County signs off on wind turbines

After more than two years of research and discussions, local officials now allow small wind turbines in Albemarle County.

Throughout the course of numerous meetings, Albemarle supervisors have been enthusiastic about the idea of promoting renewable energy use. But in the ninth inning, Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker rallied support for restrictions aimed to limit noise and visual disturbances.

Rooker argued Wednesday that wind turbines should be permitted only in rural areas, and should be erected no closer to neighboring property than 150 feet. Supervisors passed a version of Rooker’s proposal Thursday when they amended a county zoning code to allow wind turbines no taller than 35 feet.

They made the move with the caveat that supervisors might revisit the code sometime in the future to loosen the regulations.

Officials agree that it is unlikely residents will start a mad rush to install wind turbines. There isn’t as much wind in Albemarle as in many other places in the country, meaning that the structures would be less effective here compared with some other places. It would probably take wind turbine owners many years to save enough money from energy cost-savings to recover the purchase cost.

Board of Supervisors Chairman David L. Slutzky said Wednesday that the regulations would be too restrictive under Rooker’s proposal. Slutzky had doubted whether anyone would install a wind turbine under those conditions.

The proposal presented by county staff only called for a setback that equaled the height of the wind turbine, plus 20 feet, and wind turbines would have been permitted in urban areas under that proposal.

Turbines also cannot double as cell phone towers or have lights, nor can they be located within a historic district or within a ridge area.

In other news, supervisors met Thursday with state Dels. Rob Bell and David J. Toscano, both of whom represent Albemarle in the General Assembly, to discuss financial matters.

Bell and Toscano expressed general agreement with Albemarle officials who’ve said the state should grant the county more flexibility to spend state funding dedicated to secondary roads. Currently, the state asks that each locality spend a portion of its “secondary road funds” on unpaved roads — and localities that don’t do so receive less funding for secondary roads in future years.

However, Albemarle wants the penalty eliminated, so that it can use secondary road funds to make improvements to the paved Jarmans Gap Road in Crozet. Toscano said that he or one of the other legislators would submit a bill that would kill the penalty.

Bell said it would be “silly” to let the money “sit there” when it could be put to good use.

Supervisors also asked state legislators to consider submitting legislation that would allow localities to impose as much as 10 years of rollback taxes on rural landowners who exit land-use tax deferral programs. That would double the current maximum, five years. The legislators were noncommittal at the meeting, which was designed for supervisors to explain their legislative requests.

The General Assembly’s regular session convenes Jan. 13.