 Good afternoon and welcome to this webinar is wind energy right for your community as promised I'm gonna try to start right on time My name is Sarah Mills, and I am a researcher at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy So here's the plan for the next hour First I'll provide a brief overview of how utility scale wind development works just to make sure that we're all on the same page Then I'll turn to my research, which is mostly based on surveys of landowners living in communities that have wind farms I'll first talk about what they think about the individual level impacts of wind development And then what they say about the community level impacts I'll pull this all together to help you think through how to balance those pros and cons if you're considering whether or not turbines are right for your community and And finally if I can keep myself on topic. We should have 10 to 15 minutes left for question and answers To facilitate Q&A so that I can get to as many questions as possible I'm going to ask that you submit your questions in writing in the blue jeans console off to the right You should see an icon with a person and a little chat bubble in it and if you mouse over it It says moderator chat if you could please submit your questions there whenever they come to you I have a couple colleagues in the office here with me that will be collecting those and feeding them my way If I can quickly address a question right then and there I will but I expect that most of the questions I'll answer at the end Okay, so let's get started First off, I think it'll help if you understand where I'm coming from and how my research is funded So I am a native Michigander. I grew up on a farm in Monroe County Which is in the extreme southeastern corner of the state When I came back to get my phd. It wasn't to study wind energy. It was to study farmland preservation I was really worried about all of the subdivisions that were being built on farmland around my hometown My dissertation tested the claims being made by planners in two michigan counties that wind development was a way to preserve farmland I'll present some of those findings from you today But in the process of doing that research I became interested in understanding why some places with wind turbines seemed so gung-ho To welcome additional turbines, but others effectively said enough is enough Almost two years ago. I received a grant from the csmot foundation out of flint to both collect some more data to understand Why people are satisfied or dissatisfied with the wind farms in their community And then to communicate back with other communities that are deciding whether or not To welcome wind the findings from these this research Over the past six months I've been to almost two dozen townships and counties across the state sharing this research Thanks to that mott foundation grant and today's webinar is to help ensure that this information can get in the hands of communities Where I wasn't able to be in person I want to be really clear that the goal of this research isn't to be pro wind or anti wind It's to provide communities with data about the pros and cons As experienced by the people who live or own property in communities with wind farms As you'll see I don't just rely on the opinions of those who are motivated enough to show up to a meeting Or get their story into a newspaper I ask everyone in those townships to get a better sense of the underlying attitudes in these communities Before I dive into the data. I want to make sure that we're all on the same page About what I mean when I say utility scale wind Utility scale turbines these days are typically right around 500 feet tall and they are about two megawatts a piece Depending on where they're sighted. That's enough to produce Enough power each year for 500 to 800 homes This map just shows those turbines that are in wind parks of at least 10 megawatts So five to six turbines depending on the size of the turbine So it's going to miss out on the two turbines that you see up by the Mackinac bridge among others across the state There's utility scale wind development currently operating in eight michigan counties And I've done surveys in five of these eight counties If you aren't from michigan or familiar with these places, you might not know what our landscapes look like This isn't west texas or iowa. We do have a very vibrant agricultural community and agricultural industry But there are lots of people that live in michigan farming communities So here are just a couple pictures of two of the state's wind farms This is the stony corners wind farm up near cadillac And this is a picture from the thumb of michigan where most of the state's wind development is All right, again just to make sure that we're all on the same page I'm going to give you the basics about how wind development works because not all wind developers in the state do this in the same way Now all of the processes pretty much start out the same way The first thing that a wind developer will do is come into a community to figure out which landowners are willing to have a turbine sighted on their property The wind developer goes around trying to get as many landowners as possible to sign exploratory leases Which gives the landowner a pretty small amount of money per acre for a couple of years While the wind developer does more studying to figure out if the project is going to work So once the wind developer signs up as many people as he can He takes that information back to the engineers who look at local zoning Wind availability and other constraints like endangered species and radio communications. There's a long list to determine where those turbines are going to go In all cases those landowners who end up having turbines sighted on their property move from an exploratory lease To an active lease or easement and they are usually paid on a per acre basis For the land that's taken out of production in order to site that turbine and the access road to get to it They also usually get a royalty Which is a portion of the profits that are made by selling the wind energy that's generated by that turbine back to the electric grid This is what i'll call the traditional business model In the newer business model, which is also called a pooled royalties model That royalty is shared on a per acre basis among everyone who signed one of those exploratory leases So if farmer a has 80 acres in the wind farm and farmer b also has 80 acres They will receive the same royalty payment Now if farmer a ended up with the turbine on his property