Document Missoula_doc_bb3282dbed

Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 1 of 27 MISSOULA CONSOLIDATED PLANNING BOARD MINUTES July 20, 2010 – 7:00 p.m. Missoula City Council Chambers, 140 West Pine MEMBERS PRESENT John DiBari Kelley Durbin Tim Ibey Heidi Kendall Jerry O’Connell Jerry Petasek ALTERNATES PRESENT Carol Evans [7:03 pm] Tim Skufca MEMBERS ABSENT Jennifer Clary Jonathan Haber Don MacArthur STAFF PRESENT Mike Barton Jen Gress Laval Means John Newman Sharon E. Reed OTHERS PRESENT Lane Coulston John Hendrickson Brian Kerns Mike Sudik Jason Wiener B. Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) - A city initiated text amendment request to revise Section 20.45.080 of Title 20 City Zoning Ordinance, to permit installation of WECS within city limits. The zoning code currently forbids WECS installations. Heidi Kendall: Our next hearing is on Wind Energy Conversation Systems, and thank you to the folks in the audience who have been waiting patiently for this issue to come up. And John Newman is going to be presenting the staff report and then we will have public comment and then our discussion. Are you ready, John? John Newman: I am ready. Heidi Kendall: Or would you like me to chat a bit? John Newman: No, I think we’re good. Heidi Kendall: Okay, take it away. John Newman: Thank you very much. Good evening, Planning Board members, I’m John Newman with the Office of Planning and Grants and yes, tonight, a presentation regarding revision to Title 20, Section 20.045.080, Wind Energy Conversion Systems. When the Title 20 zoning code was passed, or when it was being reviewed, I should say, before the Planning Board, the Planning Board review draft that came forward in April of 2009 contained a section in 20.45, which is the Accessory Use section, that basically outlined how Wind Energy Conversion Systems would be installed in…within City limits. And when that piece was discussed on April 22, 2009, the Board, essentially, moved to remove that language and put a provision in there, under that section .080 that said that Wind Energy Conversion Systems can’t be installed within City limits, just a prohibition outright. Since adoption of the ordinance, OPG has been directed by City Council to kind of revisit this section of the code and to explore a text amendment to enable the installation of Wind Energy Conversion Systems and this comes from, basically, a citizen request, and that’s precipitated our meeting here this evening and going forward with a change. On May 26th of this year, the PAZ Committee for City Council moved that the language that was contained in that Planning Board review draft be brought back to Planning Board to be reviewed again, following an agency industry expert and interested party review period. The listed agencies that were contacted is included as Attachment A, and then Attachments B and C are the Planning ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 2 of 27 Board Minutes from April 22, 2009, and then the minutes from the PAZ meeting just back May 26th. And, really what we’re talking about here, and I think that pictures are probably the most important thing that we can have for this item. The visual is critical, I think. We’re talking about essentially wind turbines, and there are two types of wind turbines that we’re kind of focusing on here that are popular in the industry these days. The first is a horizontal axis wind turbine. It’s a classic, three-blade design that everybody thinks of—I think, or a lot of people think of. And I tried to get as many photos that show these units in the context of a residential neighborhoods, urban areas, built-up areas. Another photo here from Utah and you can see the approximate tower height, here, the same height as this two-story home. One here on the lake, a very small one, seemingly attached to a shed. And then another here with a residence. The second type is a vertical-axis wind turbine. And the horizontal and the vertical both kind of have their place, depending on where you are. The horizontal axis is arguably better for sort of wider open spaces or spaces where a more-continuous sustained wind is present. The vertical axis wind turbines shines in areas where you might see what people call “dirty wind.” Wind that’s the result of a lot of…a lot of structures, plant life, trees, houses, any sort of thing that would cause turbulence and disruption in that smooth flow of air. So the vertical axis wind turbine looks, I would say, significantly different; almost artistic in some instances. This is Urban Green Energy, I think, is the company that makes this unit, and it almost resembles some sort of art installation. This is another unit here, again, in the context of a home, although this one’s in the foreground and maybe not great context. Here’s one, again, and you can see that the axis is just center pole, essentially, and the equivalent of the blades that you would see in horizontal axis unit are those upright vanes, they can wind from any direction and result in movement, which would generate electricity. This is a different sort of design; it’s basically kind of two sails twisting around that vertical axis. This has some decent scale in the human side, here, the guy in the cherry picker about the same size as the actual spinning part of the array and people just amazed, apparently. Here’s another one here, you can see that the vanes start about the…about the…just a little bit higher than that tractor wheel, so maybe eight, maybe ten feet. This is one going up, you can see it tilted, there, and the skid steer up the hill is actually raising it. And then that’s the final product. So the review, as I said that the language that went, that was forwarded from PAZ to Planning Board; went out to agencies and interested parties, that list included a number of people from around the state, some organizations that are interested and study wind energy, along with some folks who actually install turbines; and then the sort of usual suspects that we see in City project review, including City Engineering. We sent it to the DNRC to take a look at—or, excuse me, Fish, Wildlife and Parks. We sent it to Montana Audubon, that’s a big concern among folks, or at least the perceived concern is that avian collisions are an issue with these sorts of units. And the comment that we got back was largely constructive. City Engineering was basically just concerned that the proposed regulations include some sort of provision for maintenance, and we included that. And I’ll go over that change when I talk about how we actually revised the language that went forward to the agencies and was originally forwarded to you. Other than that, the concerns expressed by Engineering, really, will be taken care of when these units come under building and electrical code review, which they would as installations in the City. Alternative Energy Technologies, which is associated with the University of Montana, suggested a couple of changes. One of their changes or one of the things they suggested keeping was that systems be allowed to have a 100 kilowatt maximum output. That’s another thing I’ll talk about in just a little while when I go over the regulations that we’re recommending, as well as a lack of ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 3 of 27 minimum system height. Alternative Energy Technologies owns the turbine in Hellgate Canyon, and that’s a 10 kilowatt turbine, just to give you an idea; so 100 kilowatt maximum is definitely something to speak of. And they also touched on that idea of avian collisions and sort of specified that at this scale, the scale that we’re talking about, the residential or small scale, perhaps maybe even multiple home scale wind turbines, you don’t see the avian collisions that are associated with the really massive units that exist in Altamonte Pass, California, where sometimes you see the blades going down the highway on flatbeds. They’re massive. And they overwhelm flocks. They’re something that birds just can’t move out of the way from; whereas, something on this scale, maybe a 10 to 12 foot diameter rotor or, in the case of a vertical axis system, something that birds can easily avoid. And that was a point that was pushed by Alternative Energy Technologies. We also heard from AERO, which is Montana’s Alternative Energy Resources Organization. They’re primary recommendation had to do with setbacks. Once again, I’ll touch on that when I go into the regulations that are coming forward to you guys. And we got a comment before the staff report was drafted from Solar Plexus here in Missoula. They really had a lot of questions about whether or not urban wind is viable, period. Not necessarily any suggestions for us in changing the regulations, more a question of whether or not we should do this, period. Oh, I should mention, too, that we received some comment after the fact; and that comment was passed out to you guys just earlier this evening that’s from Fish, Wildlife and Parks. They had originally commented that they didn’t have enough time and I guess found the time. Their concern was that maybe a Wind Energy Conversion System be installed too close to a riparian area or a place where birds might be concentrated. Again, perhaps touched on by Alternative Energy Technologies that maybe the concerns aren’t quite there for avian collisions, but something to think about from Fish, Wildlife and Parks. And then we also received comment from Big Sky Solar and Wind. Some of that comment touched on, again, a height limit and some of the setback issues, kind of curious whether or not that needs to be included or whether or not that’s taken care of, whether setbacks will be taken care of by other City codes. So in sort of folding the agency comment we received into the proposal, we get to Attachment I, which is the Planning Board Review Draft of the regulations. So we had the regulations that were forwarded by PAZ, which was the original language that was contained back in April of 2009; and then we have the language that incorporates those comments. We’ll just take a quick look through Attachment I and then conclude here. Well, the first things you’ll notice we did is we struck the attached to a building option. So any sort of Wind Energy Conversion System installation would be limited to a ground-mounted installation. The reason for that is the literature suggests that installing something that generates this sort of shaking, I suppose, that forces on the equipment itself, it needs