby council’s draft bylaw ambiguous
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DIGBY — Municipal councillors decided Monday to delay the passing of a municipal planning strategy to regulate wind turbines in the Municipality of the District of Digby.

Some senior executives of the proponent of a Digby Neck wind farm spoke out Monday at a public planning hearing in council chambers, urging councillors to kill a draft of the bylaw because they didn’t think it was council’s best work.

Corey Basel, vice-president of SkyPower Corp., said his company did not support passing the draft bylaw, which he said was ambiguous.

Barry Zwicker, vice-president of Scotian WindFields, said council should defer passing the document while it rethinks its position.

Scotian WindFields Inc. is a Nova Scotia company that has partnered with SkyPower Corp. in Ontario to operate the Digby Wind Park, officials announced in 2008.

Their 1,100-hectare wind park is planned for leased private land, said company officials.

A 30-megawatt wind park, comprising 20 big turbines, is proposed for Digby Neck. Each machine will produce 1.5 megawatts and will be installed in the Rossway/Gullivers Cove area of Digby Neck, about 15 kilometres west of Digby.

The wind turbine bylaw has been in the works since last year.

One interesting aspect of the draft bylaw is the tight control the municipality would have over backyard wind turbines.

The municipal document said council believes property owners should be permitted to erect wind turbines for home use on their land as long as they won’t create an unacceptable level of noise for the neighbours.

Council has determined that small windmills, which can’t exceed a 100-kilowatt generating capacity, should not create more than 45 decibels of noise at the property line.

A quiet unit could be as close as 4.5 metres from the property line, while a noisy one might have to be 892 metres back, engineering consultant Chris Millier said Monday evening.

But commercial wind turbines, which are called utility-scale turbines in the draft planning strategy, would be subject to individual development agreements that would establish setbacks from houses and public buildings.

The agreements would be negotiated between the municipality and a developer. But clearly stating what minimum setbacks should be would actually help developers by letting them know up front what they must deal with, said Scott Oldewening, SkyPower’s manager of permitting and planning.

“Any ambiguity in a bylaw could certainly affect future development,” said Mr. Basel. “It can signal to outside investors, banks or developers that there is not an opportunity for investment or development in a community.”

In the end, councillors voted to table the draft planning strategy and bylaw until they could discuss comments made Monday.

By BRIAN MEDEL Yarmouth Bureau

The Chronicle Herald

3 July 2009