By Katie Farrell Lovett
NEWBURYPORT — After months of review, the City Council's Planning and Development subcommittee will issue several recommendations for changes to key areas of the wind turbine ordinance, including lengthening the setbacks and strengthening the notification process to abutters when a proposal for a turbine is filed with the city.
The committee, which consists of councilors Ed Cameron, Kathleen O'Connor Ives and Barry Connell, discussed the document last night before an audience of neighbors and fellow city councilors and city councilors-elect. The recommendations will be submitted to the City Council at their meeting Monday where a joint hearing between the council and Planning Board will be scheduled. The council will then need to vote on adopting the measure at a later meeting.
The council subcommittee was confident the ordinance changes will be voted on before the end of their term in December. Connell noted that this council was the group to implement the ordinance and should be the one to change it, as new councilors will join in January.
The committee began looking over the ordinance in April.
The City Council had agreed to re-examine the ordinance and possibly make changes after neighbors in the Back Bay neighborhood voiced their opposition to the 292-foot turbine put up by business owner Mark Richey on his woodworking facility site in the industrial park. Neighbors urged the council subcommittee to study the setbacks — the closest distance property lines can be from the structure — and notification, pointing to the impact they face from noise and flicker, the shadow caused by the moving blades.
The current setback is 300 feet and the Planning and Development councilors agreed last night to increase that amount to 900 feet, or three times the height of the turbine. Under the ordinance, the maximum height a turbine can be is 300 feet tall.
O'Connor Ives advocated for removing language that allows a turbine to go up at 400 feet tall, under a waiver allowed by the city's Board of Appeals, the group that issues the special permit required for a turbine.
The language should be as "clear and predictable" as possible, she said, saying that would decrease the amount of controversy that a turbine application could raise.
Connell and Cameron disagreed.
The city has had "a learning curve," Cameron said, noting that if another proposal comes forward, many different parties will have a chance to weigh in on the proposal.
The councilors also agreed to strengthen the notification process for abutters and others affected by a turbine going up. Currently, neighbors within 300 feet of the turbine site must be notified when a balloon test is done later in the application process.
The committee will recommend that the applicant must notify all abutters outlined in their noise and flicker studies as being affected, when they file the application to put up a turbine with the city, as well as put a notice in the newspaper, in order to allow those neighbors a chance to follow the process from the beginning.
"The balloon test is the last notification," City Council President James Shanley said. "It's too late in the process."
The area that will also be notified of the balloon test will also be expanded, under the committee's recommendation, from 300 feet to 600 feet, and city officials will also receive notice.
The ordinance was first passed by the council in May 2008.