to be very much attached to something solid. Some of the footings for these are significant: 6 feet deep, very large concrete footings. And we wondered if perhaps it was just too complicated to incorporate the isolation that you would need to to include here in mounting one of these on a building. So we just struck it all together. From there, we move on to a definition, and this touches on that 100 kilowatt question. Some of the research, again, the literature suggests that a 100 kilowatt turbine, this might be a little bit dated in size as technology increases with both types of turbines, I’m sure that you can achieve a higher power output with a smaller rotor diameter. But some of the research suggests that a 100 kilowatt turbine would have somewhere in neighborhood of a 60-foot rotor diameter. That’s significant. So our idea was to bring that down, max it out at about 25 kilowatts, which would be somewhere in the neighborhood a 30-foot rotor diameter. That’s still probably more than what most people in the City would be able to fit on a lot; and considering that the vertical axis turbine is ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 4 of 27 probably going to be the unit of choice for most people, that might not really even be much of a concern. Next on down here in the Planning Board Draft is the setback issue that was brought to…brought forward by AERO. Essentially, what we did here was if someone’s going to install a small Wind Energy Conversion System and they’re going to comply with the overall height requirements of their zoning district, that turbine needs to setback 1.1 times the overall height of the system. And that just guarantees that if a system were to fall over, there’s still a sort of a cushion in distance. If it was, say, setback the height of the unit, obviously you could potentially see one fall into an easement or a right-of-way or something like that. So this just insures that if a system collapses, there’s a bit of a cushion in distance. A little bit further down we see that an installer could exceed the zoning district height limits by up to 33 percent, if that setback distance is increased to one and one-half times the overall height of the system. So, if you’re going to go…you can go up to 33 percent above that height limit if you’re going to go one and one-half times back from the property line. Then moving down towards the end, here, one of the requirements that we’re hoping to include in any sort of submittal for a Zoning Compliance Permit would just be a site plan that illustrates the property, building setbacks, rights-of-way, that sort of thing. And then a little bit further down, we have a change to what was the abandonment section and this addresses some the City Engineering comment, and adds, you know, some information about maintenance. This was taken partially from the sign chapter in Title 20 and included here to address some of the comments from Engineering. I had one other just piece of information to address a part of the standards and that’s the sound issue that a lot of people discuss with these units. Right now the regulations as proposed would have a maximum operational noise of 55 decibels. And this comes from a study by the American Wind Energy Association about the average sounds and some of the things that might hear day- to-day. An air conditioning unit, I think, is probably the most germane one to talk about when you think about someone just having a central air unit on the outside of their home; and at 20 feet that generates 20 decibels. For a comparable distance from a set…considering maybe a setback from one of these units would be at least 20 feet in all likelihood and the max would be 55. So really, it wouldn’t be generating sound that goes beyond what we would hear from the sort of associated equipment with homes that’s legal right now. I think maybe I misspoke and said 20 decibels for an air conditioning unit; it’s actually 60, there, as you can see. And in conclusion, a recommended motion, at the…also at the front of the staff report here that the proposed amendments as contained in Attachment I be recommended to the City Council for approval. Thanks. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, John. All right, so let’s have some public comment. Anybody in the audience wish to speak about this issue, this proposal, please come up. Could you come up to the mic and give us your name and all that. Thanks. Hi. Mike Sudik: My name is Mike Sudik, with Big Sky Solar and Wind; and I am here tonight, obviously, because that’s what my business does, is solar and wind stuff.; And there’s a lot of misconceptions on how the wind works; and I am here to, hopefully, answer some questions that might come up, and also do my best to talk to you about, hopefully, changing some of these recommendations as I wrote in the letter that I sent to everybody and, hopefully, you all have that. A couple of the main things that I’m hoping that we talk about and possibly change, most important, I think, would be the height issue. And there’s lots of talk of potentially a turbine falling. I do not see that happening. There’s 6 feet of concrete down in the earth and I’m really hoping ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 5 of 27 that we can do our best to keep this industry going. The vertical turbines need lower towers than horizontal ones. Horizontal wind turbines have to be very high up in the air. So, when we really start changing technology to something that can be used in Missoula, which is more of a vertical, then we’re going to start trying our best to keep the heights down. Originally, when I started tackling all of this, I really thought we’d have trouble with a lot of neighborhoods worrying about the visual aspects of these. And I thought that the lower that we get them, the better off we are with hurting our viewshed. So I think it’s really in everybody’s best interest if we find products and start developing products that get them as low to the ground, that make them safe, that allows us to get closer to our property boundaries; because at the current setbacks we’re talking about, the majority of the lots in Missoula will not qualify. We’re talking about coming in 30 feet, which means you have to have a 60 foot by 60 foot lot, and I don’t know where your house sits. So I’m hoping that that can be one of the biggest things that we address in the heights. If I could just keep going on, I guess, in my list. I did bring up in my letter the lattice and the guide towers, which is similar to what we have in Hellgate Canyon. You know, that is more of a tower that is meant for a three-bladed turbine, again. Three-bladed turbines, getting up to 25 kW, they do have big blades. I really don’t see many people even having an interest in installing a turbine that big; but I really hope that our smaller turbines start getting higher name plate ratings, and we do start accomplishing that. I don’t feel that we should write off the optional lattice towers and guy wires. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling that’s in other codes that prevent antennas from ham radios and stuff from being too obtrusive. In the future, up on the South Hills, and surrounding areas, we may find people that want three-bladed turbines that a lattice tower or guy tower would be the best option. We’ve never installed one of those, to this date, my company or me, myself; but I do see there being a reason to try to keep it open on that as long as it meets all the other requirements that we have. There was also some talk in the maintenance section from the engineers; you know, they really didn’t communicate with companies like mine before they made their comments. The big thing I want to push is that the identification tags that are recommended and the maintenance, that’s what keeps me in business and my other competitors in business, because we have to make sure our stuff is working. We also have to follow very strict codes, being the National Electric Code and also structural codes. Structural being the simplest, really, the big concrete piers holding stuff up; but then the electrical is really governed and that’s also overseen by NorthWest Energy. They look at everything. They don’t like wind because it takes money away from them. So they throw as many hurdles as they can. They come out, they look at everything. We need big identification tags, no matter what. We need to make sure our units are running. At least in the near future, we are going to have very few clients that buy wind. The main reason is the expense. However, NorthWest Energy does have small amounts of grants that they give out. So we potentially will see a couple a year take advantage of the grants and get these systems in. With that grant is a guarantee that it has to be up and running for so many years and NorthWest Energy checks every year. So, I don’t know if the maintenance is as big a concern because it’s already taken care of by higher up people that will just turn your power off. So I’d love to answer any questions you guys have about it, because there’s tons of misconceptions. Heidi Kendall: Wonderful, thank you for your testimony. We’ll have comments from others. Mike Sudik: Okay. Heidi Kendall: And then there will an opportunity for us to ask you questions. So, super. Mike Sudik: Thank you so much. