HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Board of Reno County Commissioners spent two and a half hours hammering through the commercial wind energy conversion systems regulations on Tuesday afternoon.
Even after all that time, they still have said they will allow public input a half hour for each side as the last agenda item on a regularly scheduled commission meeting prior to voting on a final draft of the regulations.
Staff made clear that they can't regulate areas of the county that are not zoned, and clarified that more than 60 percent of the county is not zoned currently, most of it in the western portion of the county.
It also appeared that the commission doesn't believe that the southeastern portion of the county will have a project now, because if push came to shove and the same process were followed that stopped the current project, they didn't appear to have unanimous consensus to pass it over landowners objections.
The intent of the commission was to put setbacks at 3000 feet from a primary structure and to minimize sound and shadow flicker, though increasing the setback should help with that. Also, it was their intent to allow individual landowners to apply for waivers from the regulations if they felt their personal situation would work better otherwise.
It wasn't clear which meeting's agenda the final regulation draft would end up on, but it could be as soon as February 23rd, depending on how long it takes staff to make the final edits and to decide who is allowed to speak in the allotted time at whatever meeting is selected.
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