He will also get some sort of additional payment to compensate for the land that's being used But he's not going to get as much as in the old business model because you have more people that are effectively sharing that same pot of money Some wind developers also do what's called a participation or friendly neighbor agreement This is for landowners that don't have parcels big enough to feasibly place a turbine on that's usually 20 acres or less If these landowners were included in the royalty pool They get very little because they just don't have very much land in comparison to everybody else But these friendly neighbor agreements give them a fixed price I've heard on the order of a thousand dollars per year for 20 years or whatever the length of the wind farm is supposed to be And that um is for free access to the wind that blows over their property Now regardless of the business model that the wind developer uses Everyone in the township would indirectly financially benefit from the wind farm because wind developers pay personal property taxes On the value of the wind turbine There's a depreciation schedule for wind turbines that are set by the state And so the value received by the jurisdiction diminishes over time But in 2015 it amounted to about 20 million dollars statewide and that works out to about 22 000 dollars per turbine per year Again, this is an average so it would be more in the first year and then go down over time And it also depends on the initial cost of the turbine and what your Millage rate is but this is just to give you some sense of scale Okay, that's what I have on the basic background of how wind development works Again, if you have questions you can send them to me by using the moderator chat icon off to the right of your screen And if I don't answer them now, I'll try to get to them in the q&a Now what I'd like to do is walk you through the data that I've collected through my research Most of what I'm going to present is from what I call my community survey This was sent out in the summer of 2016. It was mailed to all owners of land That were that was assessed for for tax purposes as either agricultural or residential in 10 townships with wind farms You'll see here that I have The garden township in delta county in the up The stony corners project here near catalac that I showed you earlier That straddles misaki and asiola counties and then I sent the survey to seven townships in here on county I heard back from just over 2,000 of these landowners, which is 53 of all landowners As I mentioned earlier, this is the survey that was funded by the mop foundation And the survey itself is up on the website So you can see exactly how I asked the questions and what order I asked them in A couple of the slides that I'll show you are from my 2014 farmland survey Which was sent only to owners of ag land in nine of those same townships that I went back to in 2016 You can see I didn't survey send a survey to the up in 2014 So those nine townships with wind farms are in dark blue And I also sent the survey to five townships where there hadn't been wind development at that time and those are in light blue Overall, there are fewer landowners who just own ag land So this is the first survey. So on this first survey, I only heard back from about 1200 respondents But that's 72 of all owners of ag land in these 14 townships I'm going to pause here because most people don't believe I'm telling the truth on that response rate My trick is that I sent a survey to farmers in february I included a two dollar bill and I told them that I was a student Which I was at that time So this survey too is up on the website and I also want to note that it was funded by a dow sustainability fellowship Which is a u of m grant for phd students Throughout these surveys. I found some common drivers of attitudes One is whether or not the landowner is directly compensated And this is just what everybody assumes that wind development is a haves versus have nots issue In the rest of my slides, I'll show you breakdowns based on whether or not the respondent was directly compensated And you'll see that it does make a difference But it doesn't tell the full story What I found though is that some payment is better than no payment And there is a law of diminishing returns once you make over a thousand dollars a year your attitudes don't change all that much Another driver of attitudes Is what type of land the person owns? Specifically if they own a secondary home or a vacation home They are more critical about wind energy than someone who owns a primary residence in the township Why well most of those with vacation homes bought that home to get out of the city Enjoy the peace and quiet and see the stars at night and wind turbines can interfere with that Those that have a primary residence and actively farm the land Or those that just own farmland in the community and live somewhere else tend to be the most positive about wind energy This is true even after you account for whether or not they are directly compensated The reasoning for this I think is that most of these people who own farmland tend to be from that community and didn't move there for the scenery They live there because they have family ties there And as a result they tend to be willing to put up with some of the more not so pleasant things that support active farming Bad smells loud noises that kind of thing. I often tell people that my mom grew up on a hog farm It's not that she and her family loved the smell of pig manure But they and their neighbors put up with it because that's how they were making their living Another common driver of attitudes is being within earshot of the turbines and that's pretty predictable And then the final important factor is how the wind developer or how the land owner Felt about the planning process that led up to citing the turbines and how they felt about the wind developer If they thought that they were given lots of opportunity to have a say during the planning stage Or if they felt that the wind developer acted openly and transparently They were much more likely to support the existing wind project And say they'd be willing to have more turbines in their community in the future I'll have more slides on this at the very end of the presentation I have just a couple questions that came in about The background and the survey so i'm going to answer them really quickly One was how much is the depreciation over the life of the wind turbine the tax table that's set up right now Has it taxed at 30 percent by Year 10 and going