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 6 of 27 Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Lane Coulston: My name is Lane Coulston, 925 Lilac Street in Missoula. This issue arose out of a conversation I had with Jason Wiener some months ago and…which has really brought it to this process of coming through the City to gain the ability for people to have small-scale wind energy development on their property. And the most interesting comment, I think, that is relevant here on the larger issue is at your April 22nd meeting when Heidi said, “…and you should ask if it’s forbidden, you know Missoula would become the community that won’t allow sustainable, you know, individual efforts to reduce people’s costs, reduce global warming and all that.” That’s really, I think, you know, the crux of the issue here and that’s what’s got me started. We remodeled a house three years ago here in Missoula, looked at scale, looked at energy conversion, brought in PV system for an active solar system. We have solar-heated hot water. We’ve done a lot of things to bring our total energy costs down. And, fortunately at the time that we put all of this in, we saved a redundant conduit that’s right there laying in wait for the DC current from a wind generator to move into our inverter and into our battery system and from there onto the net metering. It would really be a nice complement. But what we’ve done is really a model, and it’s very difficult to do in the wind energy part because it’s the chicken-and-egg situation. We don’t have any permissive ordinance or any encouraging ordinance that allows this sort of business to develop. And I think as a result, some of the kinds of things you saw recently in reviews were…were without any knowledge of the vertical axis turbines. They only had the horizontal one, which is, you know…but nobody’s even selling those, because there’s no business. And so the business hasn’t developed, we’re just this chicken-and-egg sort of thing. I would note that in the state, the dominant company and effort that where a lot of vertical axis turbine development testing and even construction is going on, is outside of urban jurisdictions, outside of City jurisdictions. And there’s a company, and, of course, there’s plenty of product that come in from Europe, we just don’t have a shortage of low watt, you know, small-scale residential turbines. So I think that this can happen. So I’m asking you just to pass this on, get it on to the City Council so we can work with it; and I think you’ll just see this thing blossom and develop from there. But at least I most likely will be the first one to put one up and to combine it with the rest of a…of a alternative energy system that will be…which is already a model, you know, for classes at the University and the public has come several times to open houses, so there’s a fair amount of interest going on in there. About the…the…the language in front of you, one of the solutions is to separate out the horizontal axis…or the horizontal turbines from the vertical axis, because they have really two separate sorts of characters. And the vertical axis turbine that I’m going to put up, it needs to go on a 10-foot pole, no higher than that, and I don’t want it any higher than that. I think if the preponderance of evidence seems to be…I think, you know, as John mentioned, I don’t think anybody will be doing the old three-propeller blades in rural development. I think that’s just going to go the way of the Dodo, here, really quickly. Once you make this other one possible, there’s just going to be…there’s so much new technology out there; it’s a new age for generating wind and I think the three-blade is just going to disappear. But if somebody wanted to do that and had a particular setting where they wanted to do that, more than likely this 20-foot tower was probably written with that in mind. So much of our language has been couched in what we perceive to be a windmill and that’s the windmill and at 20-feet, fine with me if they want to do that. But that’s one way to try to, you know, to try not to bring these other towers down or try to find a place to meet in between. I would just say, segregate it and take them apart. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 7 of 27 The other thing is that, I would just point out that in Missoula, it sounded like there was no data about what wind is in Missoula and that there might not be enough to do all of this. Granted, I live in a place that will have some of the lowest wind and yet the new turbines are…begin to generate something at 5 miles an hour. Today’s little breeze, based on the data from the weather station over in Rose Park, you know, had this little breeze at 2 miles an hour; and it very quickly picks up to 5 and then at 10, it will just, you know, it’ll blow really substantially. I have, you know, with my PV system, I can collect solar energy four to five hours a day in a really good day when the sun is really going. The weather station shows that often in the shorter seasons and other times of the year when sun may not be as strong, we have at least ten hours of wind at 10 to 25 miles an hour. Now, this data is available for anybody to pull up and John has the link to it; I sent him that yesterday, so that you can actually go to that site day by day by day. Just pick a day, you can just randomly go pick a day in May, or June, and you can discover how much wind is actually, you know, happening. It talks about which direction it’s coming from, so this dirty wind thing is solved and you get, you know, it isn’t going to blow steady 10 miles an hour all day long. But you might have 10 or 12 hours where you’ve had at least 10 miles an hour, and even longer than that. And that would be plenty adequate for the kind of system that I’m, you know, have already started and will develop. Thanks. Heidi Kendall: Thank you very much. Additional public comment? Mr. Wiener? Jason Wiener: It looks different from here. So, my name is Jason Wiener, I asked you all to take another look at this and I really appreciate you doing that. First, of course, thanks for your work here, I really appreciate the advice that you give us; and I, you know, blast from the past, thank you for all the time you put into Title 20. I was revisiting the minutes from the earlier meeting on this. Wow, wasn’t that a fun time. But we got through it and we got a good set of regulations. And you know what I remember from discussing wind at the City Council is essentially that we had this whole long list of things that were issues; and we had no proponents for wind, and we had lots of questions. And we just said, hey, let’s leave this until another day. And so I’m glad to be here with the impetus of Lane wanting to do this for the other day. So, you know, basically, I am motivated something by this desire to find alternatives to the way that we power ourselves right now. And I believe that distributed generation has the potential to, you know, make electricity a more democratic thing (small but one that we all, you know, participate in, giving and taking from the network, and we aren’t simply captives of whatever generation can be built on a enormous scale and transmitted over huge lines. And so I think that we need to be providing opportunities for people who are motivated, who want to innovate, to experiment with those things. I think there’s real opportunity there. And so I just want to encourage you to take a look at this, help us to craft a reasonable regulation that allows people to, you know, to innovate and to develop this technology. Brian Kerns was here earlier. He had to leave, but he brought a decibel meter with him just because of this noise question. So he was sitting, you know, in the second row back there, and he said that the loudest it got in here was 82 decibels. So on the chart that’s labeled…I don’t know who it was, he didn’t give me a point in time; but that sort of gives you, you know, that perspective on, you know, what a 55 decibel limit would actually amount to. So, thanks again, I look forward to hearing your deliberations. Heidi Kendall: Thank you very much. Okay, we will close the public hearing portion of this and begin our board discussion. Who wants to start? Any questions, comments? Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: I’ll start with the height issue (as soon as my mic stops moving) 20 feet, which is in the original recommendation and in the current one, too. It just seems a little arbitrary, I mean ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 8 of 27 it’s based on no least presented scientific data. I can see you probably want plenty clearance with a big three-bladed horizontal turbine; but these vertical axis turbines don’t have the velocities that the…and the momentum that those big blades have. And 10 feet seems much more reasonable. I mean, your kid’s not going to be able to jump up and hit it with his hand, he might be able to throw a basketball at it, but that’s about it. And height is important, or lack of height; those things don’t need as much clean air like the horizontal ones. So I’d say I’d like to see it lowered; with that, requires us to get a separate height for horizontal versus vertical axis in the regs, but it should be lower, I think. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Does anybody want to respond to that or defend 20 feet or anything like that? No? Tim. Tim Ibey: And actually, if I could maybe call on, is it Mr. Newman, or Mike, I look into doing wind and it’s my understanding that the higher you get the more clean the wind is. Sorry, I was pulling a Jerry…and so especially in a situation in town, I would think that 10 feet would be a bit short unless you had a clear pathway to the wind and the velocities the higher you go are better for wind…or for production, and…can you comment on that? Mike Sudik: [Inaudible, speaking from audience] Heidi Kendall: Mr. Sudik, could you come up to the mic? We’re going to need to get you on the record, here. Thank you so much for staying to answer questions. Mike Sudik: It is based on the type of turbine you’re using. Three-bladed turbines, and if you read Solar Plexus’ letter, they really are discussing three-bladed turbines. They need a very clean wind; it’s like certain types of sailboats where you need that wind being consistent. You get to the vertical axis turbines, and they are set up for urban areas where there’s swirling wind, the wind shoots down a roof and actually can be greater. And, really, the real development that needs to happen is in big cities. The amount of turbulence and wind shooting through and that is where all this development is trying to get to, is to capture that wind. So when you have roofs and you have different terrain features around that create more wind, you actually can gain better winds with a vertical. So, hopefully, that clarifies that and, again, I…and going backwards, somebody brought up the velocity and speed, the three-bladed ones spin way faster, especially the residential-scale ones. You get up the 60, 90 foot blade size and they do not spin very fast, actually, which is odd. Heidi Kendall: John. John DiBari: So to carry on with that height issue, so if you had a tower height, or I guess…I’m not exactly sure what the wording is, let’s figure out what that wording is. John Newman: It’s lowest point of the equipment, so if it was… John DiBari: Right, the lowest point of the equipment is 10 feet above the ground, then what is the typical maximum height including the…if we’re talking about a vertical axis turbine, what would the typical maximum height be? Mike Sudik: I would say most vertical axis turbines on the market right now, just like we saw in the pictures, are ranging from 3 to 8 feet tall. So if we start at 10 feet, you know, we’re going to end up 15, 20 feet total. And that actually, you know, that puts us in that pickle where if we do a 20 foot max…or minimum, and your turbine is that large, you start imposing on the other height requirements. