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Citizen’s wind turbine changes in limbo
Credit: By Diana T. Barth, The Enterprise, www.capenews.net 15 April 2011 ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Bourne Planning Board voted Thursday to table and study the citizen-proposed changes to the wind turbine bylaw that had been heading to Town Meeting, effectively blocking that article from being acted upon on May 2.
Bourne Planning Board, which met Thursday night to decide whether to recommend the citizen-proposed amendments to the town’s Wind Energy Conversion System bylaw that is on the warrant at the May 2 Town Meeting, voted instead to table the question and take those proposals under advisement.
Planning board chairman Christopher J. Farrell said some new changes had been proposed as late as Thursday afternoon, and the board needed to take the time necessary to study their impacts.
Among the impacts of the article as a whole, Town Planner Coreen V. Moore said, was that there would be no place in Bourne where a commercial or utility-sized wind turbine could legally be placed.
Christopher G. Senie, the attorney for the group of residents proposing changes to the bylaw, asked board members to consider voting not to recommend the changes, something that would have sent the article to voters at Town Meeting.
The board members voted instead to continue studying the complex issues and the impacts of proposed changes, both to all areas of the town and to applicants proposing or opposing projects. They did not close the hearing.
Unless or until such a study is complete and a report of the planning board issued, for or against the changes, the article cannot be voted on at Town Meeting.
The board’s consultant, Philip B. Herr, who was not present Thursday, had recommended that any changes made to Bourne’s bylaw track those made by the Cape Cod Commission, something the residents’ proposed changes do not do. Mr. Herr also recommended that the changes be reviewed by a technical, engineering consultant.
The petitioners behind the article left the meeting visibly angry at the board, calling out “Stonewall!” and “Joke” and commenting, for example, that they would remember members’ action when they went to the polls.
Mr. Farrell said the board will meet in workshop session on Thursday, April 28, to begin a close study and discussion of the impacts of the changes.
Asked how long he thought such a study might last, Mr. Farrell suggested three weeks to a month.
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