forward outside of that so it starts out in year one You can tax a hundred percent of the value by year 10 It goes down to 30 percent and then it stays at 30 percent of the initial value for the rest of the life The second one was the response statistically valid Because I don't have a Because I didn't sample I sent it as a census to everyone I don't have to worry about sampling error that I somehow only selected people that were pro wind or anti wind In terms of The responses I was able to look and see if I had heard more from people who receive compensation versus not In that first survey when I sent the survey out to those who are living in the communities with wind turbines versus not there was An almost identical response rate And so I don't have any reason to believe that my results are skewed one way or the other But it is possible that some people Were just not motivated to return the survey so Thanks for the questions and you can feel free to send them along Okay, so at long last i'm going to get to my data What do people actually have to say about how the turbines are affecting them? So let's start with noise. I'm going to walk you through this first graph and then you'll be able to understand all the rest So here across the top of the graph You can see the statement that I posed on the survey wind turbines create noise pollution In the dark blue here are those uh respondents that strongly agree in the blue lighter blue It's just those who agree and then you can go down in the dark orange here. It's strongly disagree Now over here in this left column oops, sorry, I advanced it too fast over in the left column Are all of the respondents to that 2016 survey So this is the owners of residential ag land in those 10 townships with wind turbines And here you can see that 48% Say that they agree that turbines are noisy and 52% disagree that turbines are noisy So it's pretty much split 50 50 Over to the right of the blue line is that same data But that separated based on whether the respondent was paid or unpaid And here you can see that it's not entirely a haves versus have nots issue Among those that are paid 34% say they agree In blue that the turbines are noisy Among those that are unpaid 48% say they disagree that turbines are noisy So again, it's not entirely black and white On the visual impacts we see really similar results It's roughly split 50 50 between those who agree turbines are ugly And those who disagree that they are ugly Those that are unpaid are more likely to say they're ugly but not overwhelmingly so Now something that I often hear is that it's not so much the site of the turbines during the day But the blinking red light that the FAA requires on the top of the turbines at night that really alters the view White or gray turbines can blend into the landscape during the day But there's no chance of that blinking red light blending in in the nighttime I am not a person who tends to think that technology can solve all of our problems But if the blinking red light is the sticking point for your community, there is a technological solution The FAA recently approved a radar device that keeps the lights off until an airplane gets in the vicinity of the wind farm And then it turns the lights on This hasn't been used in michigan yet But I understand that it has been used in a couple projects elsewhere And my guess is that it isn't cheap and so it may decrease landowner payments But if that's the sticking point again, there is a technology that'll solve it But at any rate, it's right around half the people that are bothered by the site of turbines Okay far fewer people in townships with wind farms wind turbines believe that those turbines cause human health problems About 27 percent agree turbines cause human health problems and 72 percent say they don't cause human health problems I meant to mention earlier that I left all of the decimal places off So you'll occasionally see columns that add to 99 like this one does or 101. I'm sorry if that's throwing anybody off Okay, uh back to health impacts If you google wind turbine syndrome, you will come up with a bunch of information on health impacts But the medical research community has largely found it to be unfounded Now I am not a medical doctor, but from the peer reviewed literature that I've read There is no direct causal link between wind turbines and human health impacts There is some research right now on stress and annoyance related to turbines The thinking is that some people who have a wind turbine in their community didn't want it there in the first place If that turbine is making noise or catching their eye that can stress them out And that can lead to physiological symptoms, which makes sense to me, but that's an indirect link Also from my research It seems that there may well be ways to make that turbine less annoying or less stressful to people By involving people in the planning process or paying more people to have it in their community Not a technological solution, but something that you can do to potentially reduce Um these indirect human health impacts But again, most people living in michigan communities with wind turbines say they do not cause human health impacts Another impact that people talk about is the impact the project will have on property values Now I sit on the planning commission in the city of ann arbor And I can tell you that this is a concern that people bring up pretty much with any development proposal Not just wind turbines In communities with wind turbines 54 percent of landowners believe that the turbines have decreased nearby property values While 46 percent say property values haven't been affected One thing to note here is that this is perception To my knowledge there haven't been any studies done in these particular michigan communities to see if property values really did drop And it's really hard because properties just don't change hands all that often in these rural communities But it is perception that matters and that's what my survey asks about There are tons of property values studies done elsewhere Some find that property values decrease some find no change The best type of study is called a meta analysis and meta analyses look across all of these studies to try to account for oddball factors The meta analyses done on wind turbines have been done by researchers at the national laboratories And they find that there is no solid evidence that deep that turbines decrease property values One final thing to note is that all of these previous studies have been on residential property Not on