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 9 of 27 John DiBari: Right. I just…we had heard discussion about the lowest end of it, but I…we didn’t hear much discussion about what the highest end was. Mike Sudik: Right, and I believe it was really the lowest moving part. John DiBari: Right. Mike Sudik: Because some of these turbines might have an inverter or something. John DiBari: And, I guess I’ll just carry on here for a second. You know, given that we are prone at times to taking baby steps related to some of these issues, I’d like to toss out on the table that perhaps to narrow the scope of an ordinance like this, we limit it to these vertical-axis turbines and try to craft a set of regulations that works well with that without having to introduce the complexities of the horizontal axis ones. Any thoughts on that? Mike Sudik: I think that the clientele that’s going to purchase the vertical axis turbines, at least with the current technology, is more going to be like in Lane’s case, where your neighborhood, it’s very tough, he’s in the Rattlesnake. I don’t think we should rule out the three-bladed turbines because up in the South Hills, that would be a very important type of equipment to use up there. And I think one of the pictures you guys had was a very small unit, which they no longer sell because they had trouble; but they are working on fixing those small ones, and at one point they could more like a weathervane type three-bladed turbine that’s only 3, 4 feet. And that would still go on a pool, and you would want it up 20 feet, 25 feet to get that clean wind. So I’m not certain we should rule that out. John DiBari: So I guess, you know, we’re being asked to craft an ordinance here that might…well, that would be generic, I guess, that would handle all cases of these and that… Mike Sudik: I guess the solution… John DiBari: …would be a more difficult thing to kind of do on the fly, as we’re trying to go through this tonight. Mike Sudik: I think what it comes down to with the three-bladed turbines right now is that if you try mounting one below 20 feet, it’s going to be lawn art. John DiBari: I just wanted… Mike Sudik: It’s going to be lawn art. It’s not going to move; it’s just going to sit there. And nobody would do that. So we really don’t have to worry about the three-bladed dangerous turbines being mounted 10 feet off the ground, because that is not what the manufacturer’s going to recommend; whereas, on the vertical, the manufacturers are recommending 10, 15, 20 feet only. John DiBari: I’ll just make one more comment if that’s okay. Heidi Kendall: Sure. John DiBari: So, I think the minutes from the last set of meetings we had on this reflect that I said something like that I would be a huge fan of a distributed power system as being an important component of energy generation for…as Jason put it, a small D democratic society. And I definitely feel that way. I mean, I think this is a great idea. Also, I see this as not an economic argument or discussion, but as a land use one; and I think that given my propensity to kind of like this idea, the one thing that I do want to say about it is that the devil is sort of in the details. And ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 10 of 27 for me, it might be a lot easier to kind of narrow the scope of this so that we can hone an ordinance that would…that we could kind of get through tonight and not try to craft regulations for the gamut of possibilities in town at the time. Heidi Kendall: If I can just respond to what you’re saying, John, I think that’s really important. I would also point out, though, that there have been a couple of drafts of this already, so there has been a lot of crafting going on. And if I understood Mr. Sudik and Mr. Coulston, they had a few kind of minor suggestions. But I think we’re a lot of the way there already just because of the staff work and the conversations that have been going on. So I don’t think we do have to be here for hours and hours and hours to get the details right. I think we’re pretty close. That’s just the sense that I have. Okay, who’s next? Tim. Tim Skufca: Well I think Mike’s suggestion is to separate the two types of systems is key. If we use the wording that OPG’s suggesting for the horizontal, none of those could go in town, anyway. So I think we just use that for the horizontal and then draft the vertical in a completely separate section and give it different setbacks, different heights, and we’re well on our way to getting it all done. Heidi Kendall: John. John Newman: I would note that…well, first of all, you know, this was a Duncan Associates product, which, I think, speaks to its applicability in a number of other places. It’s been, I’m sure, utilized in a number of other places, and it was passed along with that sort of experience built in. The other thing that I would stress is that I think that a lot of this already contemplates vertical axis turbines. The use of the word “vane” in a number of different places, I think this is designed to cover both types. I suppose there’s the possibility that a third paradigm for wind, or fourth or fifth could be developed; but right now this covers the two, the only two types of turbines…varieties of turbines that you would see on the market. I kind of tend to agree that it’s kind of there already. I don’t know that we would need to craft something specific to vertical. Heidi Kendall: Tim. Tim Skufca: But, like Mike said, it we’re stuck with this 1.1 distance from a building, there’s no place that we can put any of these in the urban…in the urban context. It just; it doesn’t happen. John Newman: That’s a property line setback, actually, 1.1 times the property line…or 1.1 times the height from the property, not necessarily from a building. Tim Skufca: Right, so… John Newman: So if it was 18 feet tall, 1.1 times…that’s 19.8 feet from each property line, that’s like a 3,000 square foot lot. Yeah, 40 by 40 square, which is a 1600… Tim Skufca: But your house can’t be in…it has to be away from the house, too. Jerry O'Connell: No, no. John Newman: Not necessarily…not according to the ordinance, no. It can be right next to… [Many different Board members speaking at once.] John Newman: It can’t be on the house, but it can be right next to it, if you chose to put it right next to it. It might not be an advisable place for it, 2 feet from your home, but you’re ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 11 of 27 Mike Sudik: Your numbers didn’t include the turbine itself. John Newman: What’s that? Mike Sudik: Your numbers did not include the turbine itself. If the height to the bottom’s 18 feet, I mean that’s assuming we change it to a 10 foot, for example. John Newman: Of course, that is assuming that things get changed there. And I mean, I think I…you know, we discussed with Mr. Coulston the possibility of having…of splitting out the heights for vertical and horizontal. But I do…I do think the language covers both conditions in a lot of places. Tim Skufca: But are you…do you also agree that they cannot…they should not be attached to the building? Mike Sudik: At this present time, they do not have models that work good; however, the vertical axis, that is the goal, to attached to the high rises, to attach to roofs. And I really don’t think we should be eliminating that. But it does open up a can of worms that might make us stay here too late; and Lane’s not ready to do that. And the models will…it will be a few years, and at that point it’s going to be really easy to come in here and you’re all going to have units down the street from your house or on your house, hopefully. You’ve got my number. Tim Skufca: So one last thing. If this wording is adopted, would Mr. Coulston’s system be allowed? Mike Sudik: At the present revisions, without my recommendations, I don’t think it would be able to work. No, he would not be allowed. Tim Skufca: So I have problems, if we don’t revise the wording in front of us. Heidi Kendall: So let’s do it. Right? That’s what we’re here for? Tim Skufca: Right. Heidi Kendall: Right. Jerry O'Connell: I think we can do it, with the…again now, I’m just talking about the height issue; but I think it’s an important one. Without doing a whole massive amount of rewriting in here, the height issue is right down there in D 4, where it says, the lowest point of any moving elements must be at least 20 feet above the ground…above the ground beneath such feature, unless the system is a vertical axis turbine, in which case the height is reduced to 10 feet. Heidi Kendall: Or, based on what Mr. Sudik said earlier, if we even just said it must be at least 10 feet, that would take care of it, because they’re not going to want to install… Jerry O'Connell: Under currently technology… Heidi Kendall: Right. Jerry O'Connell: …yeah, but I mean I’m just trying to think a little forward if, let’s say somebody comes up with a very efficient horizontal axis turbine with three blades whipping around that can chop someone into little pieces if they get up on a stepladder. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 12 of 27 Heidi Kendall: Well, I mean, I think I would be comfortable with either…with either way of doing that. I mean it seems like it’s… Jerry O'Connell: Me too. I’m just trying to find a way… Heidi Kendall: Yeah. Jerry O'Connell: …that addresses the concern and maybe we should have different considerations for both kinds of technology without having to do a massive rewrite, here. I’m happy with… Heidi Kendall: Do you want to make a motion? Jerry O'Connell: I’ll make a motion? Do we start with a motion on the whole thing or part of this…small. Heidi Kendall: I think just this little piece… Jerry O'Connell: I’ll make a motion. I move that we modify paragraph D 4 to lower the minimum height from 20 feet to 10 feet. Heidi Kendall: Okay. We have a motion by Jerry O’Connell. Kelley Durbin: Second. Heidi Kendall: Seconded by Kelly Durbin. So, if we change that, just change 20 feet to 10 feet, that’s what we’re talking about. Mike Sudik: That solves everything. Heidi Kendall: Okay. John DiBari: Can I ask a question? Heidi Kendall: Yes, absolutely. John DiBari: How fast do the vertical axis turbines spin? Mike Sudik: I do not have the specifications in front of me. The vertical axis ones that we saw pictures of, the outer area is not spinning very fast at all. You can sit there and watch it just like a ceiling. You actually could put your figures on it—I mean, you shouldn’t do that with a ceiling fan, either; but you can actually do that and slow the motor down. And the more they develop these lower wind speed items, the more it will be like a fan motor. John DiBari: So you’re just talking about a low wind speed event. So, what would happen if the wind speed was 25 miles an hour, how fast would those things be spinning? Mike Sudik: You know, I would have to get that information, and we actually can get the exact data. There’s a fellow in Ennis that runs these and tests a bunch of them, so we could find that out. And Lane might even have…do you have any printouts. Heidi Kendall: John Newman has had his hand up. John. