Wind panel in Cape haggles over setbacks

Wind panel in Cape haggles over setbacks
By NANCY MADSEN
TIMES STAFF WRITER
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2009

CAPE VINCENT — The town's wind committee finished its five-month-long consideration of a zoning law amendment for wind development by haggling over setbacks.

"Besides the state roads in the town, 11/2 times the turbine height as the setback from roads would be acceptable to me," Councilman Mickey W. Orvis said.

Richard H. Macsherry, Tibbetts Point, said, "If this ultimately is a negotiation, I would like to see a law that is worked on by this committee, not another group. To me, the requirements for sound are more of an issue."

He reminded the committee of an earlier discussion taking the setback from roads down to 750 feet.

"Once you put in a hard number, it's never going to change," Planning Board Vice Chairman Thomas D. Ingersoll said. "If you have a turbine that's 900 feet tall, then it will still be 750 feet back from the road."

The committee agreed on 1,000 feet from Route 12E from the village limits to the Lyme town line and 11/2 times the height of the turbine on all other public roads. The setback on Route 12E from the village limits to the Clayton town line was set previously at 1,000 feet plus 11/2 times the height of the turbine.

Now the draft law will go through a legal review by Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, an Albany law firm that worked on the law. One of the questions from the committee that the firm will consider is whether a provision for waivers in the law impinges on the responsibility of the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Michael J. Bourcy, Jefferson County community development coordinator, said that typically, waivers in zoning laws are for application requirements, not for standards in the law itself.

The waiver protocol in the draft law specifically rules out waiving setback, height or noise requirements.

After the meeting, Supervisor Thomas K. Rienbeck said the law firm wanted two weeks to review the law. The Town Council then could set set a public hearing on the law based on the firm's schedule.