farmland and on the next slide. I'll show you there may be some evidence that wind development may be increasing farmland values Okay, so here you can see I've shifted the orientation of the graph to remember to tell you that this slide is using data from my 2014 survey This was just owners of farmland and it also went out to some farmers in communities without wind turbines On the survey I asked landowners about the amount of money that they'd invested in their property In the last five years and that's broken down into a few different categories Above the blue line here are the landowners in communities without wind farms And you can see that on average they invested 187 thousand dollars in that five year period in their home outbuildings drainage and irrigation and equipment Below the blue line. These are different groups of landowners within the wind farm communities So first are those unpaid neighbors the people who own farmland in the wind farm community, but who don't get a check in the mail Their investment is statistically the same as the non wind farm group Next are those who are paid, but don't have a turbine on their property So these are the people in that new business model that pooling royalties model Again, their investment is not different than the other two groups statistically speaking But down here on the bottom are those who have a turbine on their property They invested two and a half times as much on average as the other groups Now what this graph leaves off is that these landowners with turbines on their property tend to own more land than the other groups And so you would expect them to be investing more in their farm than the other groups But even after you account for that when you take into consideration both how much land they own and how much land they farm They invest twice as much as the other groups So getting back to what I was saying on the previous slide about property values If they are improving their outbuildings or tiling their fields that's going to increase that value of their ag property The final individual level impact is on farm succession planning Within the farmland preservation literature It says that farm that farmers with a succession plan in place are more likely to pass that farm down to the next generation Rather than just sell it off to an old farmer To make bigger land holdings and ultimately fewer people living in the community Much like the previous slide the only statistically significant difference here is between landowners with turbines on their property and everyone else In my interviews farmers have told me that the guaranteed income coming from the turbines Helps their kids think that farming isn't such a risky business And so they're more willing to be more willing to take over the farm The oldest wind farms in michigan though aren't even 10 years old yet And so it's too soon to tell whether these young people will actually stay on the farm But having a succession plan in place is a really good sign that they will Okay to summarize again attitudes are really split 50 50 on impacts related to noise visual impacts and property value reductions You can say that those who are directly compensated have a rosier view Or you could say that those who have no financial stake have a more soured view But even among these groups attitudes vary and so this isn't totally a haves versus have nots issue Most also don't see human health impacts But some do and if in zoning you are regulating for the public health safety and general welfare That's something that you should be aware of Finally, there is strong evidence that direct payments are helping landowners reinvest in their farms And develop succession plans Both of those things are really good signs that the farmer isn't planning on selling their land anytime soon And so it's a really good thing for farmland preservation Wind farms though don't just have impacts on individual landowners They can have impacts on whole communities in this next section. I'll step suit through some of those impacts So the first is on jobs On my survey a large majority of respondents Agreed that wind turbines create jobs, but i'm going to give this slide a caveat You see I send people a paper survey and so they can and they do Write me notes in the margins and on this question I had more marginal notes than on any other question people often wrote to me But not local jobs There are tons of people that are employed in the in wind development Especially in the construction trades But most of these construction crews are brought in from elsewhere The local jobs that are created during construction tend to be in the hospitality industry Housing and feeding out of town workers But there are also some construction jobs Locally hauling aggregate or concrete. They're not going to bring those things in from long distances But there just aren't tons of long term high paying wind energy tech Wind energy technician jobs that you hear so much about and in some of the places The community colleges just don't yet have training programs for that trade So locals aren't qualified for those types of jobs anyway So again, people do say turbines create jobs, but i'm going to give this a caveat The next community level impact is on the roads Now here you can see that I added a gray neutral category right here In blue we have people who say that roads have improved as a result of turbines Down in the orange shades you can see roads have worsened and in gray that they've neither improved nor worsened So here a majority 60 percent say that there hasn't been a change in roads 12 percent say that roads have worsened and this is because there is lots of heavy equipment going down these country roads And there's also an increase in traffic during construction On the other hand, you say have 27 percent saying that roads have improved This is because most counties have some provisions That about preparing the roads for heavy equipment and then repairing any damage that may have been caused After that heavy equipment goes down the roads So you would at least have some hope that roads aren't haven't worsened over time But if you recall from one of my earliest slides Wind developers are paying local property taxes to county and township governments And in these rural areas one of the biggest budget lines is road maintenance So people who are seeing roads improve are largely saying this because wind tax revenues are being put towards roads I also asked a separate question about what impact wind development has had on township services Here you can see