Shinn wins right to use wind
Mattituck vineyard finally allowed to erect wind turbine
2 comments below
Last Tuesday their wish was granted, but it's not exactly what the outspoken advocates of alternative energy had in mind.
With two of the five members absent, the Zoning Board of Appeals voted to allow a 120-foot-tall wind turbine to be set back 150.5 feet from the vineyard's easterly property line. That area is west of their house on land not currently planted with vines.
Ms. Shinn and Mr. Page originally wanted to place the turbine about 136 feet from a neighbor's property. Town Code requires a 300-foot setback for windmills on agricultural lands.
"We're still granting a variance that is quite substantial," Leslie Weisman, the ZBA's new chairwoman, said during deliberations in December. (See Town Hall Notes, page 17.) "This is not about supporting alternative energy. It is about addressing the law as it exists, not as how we might want it to be."
Ms. Weisman said that one major concern from members of the ZBA and the Planning Board about granting the original variance was the number of uses on Shinn's 1.2-acre lot. The couple has expanded upon the land's original farmhouse and agricultural buildings with a bed and breakfast, a winery and a retail wine tasting room. They are also permitted to host events involving 100 or more people.
Mr. Page and Ms. Shinn have received about $23,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Agency to offset the costs of constructing the wind energy system, even though their initial plan violated Town Code. Mr. Page argued at an October public hearing that removing vines to move the wind turbine to the west of his property line would violate the terms of the federal grant, thus negating it all together.
Though the ZBA decision states that the Town Board "fully supports alternative energy" and that the granting of the original variance "would not produce an undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood or a detriment to nearby properties," the document also says the vintners' difficulties have been "self-created."
"The applicants' request to erect a wind turbine was made after the enactment of the Town code provision from which relief is sought, and because the applicants applied for and received a grant from the USDA to construct a small wind-energy system in a proposed non-conforming location before obtaining relief for said location from the ZBA," says the decision.
Now armed with town approval, Mr. Page said that he plans to complete the installation of the turbine in early spring, and he hopes to combine wind energy with solar power to become the first winery on the East Coast to be powered entirely by alternative energy.
But he said he still is concerned about the way the law is currently written.
"I'm assuming that we won't have any problem, but until we have a building permit, we really don't know if we'll have to pass this by yet another committee," he said. "We absolutely need an amended code."
Upon hearing of Shinn Estate's approval, Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell still stands by the code as is.
"It seems that the process works and the law does not need to be changed," he said.
Mr. Page said he hopes the agricultural advisory committee will speak to the Town Board again, because alternative energy is "good for everyone."
"Any kind of system that can take the load of the grid is not only good for the planet, it's good for your pocketbook," he said.
eschultz@timesreview.com
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2 comments found
: 1/12/2010
These people did not "win the right to install a turbine"- they already had that right under the current law. They merely won the right to put it in a specific location that differed from the one the law would have allowed.
Wind Turbines are a beautiful thing : 1/7/2010
Time-lapse film of wind turbine construction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhKSk4CZNYw
