Henderson City-County Planning Commission staff submitted into the record Tuesday evening a proposed ordinance regulating wind energy conversion systems.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Robards resident Melody Thompson submitted her own WECS ordinance draft proposal.
Both submission are voluminous, but Thompson’s is a whopping 350 pages. She said Tuesday that she has spent many all-nighters working on the document.
She told the Hendersonian that she used around 20 other such ordinances in place at locations around the country to help write her proposal.
But she also said she spoke with residents who live near wind turbines around the country and learned of some of the omissions that they believed should have been in WECS ordinances of their counties. She worked to include regulations that she believes were overlooked in those counties, she said.
Brian Bishop, the planning commission’s executive director, said the draft ordinance coming from his office is a bit more than 60 pages.
In a previous interview with the Hendersonian, he said an ordinance in place he started with in writing the local proposal came from Sweetwater County, Wyo. He also said he has bookmarked more than 100 other WECS ordinances from around the country.
Both ordinance draft proposals are now a part of the public record, and residents can obtain copies to study. One option is to use the QR code that has been posted to the Henderson City-County Planning Facebook page. (That QR code is also pictured at the end of this article.)
Because of the voluminous nature of both proposals, the Hendersonian has not yet been able to go through them.
Planning Commissioner Frank Boyett asked if the planning commission’s staff would be able to create a list of similarities and differences in the proposals before the next public hearing about the WECS ordinance. Bishop replied that the staff would do that.
The next public hearing will be 6 p.m., Sept. 16, in the Fiscal Courtroom on the third floor of the old Courthouse. Planning commissioners approved a measure Tuesday night that bumped up the seventh meeting of the scheduled public hearings about WECS to Sept. 16.
At the Sept. 16 public hearing, residents can share their opinions about what the ordinance should include. The planning commission is expected to vote on the recommended ordinance that night, and at that time, the recommended ordinance will be sent to the Henderson Fiscal Court, which has final say.
Fiscal court has never voted against a planning commission recommendation in the 10-plus years that Judge-Executive Brad Schneider has been in his position, said Schneider in a previous interview.
Below the Hendersonian has attached a brief two-page summary that includes the planning commission staff’s key points in its proposed ordinance.