again that a large majority say township services neither improved nor worsened Very few people said that services improved, but only 22 percent Or i'm sorry very few people said that services worsened 5 percent down here in orange, but only 22 percent say that they improved This is really surprising to me given that in Huron county alone in one year township governments received 2.6 million dollars Just from the personal property taxes when developers paid In the townships that i've studied this has meant an increase in their overall property tax revenues anywhere from 11 percent To 400 percent and even in this township where the budget quintupled Less than a third of residents said that services had improved Now I know from interviewing the township supervisor that those tax revenues are being used The township is paving an extra half mile of road. It's really expensive to pave roads Or they're graveling three or four extra miles of road a year But it's hard for residents to know what would have happened if the wind project hadn't been built They don't realize that so many other local governments across the state are having to cut services Or raise tax rates since costs are increasing faster than local government revenues Just one township in my study had introduced a new service trash collection And that service didn't take all that much of the wind farm tax revenue to do this But it was a much more visible impact to the residents in that township 60 percent of residents said that township services had improved Again at the county level most people say that county services haven't changed And again, it's not because there isn't a lot of money being paid to county government In here on county again, the county took in almost three million dollars in 2015 But they put that money towards funding their retiree health care obligation So residents weren't wrong that's county services hadn't improved But their county was in a much better financial position. And if you talk to county officials, they say it was really making a difference We see the same pattern here on school funding compared to townships in counties The public perception is that there's more of a positive impact on schools Though again over half of respondents say schools haven't worsened or improved This is particularly interesting given the way property taxes to schools work in michigan particularly for the local district I'm not an expert on this myself But I have a colleague at u of m who has done interviews with isd and local school officials as part of this mott foundation grant Because local district funding is based on a per pupil allowance There's very little impact on the local district budget ISDs do get to keep their tax revenues, but their budgets are much bigger And so my colleagues interviews with ISD officials have pretty much shown that there isn't a huge impact on the ISD either They ISD officials will say every little bit helps and it prevents them from having to cut programs But most haven't substantially increased services She has a write-up on this research on the close-up win page that i'll point you to at the end of the webinar Again though just to put this in context in here on county more than four million dollars was paid to school taxes in 2015 Okay, this slide gets us out of tax land and into something a little bit different from the other impacts Here I asked about the impact that the win project had on their relationships with neighbors Anecdotally there's often concerns in communities that the win project will turn neighbors into enemies And coming from a rural community myself I know that this is a big deal in a rural community. You know all of your neighbors and you do care what they think about you Overall, I'm not seeing that wind development is ripping communities apart 64 of landowners in communities with wind farms say their relationships with neighbors neither improved nor worsened There are more who believe that their relationships worsened rather than improved But even then it's less than a third of respondents who say that Again in summary at the community level. I'm finding that most do see job creation benefits But with that caveat about the types of local jobs that are created I'm finding that the majority haven't seen changes to community services or to local schools And I think this is for a number of reasons One is that I think people don't realize how property tax revenue Is spent or how much things cost their local government Another is that they can't comprehend what would have happened in the absence of tax revenue And finally, I think that there are a couple of quirks to michigan's tax system that may be to blame But i'm not going to go into that right here Finally, I found that the majority of residents in these wind farm communities Do not believe that the turbine has divided their community and that's even in some very contentious wind farms If you throw out the wind farm in the up which I included in my survey because it was so contentious The percentage that believes that the wind farm has divided their community drops almost in half Okay So I've presented what residents in wind farm townships think about the individual and community impacts of wind development But what is their overall assessment of wind energy? I have two ways of measuring this The first is by looking at what impact they feel the project has had On their overall quality of life in the township And here you can see that this graph looks an awful lot like the last one I showed you about relationships with neighbors Over half say that their quality of life hasn't changed More do say quality of life has worsened than improved but not by a huge margin. It's 29 percent to to 16 percent And nearly all of those who say that quality of life has worsened Also said that relationships with neighbors had worsened Another way to measure their overall assessment is to ask them whether they'd accept more wind turbines in their township Overall there is slightly more support than opposition for more wind development Here you can see 42 percent compared to 36 percent Though feelings are stronger among those who are opposed What I found particularly interesting is looking at those who are unpaid You can see that overall they're less supportive of additional wind development than those who are paid But 38 percent of those who are unpaid say they would support additional wind development And only 40 percent would oppose it. So it's pretty evenly split among this group This is definitely not the impression that you get when you go to