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 13 of 27 John Newman: Well, Mr. Coulston, again, when we reviewed the specs of the unit that’s he’s looking to install this morning and the max rotation speed was under 200 rpms. And I think it’s my understanding that at 200 rpms, a governor would…a brake, essentially, would be activated that you wouldn’t get above 200. John DiBari: So I guess where I was going with this is, you know, 10 feet high is as high as a basketball rim; and I know lots of boys in my neighborhood try jumping that high all the time, and I’m wondering if by raising it maybe to 11 or 12 feet, that would…that would diminish the interest in trying to actually jump and touch the bottom of one of these things and just add an extra measure of safety that…but wouldn’t impinge on making these things so tall that it would be, you know, obtrusive, perhaps. Just a sug…a thought or a suggestion. Mike Sudik: On our solar photovoltaic poles, we try to get everything at 12 feet or we are required by national electric code to fence around that. So bumping it up to 12 would potentially be, you know, there’s a good example is that national electric code on solar. John DiBari: I’d like to make that a friendly amendment, if possible. Jerry O'Connell: Well by the time they’re old enough to jump 10 feet, they should be smart enough to know. John DiBari: Like we said, this isn’t… Jerry O'Connell: That’s a friendly amendment, I accept it. Heidi Kendall: Mr. Coulston, do you want to add something? On the mic, if you would, please. Lane Coulston: I would like to address the one issue, John, is what happens as you begin to move this…this height, even 2 feet, you’re starting to affect the efficiency of that particular unit. And so the testing that’s been done in Montana, in Ennis, on these units that are likely going to be the first that we’re going to install, are all done with the manufacturer’s recommendation of 10 feet–10 feet, 4 inches, in fact, is where it went; but not 12. And so we’re talking about something that…you know, they’re balancing and trying to work out this efficiency to get the most they get out of these little machines so that you actually have some economic benefit from putting one in your yard. And they’ve decided that 10 feet is it and that’s where I’d really it to be. And, you know, if they want to jump, I mean, we got all sorts of things a kid’s going to drag, you know, stepladders over and all sorts of things that are going to go on. But I really do think that, you know, for young children you need to protect, you know. But above that, you know, there’s all sorts of trouble the rest of them can get into. But keep in mind, it is the efficiency that we’re talking about. Heidi Kendall: Mr. Coulston, if you’d like to just pull up a chair, maybe that would be efficient, speaking of efficiency. Tim. Tim Ibey: I believe that, if I heard that correctly, you had…there’s some national standards that if it’s below 12 feet you have to fence it anyway. Mike Sudik: That’s on solar photovoltaic wires that are typically run and at 5 or 600 volts, DC. Tim Ibey: Oh. All right, I…I… Mike Sudik: OSHA has a code that requires moving parts…moving parts to be located 10 away from accessible areas. Heidi Kendall: So where are we on that friendly amendment now? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 14 of 27 John DiBari: So can…well, this is what…I don’t want to get into a discussion about efficiency and stuff like that because that really shouldn’t be our concern. But we saw pictures that…I think John showed some pictures, or someone…there’s some pictures of these things on top of light poles and other places, so are those just not efficient systems? Or as efficient as they could be? Mike Sudik: Every unit, and that’s the challenge right now with the technology. The motors are wound for a certain application. And most of the units you had slides of, half of them were kind of built for a specific project. There was the one photo of them on a handful of street lights and that was a 20-foot application. And then there were a few other that looked to be 10 or 12 feet on those videos. Heidi Kendall: Jerry. Jerry Petasek: So going with the fencing idea, couldn’t we just say at 12 feet there’s no fence; and you can have a minimum of 10 feet, but you have to fence it. Or you don’t want to add that kind of…yeah. Jerry O'Connell: You know, hearing…maybe I jumped too quick to accept the friendly amendment, but you know, since I stated that, we’ve gotten a little more scientifically-based information here. You know, there is a difference between 10 feet and 12 feet performance-wise and I can understand that. You actually do pick up wind speed when you get lower and buildings getting close to each other, the Venturi effect kind of picks up, you mentioned the sailing, as an example. That’s what makes sailboats go, is squeezing that wind between two sails that otherwise is moving slower all around it. And if OSHA says 10 feet is okay, God, you know, there’s… Tim Ibey: They are. Jerry O'Connell: Yeah, exactly. So I would like to see it at 10 feet, whatever we have to do procedurally here to get back to that. Heidi Kendall: And I agree with Jerry on that. Although I have boys who play basketball, too, and I…I mean, I think that does seem like a legitimate concern. But, you know, there are other things that are dangerous around our houses, like our cars; and you know, I mean, we manage to control the mayhem somehow. And, so I’m going to…yeah, I agree with Jerry. Other comments on that? Should we vote on the motion? Are you ready? Let’s have a voice vote. All those in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: Okay, that amendment…that motion to amend that section carries. Are there other items that people wish to make changes in? John DiBari: Can I ask a question? Heidi Kendall: Absolutely. John DiBari: So with this amendment now, the lowest moving part above the ground on any kind of system is 10 feet, correct? This is why I’m a little bit concerned because, as I said, I don’t think this is an economic argument, it’s a land use argument; and maybe argument’s the wrong word, discussion. But somebody, irrespective of how inefficient or how expensive it might be, might chose to put in one of these horizontal axis turbines that may in fact spin at some point in time and now that it’s at least 100 percent different than what the original suggestion was. So I’m not sure ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 15 of 27 that even though they may not be efficient and someone might not want to do it from an economic standpoint, somebody might do that and we’re stuck with the…you know, 10 feet, that might not really be the wisest choice. Lane Coulston: John? John DiBari: And I know I’m coming off as sounding like an opponent of this, but I’m not. I really want this to work; I’m just trying to figure out how to make it work. Heidi Kendall: Absolutely. Mr. Coulston. Lane Coulston: John, the original information that came out is all based on the horizontal axis turbine, we believe. And so we inserted into this…into this process that wasn’t even discussed a year ago, the vertical axis turbine. And so all the language, even that came from, you know, the place from where they originally drew this, came from, probably the assumption of the…of the horizontal axis turbine. So that’s where the 20 feet came from in the very beginning; and that’s the main reason why we’re here, because we’re introducing a new technology that isn’t…has never been seen in Missoula. John DiBari: And I like the vertical axis perhaps more than horizontal one; and all I’m saying is somebody may choose to put in one of these horizontal axis ones and now the minimum above the moving…or whatever the right term is, is now 10 feet. Right? Heidi Kendall: Carol. Carol Evans: I am curious to know if they could even buy a vertical axis, or sorry, a horizontal axis piece of equipment that would be 10 feet. I mean, does that exist? Mike Sudik: No it does not. And we keep saying the word 10… Carol Evans: Well there you go; then that’s a moot point, right? Okay. Unless they built it themselves, possibly. Mike Sudik: Yes, and I guess the only thing at this current moment that protects us, because I see where that’s going is NorthWest Energy governing these grid connections and the City Building Officials governing any battery bay systems. But NorthWest Energy is really making sure that any grid-connected system is following proper protocol. Heidi Kendall: Thanks. Okay. Jerry, did you have your hand up? Jerry Petasek: I went back to what Mr. Coulston was saying earlier about separating these out a little bit, and maybe we don’t want to go through and create two different sets of ordinance language; but maybe in this one situation we say for vertical the lowest point of any moving elements, such as blades or vanes for vertical (I don’t know what the heck these things are called anymore) must be at least 10 feet above the ground and for horizontal must be at least 20 feet above the ground. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before we voted. But maybe we don’t want to go that deep into it as well, but it…because I’m hearing that it’s probably not possibly right now to even purchase the unit and install it at 10 feet; but then again, when we deal with people that are installing windmills, they’re pretty ingenious, anyways, that’s how they got there, and the technology is changing. But I’m just throwing that out there. John DiBari: I think it’s a good idea. