As More Laws Restrict Windmills, Some Homeowners Fight Back
Wendie Howland drives a Prius and uses solar panels to heat water, but she won’t be able to install a windmill to generate electricity for her home.
The Bourne, Mass., resident took her case to court after the local planning board refused to allow her to install the 132-foot windmill. She lost in a July ruling, the New York Times reports. Judge Christopher Muse of Barnstable County Superior Court upheld the planning board decision, saying it was not “unreasonable, whimsical, capricious or arbitrary.”
The story says many communities are passing laws regulating wind turbines for residents, particularly in New England, the Midwest and the West. The restrictive laws essentially ban the windmills, according to opponents. In other towns, older laws banning structures taller than 30 feet or 40 feet are also blocking wind turbines.
Jonathan Fitch, Howland’s lawyer, says the legal clashes remind him of early litigation involving cell towers. They provoked “a lot of neighborhood hostility back then, but today you hardly notice them.”
Howland is giving up her legal fight, according to the story, after spending $40,000 on a wind turbine she can’t install and legal fees.