most planning commission meetings or township board meetings in michigan Where wind energy is being discussed Okay, so what should you do as i've just shown you there are both pros and cons of wind development How do you balance them as a planner? I'm going to advocate advocate for thinking about how wind development fits with your long-term plan And the first thing i'm going to assert is that for most rural communities in michigan wind energy is primarily an economic development proposition But i'm also going to assert that this sort of economic development might not be compatible with some other community goals If the goal in your community is for substantial residential development or substantial growth in tourism Wind development might not be right for your community The reason being is that these landowners are less likely to directly benefit from the project because they don't own larger parcels of land And some may be deterred May be deterred from building a brand new vacation home or building a home Or or buying a home in a new subdivision in the midst of a wind farm Now on the other hand if your community's goal is to go all in on agriculture My research finds that wind development could be a really good fit By giving farmers another way to make money off their land It allows them to diversify their income and shore up their succession plans This may help stabilize the stabilize the population if these young people choose to stay on the farm rather than move away And it not only financially helps the farmer, but also helps the community in terms of property tax revenues I am concerned about taking good farmland out of production But if you cite turbine access roads or the turbine themselves on fence rows It's possible to take absolutely no land out of production And because of the relatively small footprint of a wind turbine The state's pa 116 farmland preservation program has ruled that you don't have to Disenroll your land from that program if you put a turbine on it Now once you determine if wind energy fits with your community goals or not Then you should set your zoning to match your goal Just as i'm not a medical doctor I am also not a lawyer But I have seen that it is possible to create a legally defensible zoning ordinance that either minimizes Or maximizes opportunities for turbines to be placed in the community It does this through a combination of setback distances noise limits and other requirements Once you've decided that you know you want turbines Or you know that you don't want them in your community I suggest that you adopt a zoning ordinance that sends the message either that you are open for business or that you are not interested This will save your jurisdiction and the wind developer a whole lot of time and money Wind developers aren't looking for Are sorry wind developers are looking for communities that want them there and grassat county is a really good example of that grassat county doesn't have the best wind resources in the state But they clearly articulated that wind energy is compatible with their agricultural development plans And they have a zoning ordinance that makes it possible for a wind developer to cite a project there On the other extreme you have some townships in the windiest part of the state That haven't outright banned wind development But their zoning ordinance makes it so difficult to cite a project That wind developers haven't even bothered talking to landowners in these townships They know it's just not possible to cite a project there So is there a magical setback distance or noise limit that's going to make everyone in your township happy? As a planner, I really wish I could tell you that there was but I don't have that I don't see that evidence of that from my research What I've done here is taken the data I presented a couple slides back on support and opposition for additional wind development in the township And broken the responses down by the setback distance in the zoning ordinance That's one of the more contentious issues It's contentious because if that setback distance is too large You won't be able to find enough land area in the township to cite turbines But if the setback distance is too small turbines can be much closer to homes So you'd expect that as you increase the setback distance People would be more willing to welcome additional turbines because their homes are better buffered That's not at all what I'm seeing There's one community here on the left That I studied where there's absolutely no zoning ordinance wind development is a private agreement between the wind developer and the property owner And more than half of the residents there want more wind development That's surprising since there's nothing protecting them from a neighbor putting a wind turbine right on the property line By contrast in the township off to the right with the largest setback distance where homeowners are more protected Only 30 support additional wind development So I have no evidence that there is a magical setback distance that will put all concerned citizens fears to rest But will allow farmers who want turbines on their property to still have those turbines What I have pulled together Are a couple of resources you might consider So the michigan state university extension has a couple of guidance documents this first one from 2017 Provides more of a framework for elements that you could consider in your zoning ordinance And I really like this second resource from 20 2007. I feel like it does a really good job Talking about the pros and cons and how you might balance those in your zoning ordinance The department of energy has a database of ordinances on wind that are available online But be sure that you check for similar types of communities to yours Many in this database are relatively suburban And you should also note that this includes ordinances for places both with and without turbines And you should look for those that with goals that match your community Shia wasi county right now is in the process of writing an ordinance regarding wind energy And I think it's done a really good job of pulling together comparison charts on each of the key topics Again, their work includes both communities where the ordinance is welcoming to wind and where the ordinance all but prohibits wind So you should keep that in mind And finally, I've included a link to my website Where I've collected ordinances for the communities in the state that currently have projects since I've already had them together for my research I want to reiterate Just one more time