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 16 of 27 Heidi Kendall: I’m sorry, do you…do you want to make a motion, Jerry? And I have to admit I was reading something so I didn’t catch 100 percent of what you said. Jerry Petasek: Sure. I’m basically saying that in one…what we just voted on Number 4, D 4, change it to state: The lowest point of any moving elements, such as blades or vanes, must be at least 10 feet for a vertical…what’s the rest of that? John DiBari: Vertical axis… John Newman: Axis wind turbine. Jerry Petasek: Vertical axis turbine or must be at least 20 feet for a horizontal axis turbine. I don’t even know what the rest of that sentence means. Heidi Kendall: I’m happy for us to vote on that. I think we sort of concluded that that was belt, and suspenders and zippers, and shoelaces, and everything. But, if people want to vote on that, that’s fine. Jerry Petasek: I’ll make the motion. John DiBari: I’ll second it. Heidi Kendall: Okay. We have a motion by Jerry Petasek and a second by John DiBari to add a little bit of language to clarify the difference. Discussion on that? Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: To clarify, are you saying that you want to add wording to put the moving parts minimum height for horizontal axis…axle, whatever those things, at 20 feet? Jerry Petasek: Horizontal at 20 feet. Jerry O'Connell: Yes, okay. Heidi Kendall: Okay? Further discussion on that? Jerry O'Connell: And, again, just a question now. And the reason for that, again, being different than the other one? Kelley Durbin: Speed. Jerry O'Connell: The speed of the props? Jerry Petasek: Because of some concern about fast-moving blades at low speeds. Jerry O'Connell: Okay. Heidi Kendall: Okay. Are we ready to vote on that? Okay. All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right, that motion carries. Moving on. Jerry. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 17 of 27 Jerry Petasek: I’m having a real hard time reading these tonight for some reason. Number 6, under D, I think I get the gist of it, but…basically it’s saying that you can exceed the height limits by 33 percent if you setback further from the property lines, is that the gist of it? John Newman: That’s exactly right. Again, that’s assuming you’ve got a system that you would want to put higher. Jerry Petasek: Absolutely. John Newman: Which we’re, you know, hearing maybe won’t be the case, but, regardless. Jerry Petasek: Okay, I just wanted to…what’s this written on. Heidi Kendall: John. John DiBari: So did I see here somewhere in here some reference to R80…was there…I’m just trying to look for that, again. Is that in connection with this… Heidi Kendall: C.2? C.2, the last sentence is multiple small wind energy systems may not approved on R-zoned lots of less than 80.000 square feet in area. John DiBari: That’s C. Heidi Kendall: Is that what you were thinking of? John DiBari: Okay. So it didn’t have any connection to the height bonus of 33 percent. Or does it? John Newman: No. That’s just…yeah, that’s just for a multiple installation system… John DiBari: Okay. John Newman: So you don’t have a cluster, have an array. John DiBari: Okay, so one of my questions, though, actually did center on this D.6. Do we know how high 33 percent might turn out to be in the zone that has the highest, you know, that has various…you know, at various height requirements. Did anyone kind of like run the calculations? I’m just kind of curious. John Newman: The max building height for any residential district…let’s see, we have RM1.5, or RMH, so those are the high rise. And then we have RM.5 would be 125, so most districts, I’ll say most, which excludes RM1.5, RM1-45, RMH, and RM.5; other than those four, the max is 35. So 33 percent, about 12 feet, so you’re looking at like a 47 foot maximum. John DiBari: All right. John Newman: Now, 47 feet in some of those districts probably is not going to happen and you know. John DiBari: Right. Their lot would be too small. John Newman: The lot would be too small. John DiBari: Right. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 18 of 27 Heidi Kendall: Carol. Carol Evans: I’m just wondering if this was crafted originally for the horizontal axis turbines. Should we be considering putting more specific language in it? It kind of goes back to what John was saying earlier. Should it be more specific to, perhaps, encourage the vertical axis machines instead of the horizontal, since they seem to be more appropriate for urban settings? I just don’t know if that is necessary, if it’s important or anything, but it just…it seems to me like we’re…you know, we’re fo…this is still focused on the horizontal and not the vertical. And it looks like that’s sort of the technical development now is going that way, and I think that it might be advisable to encourage some of the more progressive technologies, instead of sticking with the one that people have been emphasizing in the past. John Newman: My response to that…well, first of all, like I said, I mean, the language itself definitely suggests that the vertical were considered. And then, if you look at the dia…you know, the sole diagram in the regulation does have a vertical axis unit in there. So clearly, it was being thought of. The other part, I would say, I think the horizontal axis are the ones that actually need more regulation, which is why we see what it seems to be kind of focused on horizontal because it’s a unit that requires more thought from a safety standpoint. Whether that’s true or just perceived, I don’t know enough about the industry to answer that. But, I think, like I said before, I think that that in covering the horizontal, we more than cover the vertical; and yeah, I mean, to encourage the vertical, it seems like would be a good thing. Part of me wonders if it’s just a survival of the fittest issue, you know, that they’ll just encourage themselves. And I don’t know how we…how we weave that into zoning, but we would certainly work on that if that was a direction that the Board wanted to go in. Carol Evans: Or any other designs that might come. John Newman: Right, the uncon…the figments. Carol Evans: That’s the more progressive look at it, I think, anyway. Heidi Kendall: Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: The question on the definition of…I mean visually, you can really easy to tell the horizontal axis windmill with three blades rotating and the vertical axis on the post. What if you took your vertical axis one and you mounted it this way between two barns, is it still a vertical axis? Mike Sudik: I think you’d have structural issues. Jerry O'Connell: Well, let’s say I’m just thinking theoretically here. Is it the physical alignment with earth or is it the way in which the blades rotate around… Mike Sudik: It’s the way in which the blades rotate and the way that the wind moves around the earth’s surface. Jerry O'Connell: Because I’ve seen some of those mounted horizontally on buildings in Boston, along the leading edge of…well, actually on the Federal Reserve Bank there, for one. And they’re…they’re kind of…they look sort of like those artistic ones you had with a little more blade on them. But instead of mounted this way, they have rows of them; and actually at the airport, they have some mounted at a 45-degree angle. They’re testing stuff, they’re testing efficiencies of various methods; but I’m just wondering, are we putting ourselves a little bit in a descriptive ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 19 of 27 corner, here, should these things turn out, hey we can flip them over at an angle and they really produce, but what is it now? Is it horizontal or do we got a vertical? Mike Sudik: I will say that I can guarantee that the UL and CEC ratings are all tested at a certain way and following that protocol, I mean, should be done strictly and I don’t foresee every company not following it. Jerry O'Connell: So it just might be that should it come about, we’ll be having this meeting next year to tweak this thing to handle those… Heidi Kendall: Sure. Jerry O'Connell: So that’s fine. Heidi Kendall: Okay, Tim Ibey’s next, and then Tim Skufca and John DiBari. And I’m sort of assuming that we’re going to stay basically on the same topic. Tim Ibey: Yeah. I just actually wanted to comment on Carol’s…whereas, I think that it’s nice to think that the others are more…what would we call them…characteristic of town, that you would have the vertical. But, it was also mentioned that up in the South Hills area and certainly out by my house, which isn’t in town, but you’d definitely, I think want the other. And so, you know, I think you have to give the credence to what type of wind you got and what type of conditions you have, so yeah, maybe downtown. But up on the hill, it’s probably better to have the…that was what you had stated, so… Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Good comment. Tim Skufca? Tim Skufca: The subject of noise. We’re assuming that they are all going to be near or below the sound of an air condition unit. And currently, anybody can install an air conditioning unit at any time and the neighbors have no argument, is that true in zoning? Tim Ibey: Yeah, you can just plug them in. John Newman: I don’t know that zoning covers air conditioning units, to be perfectly honest with you. Tim Skufca: It’s not a… John Newman: It’s probably a building code thing. Tim Skufca: Okay, so then if these aren’t any louder, then noise shouldn’t be an issue as well, is that the assumption? Okay. Heidi Kendall: Jason. Jason Wiener: Oooh, 80 decibels. We do have the City Noise Ordinance as well, that regulates these things; and the maximum allowable in a residential district after 10:00 p.m., if I recall, is 60 decibels. And there’s actually a provision to allow you to exceed that for up to 15 minutes per hour, if it’s intermittent. So, you know, the Noise Ordinance would still govern these things and it looks like they would fit under it. That’s how I recall it. Heidi Kendall: John DiBari. