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NIMBYs now tilting at windmills
(by Dave Lange - June 23, 2010)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
NIMBYs now tilting at windmills
We can add wind turbines to the NIMBY list. "Not in my back yard" now is the rallying cry for residents in the area of Lindsay and Jennifer lanes off Munn Road in Auburn Township. Owners of the nearby 20-acre Wind in the Woods horse farm are planning a 120-foot-high turbine to generate power for their buildings.
The opponents join a long line of NIMBYs, who have protested everything from new highways, landfills, gas and oil rigs and cellular towers to fast-food restaurants, parks and even sidewalks in their neighborhoods.
But the folks in Auburn have two tough roads to hoe -- one from the past and one to the future.
First of all, wind turbines are seen as part of the environmental green wave of the future. Unlike the highways that have greased the skids of urban sprawl and this country's addiction to oil, which are being blamed for global warming and the impending apocalypse, renewable energy generated by giant windmills, solar panels and the like are seen as the world's salvation.
Even so, I personally would be willing to cut the Auburn NIMBYs some slack -- if they would be so kind as to not drive on freeways in other people's back yards, toss out garbage that is dumped in landfills, which almost always are in somebody's back yard, make phone calls that use 200-foot-high towers visible from many people's back yards or order burgers and fries from drive-through windows that are within hearing and smelling distance of neighbors' back yards. But they are more than welcome to visit parks and use sidewalks wherever they please, as far as I'm concerned.
Secondly, and more importantly, this particular wind turbine is being planned for agricultural use, which is a flashback to a time when every farm had a windmill -- although not 120 feet high. It also is entitled to broad-based protections through the Ohio Revised Code.
Anybody familiar with the area surrounding Lindsay and Jennifer lanes in Auburn, including the relatively few people who live there, would readily recognize that it is not primarily a residential neighborhood. It is, in fact, an area of wide open spaces and actual farms, which preceded the housing development.
Granted, the people who bought homes there some years ago probably did not expect a wind turbine looming in their future. But, of course, people who purchased their homes in nearby Bainbridge Township before the onset of urban sprawl to Geauga County didn't anticipate semi-trailer trucks and Cleveland commuters speeding through their neighborhood at 75 mph on the Route 422 freeway either. And those who moved to what they thought was the country before the invention of cell phones didn't realize that their backyard vistas would be spoiled by communications towers virtually everywhere.
State law essentially prevents local zoning in townships from interfering with agricultural uses. There is little doubt that using a wind turbine to provide electricity for farm buildings and farm machinery, which is the stated intent of Wind in the Woods farm, meets the application of the law.
But neighboring residents could count their blessings. Their township officials and the Geauga County Prosecutor's Office swear that the turbine, which exceeds Auburn zoning's height limitations, will not be used for anything other than agricultural purposes, such as providing power for the owners' home or car. Based on numerous activities that are considered agricultural elsewhere in the county, that is a bold break with tradition.
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