that when you are pulling the data together, you should go back to your goal If you want turbines in your township, then in your comparison chart, you should be looking at the ordinances for communities with turbines If you don't want turbines in your township, then you should be looking at the ordinances for communities that don't have turbines Okay, so my research does suggest that there are a couple of things that you might consider in your zoning First I think it's very wise to differentiate between participating and non participating landowners in considering setback distances or noise limits And I think that for the following reason When you do it forces wind developers to work harder to get more people signed up And my research suggests that when you have more people signed up as participating landowners Not only are those people happier, but it changes the community conversation about wind energy Rather than talking about those couple of greedy farmers Who brought this wind farm upon the community instead people are talking about those couple of people who wished they'd signed leases And generally in communities where more people are participating People are much less likely to talk to me or to tell me that the project caused community tension So I think it's worthwhile to distinguish between participating and non participating landowners I also think it makes sense to ask the wind developer to model noise and flicker For everyone in the township who is concerned about what impact the project will have on them The reasoning is that wind developers do this anyway But I think that so much of the tension in communities arises out of the fear of the unknown impacts And these models may help to reduce some of that fear It's also really important to have a public discussion about decommissioning And for the local government to explain in layman's terms What sort of financial guarantee they have that they will be able to take down the turbines if the wind developer goes belly up In most of the places where I've studied they do have decommissioning plans and fairly sizable bonds to cover costs But most residents either don't know about it or they don't trust that they will actually be funds available 20 years from now And so I think it's really important that local government talks about this And finally it's really important to have an open and transparent process as you're developing your ordinances relating to wind development And to provide as many opportunities as you can for township residents to ask questions and give feedback This graph is showing that This graph is again looking at whether people would support or oppose additional wind development in their township But it's broken down here based on the extent to which the person agreed or disagreed That they had an ample opportunity to provide input during the wind project planning stage So among those who strongly agreed that they were given this opportunity 74% said that they would support additional wind development By contrast among those who strongly disagreed that they had an ample opportunity to provide input 73% say they would oppose additional wind development So what happens the first time around really matters in terms of how people feel about the existing project And whether or not they're welcoming to additional wind development The same is true when it comes to wind developer actions So among those who strongly agreed that the wind developer acted openly and transparently the first time around 77% said they would support additional wind development Among those who strongly disagreed that the wind developer acted openly and transparently 83% say they would oppose future wind development. This shouldn't be surprising, but it's really important to keep in mind To facilitate that transparency if you have a wind developer approach your community, don't be afraid to ask them questions Ask about who benefits and what their business model is Are they pooling royalties or are they just paying those with turbines on their property? You can ask them about the amount of tax revenue that they anticipate paying to the local government And how that compares to the existing tax base You can ask them about the impacts that the project would have on specific homes on your home You can ask them about their typical siting scheme. Do they cite turbines on property lines or in the middle of fields? And you can ask them how they plan to handle decommissioning What agreements do they have with landowners and with the local government? How can they assure you that there will be enough money to cover their costs that sort of thing? Okay, so if you can't tell I could absolutely talk for days about wind energy in michigan But I've come to the end of my slides and I want to make sure that I Turn to this list of questions that my colleagues have been keeping track of for me. Let me take a drink and then I'll turn right to those The first question is have you considered the distance from a turbine in the sound issue or the setbacks used? That is something that I haven't Considered and the reason being is that many landowners own Parcels in different parts of the township. And so it's really difficult to measure that distance Are we measuring it from their house? Are we measuring it from? If their house is in another jurisdiction, how does that factor in so I haven't done that a lot of the studies That have been published though do look at Distance and how that impacts attitudes towards wind energy And if you're interested in some of those studies if you drop me an email or give me a phone call I'm happy to point you towards them The next question are these responses only based on opinions or measured facts? Um, and this is certainly opinions. It's an opinion survey. Um, so as I noted when I was talking about Um property value depreciation. These are opinions. I did not specifically say Do you have evidence that your property values have decreased? Um Let's see the next question Um before the end of the presentation, can you let us know if the research is yet published and where we might obtain copies of the articles? So um on the website and I'll say this again before we close. I do have a number of Reports that are really intended for the public. So these are not peer reviewed Although the data behind them is either already peer reviewed or currently undergoing peer review um, so those are kind of publicly focused reports that you can get I do have a chapter out that is looking at the um investment and The farmland investment and the succession planning