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 20 of 27 John DiBari: I’ll turn on my mic. This is section E.3 and this is question for John. Have you guys figured out a way to conceptualize how one might measure vibrations and who would be responsible for doing that? Just, I think we would want to say something about that. John Newman: I can’t say that there was a lot of contemplation on that one, other than it’s probably inherent in all of these units that they must pass some sort of testing that doesn’t shake the chest too much or… John DiBari: I might just make a motion about this just because, you know, with regard to any of enforcement of zoning, it basically comes on somebody’s complaint. And so if somebody did complain, it would be useful to have a mechanism to actually address this. So I would like to move that OPG craft some language that would clarify section E.3 to figure out a way to measure that vibration and who would be the responsible party to do that for the City, as an enforcement issue, potentially. Heidi Kendall: Okay. We motion by John DiBari. Jerry Petasek: Second. Heidi Kendall: And seconded by Jerry Petasek. And this is about vibrations and determining whether they exist and how much they exist. Mr. Sudik, do you have anything to say about vibrations that might help us? Mike Sudik: The larger turbines, especially the ones that first came out on the market, had huge vibration problems. They’ve gotten better and better. I look at vibration, myself, as an inefficiency; and it’s a loss of energy, which means everybody’s trying to improve on it, all the way down the line. So I think we’re going to see less and less of that being a problem, and I would actually recommend we probably go to Brian Kerns to ask him what testing they’ve done on their turbine and start going off that. But it really shouldn’t be an issue for the ones we’re going to see in this market. The ones you buy for eastern Montana, where there is 25 mile per hour average winds, those ones are going to have vibration. Heidi Kendall: So the issue is, if somebody complains, how do you…and so the question is, it’s perceptible to me, and I’m a human, therefore it’s an issue, but if somebody else disagrees and says it’s not vibrating too much, how do you…how do you work that out? John DiBari: Yeah, I’m just trying to foresee a solution to a potential enforcement issue. Heidi Kendall: So there must be a way of measuring vibrations. John Newman: That’s not a subjective, it bothers me, but it might not bother others, yeah… Heidi Kendall: Okay. John Newman: …I see what you mean. Heidi Kendall: So are you comfortable with that motion, John? John Newman: Sure. I’m just actually looking to see…I know that Mr. Kerns addressed…he talks about, on the second page of his comments, this is Attachment F of the Staff Report, beyond your suggested comment items, I’d urge you to consider the following…he talks about under B, I was just checking to see if did talk about vibration, but it looks like he just talks about noise. So, anyway…yeah… ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 21 of 27 Heidi Kendall: But he… John Newman: …I can definitely speak to Mr. Kerns about that. Heidi Kendall: …may have some experience with that, so consulting with him sounds like a good idea. John Newman: Sure. Heidi Kendall: All right. We have a motion and a second. Is there discussion on that? Further discussion on that? Should we vote? All those in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right. That motion carries. Kelly. Kelley Durbin: Did we address the setback issue when we said that it’s from the property line, did that make a difference to you? Mike Sudik: Yes, by lowering the height to 10 feet, that solves that issue. Kelly Durbin: Okay, good. And then my second question on…had to do with the one from…I forget who it was from, but it was talking about riparian area. Should we discuss that one? Heidi Kendall: We have not. That was from Fish, Wildlife and Parks, right? Kelley Durbin: Yeah. I just…that would be the one I wanted to talk about next. I didn’t have a specific anything, just to make sure we talk about it. Heidi Kendall: Their letter says, “…we recommend exploring what “no-WECS” setbacks from riparian areas would be appropriate for the types of WECS that would be allowed in order to offer protection to wildlife such as birds using those areas. Then, establish those setbacks and incorporate them in this ordinance.” So they don’t give a specific recommendation, right? So do…if this is something that we’re concerned about then we could…we could recommend that something further be done before this goes to City Council, with a better recommendation on that or something. I mean, I’m not sure of what else we would do specifically. Tim. Tim Ibey: I’m just…you know, I’ve gone over and I’ve seen the wind farms over in the eastern part of the state, and they’ve got a fairly good size system set up at Great Falls; and I’ve often wondered, and maybe I can get this answered, what happens when a goose flies into one of these, does it end up being off line? It seems like almost a…a problem that would rectify itself. I mean, who is going to put the money into putting up a system if it’s going to go offline every time a ga…a doose…a ga…a goose or a duck…or maybe I was trying to say a guck…goes into it, because that’s probably what ends up afterwards, but does it throw them off-line. Mike Sudik: Oh yes, it definitely shuts them down. If nothing else, the brake goes on because there’s an unbalanced blade. It will try to turn back on in five minutes; and if there’s no damage, it will. That’s at least on the horizontal turbines. Tim Ibey: I mean, I concur that it should be a ways away from a river, but then you start getting into well, how far away from a wheat field and how far away from a corn field and how far do you set them back away from…I mean, it’s not just riparian areas, if you’re looking to save…or you look at wildlife and water fowl, especially, in this area, I would think that it would pretty ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 22 of 27 cumbersome to try to protect…I think somebody would look for a fly away…or outside the fly away. Heidi Kendall: Jerry. Jerry O'Connell: I appreciate Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ concern about this, but I don’t appreciate their excellent lack of any recommendations. And I don’t think we’re any more qualified…they’re certainly more qualified than us. I think just passing it on and saying to City Council to consider it. It’s not a riparian-specific thing; like you said, it’s anything in the air from bats to bugs to gucks. And I don’t know what we can do, here, other than just say okay. Heidi Kendall: And robins and squirrels, I mean squirrels can run up poles and…anybody else on that? Or anything else? John. John DiBari: I seem to remember when we had this discussion back when we were doing Title 20, somebody had brought up this as a conditional use then, rather then be as by right. So my question, I think here, centers on cost. What would it cost to get a Conditional Use Permit to do something like this? John Newman: I think a conditional use is…I want to say it’s about $800. Without having the City Fee Schedule in front of me I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’m fairly sure it’s about $800 for Conditional Use. And that process with Title 20 changed, so now Conditional Use goes to City Council as opposed to Design Review Board, it’s a different channel. John DiBari: I haven’t really given this too much thought, at least, and maybe we can do that now. I’m not interested in the economic penalty that would be associated with a Condition Use Permit, I’m wondering if there’s any utility in the deliberative process associated with it to help, you know, alleviate any potential neighbor concerns or other kinds of concerns associated with installation of these things. Any thoughts? John Newman: Well. Heidi Kendall: Can I say something while you think? John Newman: Yes. Absolutely. Heidi Kendall: You know, the cost…you’re thinking about making any wind system a Conditional Use, is that what’s going through your head, or…? John DiBari: I’m not…I guess I…I think it might be worth a discussion as to whether… Heidi Kendall: Okay. John DiBari: …there’s utility in having it be a part of that deliberative process but without the economic penalty. Heidi Kendall: Yeah. And, you know, my personal reaction would be that that would be a mistake. Because not only do you have the cost of the Conditional Use, you know, the fee that you have to pay to the City, but you also have to have people show up at hearings and you have to spend a lot of personal time…I think it would be a huge disincentive to this. So I think… John DiBari: [Inaudible, not using microphone] Heidi Kendall: Yeah. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 23 of 27 John Newman: I’d say, too, that, you know, the evening’s seen a number of concession on behalf of folks and their view sheds; and I think the idea is to try to promote this as best as possible and to enable, while still being cautious, and I think the Conditional Use process just, you know, might hold that up. Heidi Kendall: Other issues? Are we not considering something basic that you mentioned? Mike Sudik: I think you guys are doing great. Heidi Kendall: You had the…the last recommendation that you made in your letter, Mr. Sudik, was about the identification tag and referencing the National Electric Code? Should we do that? Is that an improvement to this or do you… Mike Sudik: It’s pretty much required by NorthWestern Energy, the National Electric Code, that there’s a placard put on every energy-generating type of equipment that states exactly what the voltage, the amperage, basically the hazards, it says do not touch it or you will die; and then it also kind of gives a quick rundown of where disconnects are and that’s geared towards the fire department and NorthWestern Energy. Heidi Kendall: So, in your opinion, it would improve this ordinance if that code section were specifically referenced? Mike Sudik: You could either just eliminate it, or point to as long as people are following the National Electric Code’s protocol, which we have to do. There’s no way around it. Heidi Kendall: Right. Okay. John. John Newman: I would, just to clarify, well, like I said, that came from the sign portion of Title 20, and I would imagine that electrical signs probably need to follow electrical code as well; but they need an identification tag from the City that insures that the City has seen it and gives the building inspector the leverage that would be required for removal in terms of maintenance. Now, there’s the maintenance standards that you talked about but that doesn’t necessarily, I don’t believe, bestow the right to demand removal of a system that’s unmaintained by the building inspector. So this sort of involves the City…this involves the City and gives