Flushing Township Planning Commission (Flushing Township) is looking at an ordinance for wind farms in the township so that it is prepared for the future. According to the Commission, the ordinance could include a required set-back, so a turbine would not damage a neighbor's property if it fell over and would also set a decimal limit for wind turbines to avoid noise pollution.
Planning commission chairman Mark Newman said that he favored an ordinance which would allow residents to save energy while respecting their neighbors.
We got to looking at our ordinances and we had nothing, Planning Commission Member Richard Buell, said. A Michigan Townships Association newsletter recommended townships look at creating a wind turbine ordinance.
They say if you don’t have it, you can’t regulate it and if you have it you can’t stop it, but I don’t think anyone wants to stop it, Flushing township’s building inspector Jerry Fitch, said.
There are some that you can hardly hear and some that you can hardly not hear, Buell said.
At Planning Commission meeting on January 12, 2009 Fitch presented the commission with a copy of an ordinance that Chesterfield township in Ottawa county adopted in 2005 as an example.
Newman said that each commission member is reviewing a model ordinance at home and the issue will be revisited at the commission’s February 9, 2009 meeting.