that if you drop me an email, I would be happy to send you a link to Okay What did you find on the impacts on birds and wildlife? Um, that is a good question. I did ask about birds and wildlife on my survey But I didn't include it just to try to keep this within an hour Um, generally speaking more than half of the people living in wind farm communities Do not believe that turbines have an impact on wildlife Um, but I know in some communities Birds in particular, but I know in some communities that is of concern honestly That is one of the lesser concerns at least in the places that I've studied Have there been any change in the utility cost the electric bill for people in the township? So no, um their electric bill they In most of these places or in michigan generally people are generally served by either consumers power or dte Whether you live in a community with a wind farm or not You pay the same electric rate that everybody else in that service territory pays And so they have not seen changes to their electric bill as a result of the turbine that other people in other places haven't Let's see Is there a move toward community based or community led wind projects in michigan? So that's a good question. Um I should first explain what a community based or community led wind project is and that's where It often it's owned by the community. So Members in the community will pitch in to help fund To provide the initial investment for them Most of the wind projects in the state again, I'm looking at utility scale projects. So these are five six Turbines minimum. In fact, the smallest utility scale project in the state is I think 18 um That's a lot of capital for very for these very Small communities to pull together. So To date there's not tons of that going on I think that there are some people that are interested in figuring out how communities can better Get ahead of wind developers and so say hey, we want wind development here, but we want it on our terms We're going to lay that information out to the wind developer and wind developers. You come here if you can meet our terms Um, if that's something you want to talk about again, email me or call me. I'll be in back in my office Uh in 15 minutes soon as we're done here Um, let's see what time commitment and community hearing should be scheduled in developing a wind ordinance months Yes months And the reason that I say this is that it's really really important to give people lots of opportunity to give feedback Whether or not you have staff. I mean most of the rural communities in the state Don't have a planner on their staff. They may not have any Paid staff members within their township government And so they're relying on an outside consultant or on the planning commissioners themselves to Do all of the research behind this It's a it's a big decision to be made in communities. And so Um, it's going to take time both to pull together the information But then to make sure that you have ample give people ample opportunity to provide feedback Um The next question I've heard that there is wind tourism people coming to visit turbines But your presentation says wind energy and tourism aren't compatible. Why? So, um, that's a really good question too Most of the tourism in the state So let me back up There could certainly be tourism that is driven by wind turbines. In fact in here on county When we look at impacts on the roads I have had a couple people right on their survey that it's the tour buses coming to see these turbines that are increasing traffic on their roads So there's definitely some element of wind related tourism But in michigan, that's not generally why people are What's bringing tourists to some of these communities, you know, along the great lakes It's certainly certainly associated with the lakes themselves, but we have lots of in Interior lakes too and so Yes, it could drive Wind development could drive tourism. I haven't seen tons of research on that and I'm hedging my bets that That I guess this is more the precautionary principle that it may interfere with the people who are coming to your community for seeing You know the stars And enjoying a quiet lakefront Or cabin Getaway All right, let's see. I'm trying to think if I've gotten through Sounds to me like a key part of your message is that wind developers should be paying off the neighbors. Is that ethical? So I think that this is referring to the idea that these These pooled arrangements or these friendly neighbor or participation agreements are giving Our hush money effectively for the neighbors and that's certainly one view in michigan There is a really reasonable Reasonable reason that's a silly way to say it There's a logical reason for having these participation agreements And that is that many of our ordinances that are on the books do distinguish between participating and non participating landowners And so it just gives the wind developer more flexibility if they If they have a way to Have agreements with more neighbors in the community But there's also another reason that these participating participation agreements make sense and that is that you can't Line turbines up cheek to jowl The wind needs time to recuperate after it goes from one to the next So you really do need free access to the wind that blows over the properties between turbines and In my mind the old model that only pays people with turbines on their property doesn't Consider the economic benefit that is That is provided by that property owner in between turbines That landowner's property really is providing a benefit to the project those turbines are able to operate appropriately and so It's I think it is ethical and there is a as a logical business case for why you might do that Okay, I think we are almost out of time and there's still a couple questions left So again, here's my contact information That you can get a hold of me if I didn't get to your question or if there's anything else you'd like to follow up on I also want to point out as I did just a minute ago that on the webpage You'll see both the blank survey instrument as well as some short reports With a serve with a summary of the data from the surveys and in that you It will include the impacts on birds I'll send you an email either later today or sometime tomorrow With a link to the webinar in case you'd like to share it with neighbors friends colleagues And I think that's it so thank you again so much for joining me And I'd like to thank the mott foundation for funding both this research and this webinar So thanks again and have a great day