the City a position to suggest that one of these be removed if it’s not being maintained. Heidi Kendall: Okay. Anything else? Should we have a motion to recommend it? Tim Ibey: I move that the proposed amendments to Title 20, Section 20.45.080 Wind Energy Conversion Systems, as shown in the attachment one, or I? Heidi Kendall: I. Tim Ibey: be recommended to the City Council for approval as amended. Heidi Kendall: Okay we have a motion by Tim Ibey. John DiBari: Second. Heidi Kendall: Seconded by John DiBari. Great. Any closing comments on this? John. John DiBari: Yeah. I’m glad we worked through this and I think we’ve got something that is probably more workable and better than…than I thought it would…go…I thought it might go. So, ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 24 of 27 I’m glad that happened and I’m glad that we’re taking this step to try to encourage these kind of things in town. And I know I’ve spoken with some people in the past about encouraging this for solar as well, if that’s seems to be an appropriate way of addressing the distributed energy system as well. And then, I guess the second thing is that perhaps this is something that the City and other organizations ought to be considering for things like light poles and on top of tall buildings downtown and…and…so I just want to encourage that we have a sort of an open mind and figure out other ways to address this issue, too, other than just putting them up in people’s yards. Heidi Kendall: Yep. Good. Anything else? Thank you, Mr. Sudik, so much for your free advice, which is extremely valuable. Mike Sudik: Thank all of you for changing the rules. We appreciate it and we hope to see it all advance. Heidi Kendall: Good. And Mr. Coulston, for bringing this up and Mr. Wiener for raising the issue. Okay, shall we vote? All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right. That motion carries unanimously. And thank you to John Newman, for the staff work, and the other folks who commented. Moving along. I. COMMUNICATIONS AND SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Heidi Kendall: Communications and Special Presentations? None of those. II. COMMITTEE REPORTS Heidi Kendall: Committee Reports? Our committee guy is not with us this evening. III. OLD BUSINESS Heidi Kendall: Any Old Business? Nope. New…yes, Tim. Tim Ibey: Maybe it’s new business, but I know. That I’m supposed to meet with the County Commissioners at some point in time, and I think I’ve only done that once. We only had a couple of agenda things that we wanted to talk to them about. And so, if we could keep that in the back of our minds and keep a list going of things we want to talk to the Commissioners, and I’m assuming also City Council so that it doesn’t come down to that meeting time and go oops. Because I think it’s important and I think they appreciate the feedback and the comments and the questions… Heidi Kendall: Yep, absolutely, so we can…I think it was September was one of…was the first date. Tim Ibey: September [inaudible, not using microphone] Heidi Kendall: That sounds right, so maybe we could have a little discussion about that at our next meeting. I mean, one thing that I would love for us to talk about to those folks is just the ag land issue, which seems to kind of be percolating out there. But, you know, what exactly you would say. I don’t know, because we probably all have different opinions about that. Yeah. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 25 of 27 Tim Ibey: Well, for one thing, it would be nice to know what their stance is on…you know, is it something that they’re interesting…or they’re interested in or is it just something that’s kind of like us, oh, great what do we do with it? Heidi Kendall: Right. Tim Ibey: You know. Heidi Kendall: Well, there’s going to be a press conference on Friday by the Realtors. I forget what time it is, like 10:00. Oh, it’s in the afternoon? John Newman: I think it’s 1:00 p.m. at the… Heidi Kendall: On this issue, 1:00 p.m. at… John Newman: 1:00 p.m., Holiday Inn Parkside? Heidi Kendall: Yeah, so that maybe a…I don’t know if that will be an impetus for more discussion or not, but…you know, yeah. Jerry O'Connell: So are you looking for things now, or for us to think of topics for you as we get closer to your…I think it’s this September 13th meeting? Tim Ibey: I would say we should maybe develop a list and maybe we can have some help from staff just kind of keeping a running list of things that we come up with, because I know that a lot of times, you know, it’s the old…oh, I meant say, or I meant to ask and so we didn’t and so…and so it doesn’t get asked and we don’t get the answer that we would like to have. So if we can of…maybe we could keep a list going, starting with the ag… Heidi Kendall: We could ask…and Seeley Lake Plan, we could ask them about that. Maybe give them a little nudge. Carol Evans: We’ll be [inaudible, not using microphone] Jerry O'Connell: I got one…the…I’ll just bring it up, we don’t have to discuss this, but whether the County has any influence over regulations concerning recreational use around the rivers that run through its County. My concern there is simply being that there’s decidedly, to my opinion, too little controls being placed on some of them right now, and that maybe the County has some influence that isn’t being exercised. We might be able to get…because the folks that wrote this silly little memo in here, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, are among some of the same people…maybe my animosity spilled over a touch. Heidi Kendall: Okay. So we’ll think about that and let Tim and John know if we have issues or questions for them. Tim. Tim Skufca: One last thing or a couple things. Laval mentioned a Planning Seminar that’s coming up in Missoula this year and I was just wondering…I would think that it would behoove the City and County to pay the Planning Board’s way and invite us to be a part of that. Jerry O'Connell: I think they have. I think that’s part of the proposal. Tim Skufca: It’s not yet. Jerry O'Connell: I just…didn’t I read something? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 26 of 27 Heidi Kendall: I read it, it was a Staff Announcement. Jerry O’Connell: I think it said that they were going to cover our application fee. Heidi Kendall: I have it right…does everybody see that? Due to the opportunity of having this conference in our own backyard, OPG is offering to cover the registration fees for interested Planning Board members to attend through our staff training budget. I didn’t read that part. I was trying to, you know, abbreviate it; so there you go. Laval Means: The conference is a 22nd through the 24th of September, and I think there’s some sign up deadlines, like maybe an early registration fee savings or something. John DiBari: It says that you want us to tell you by August 16th. Laval Means: See, that’s in there, too. So, yeah, yeah, let us know if there’s interest and OPG was going to foot the bill for it. So, thank you. John DiBari: I’d like to go. Heidi Kendall: Me, too. Laval Means: I believe there’s a calendar of the sessions that are posted on the Montana Association of Planners website. It stands for MAP, but you don’t want to Google, like type that and you want to put in the whole Montana Association of Planners and it will get you to a website and you’ll see the conference and conference program. There’s an amazing amount of information that…it’s getting really exciting, there’s a lot of good stuff, we’ve got some folks coming from Washington, D.C. We’re still trying to work on somebody to come from another national program on transportation. We’re going to hear from somebody from the Obama Administration. We’re going to hear from some of your own local…from your own Planning Board members. John DiBari: [inaudible, not using microphone] Laval Means: Yeah. We have the program pretty well tied up. I’m sorry. But we just have an amazing amount of resource information. There’s going to be stuff on riparian and wildland urban interface and rural growth and community growth and rural issues and city issues and it’ll…so, check out program and see if it’s something that fits with your schedule and your interests. Heidi Kendall: Wonderful. Thanks. Any other Old Business? Tim Skufca: Just one other thing, a logistic thing. We just spent a whole long period of time on wind generating and now it goes to Community at the City Council. Wouldn’t it make more sense to invite the City Council Committee to this and that would expedite the whole system? Heidi Kendall: Well I think the next step for this is that it goes to City Council for a hearing, isn’t that right? John Newman: It would go to PAZ first to set a hearing… Heidi Kendall: Oh, it does. John Newman: …and then Council, and then PAZ again to actually kind of discuss it preliminarily and then the hearing. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes July 20, 2010 Page 27 of 27 Heidi Kendall: You know, I think, if I remember right, one of the disincentives for things like that is that if City Council, if a quorum of City Council goes anywhere, they have to notify the press and do all that kind of stuff. So, they could do that, but they would have to do a lot of planning ahead and announce to the community that they are going to be at…that a number of them are going to be at the Planning Board meeting. So, you know, in some ways it almost works out better for them just to read the minutes… Tim Skufca: And get Mike to come back and spend a whole ‘nother evening… Heidi Kendall: Government isn’t supposed to be efficient. It’s true. Yes. Laval. Laval Means: There is also a requirement that the City Council have two readings of a zoning amendment, like this text amendment; and so they’ve got procedures for how that…what…what’s considered a reading and what that process is. Heidi Kendall: But we could go to their meetings. Well, we’d probably have to notice if a bunch of us went. Anyway, it’s a good point. Anything else under Old Business? IV. NEW BUSINESS AND REFERRALS Heidi Kendall: New Business, Referrals? V. COMMENTS FROM BOARD MEMBERS Heidi Kendall: Any comments from anybody? VI. ADJOURNMENT Heidi Kendall: All right, thank you all. We’ll be adjourned. The meeting adjourned at 10:00 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Recording Secretary: Transcribed by: Sharon E. Reed Deni Forestek Administrative Secretary Administrative Aide Missoula Office of Planning and Grants Missoula Office of Planning and Grants