Allen voters approve zoning

FINDLAY — Allen Township voters approved a zoning resolution in Tuesday's primary election by a vote of 507 for, or 58%, to 359 against. Results from the Hancock County elections board Tuesday were unofficial and included absentee voting. Whether the zoning will be implemented is in question because One Power Co. — whose growth the zoning seeks to curb — is challenging the validity of the measure and ballot language. If Tuesday's vote would be certified by the elections board, the 80-page resolution would regulate all land uses: residential, agricultural, business and industrial, among them. But One Power Co.'s 262-foot wind turbine towers — and plans to expand and build more of them — are what ignited some residential neighbors to seek zoning for the largely rural township. Zoning historically has been unpopular in Allen Township. It's been 22 years since township voters last defeated a proposed zoning ordinance. They rejected zoning proposals four times from the mid-1980s to 2001. Besides limiting height and power capacity on new turbines to a fraction of the existing ones, the zoning resolution would set stringent rules for distancing of wind turbines from property lines and between each other. It distinguishes between wind turbines as "accessory" — that is, those that support or are incidental to the primary use of the property, but are not the main purpose of the property; and wind turbines as the "primary" use — the principal or predominant purpose for which a property is used. The zoning resolution's regulations would not apply to wind turbines already in place. Turbines as primary New wind turbines could only be the primary use of a property in an "I-2 General Industrial" district, and the proposed plan would have only one such district. That would be the area dominated by the county landfill and bounded by County Road 140 on the west; Township Road 109 on the north; Township Road 142 on the east; and Township Road 107 on the south. When wind turbines would be the primary use, they would be limited to 60 feet in height and could produce up to 50 kilowatts of electricity. That's much smaller and a tiny fraction of the production capacity of One Power Co.'s turbines which supply energy to Whirlpool Corp. and Ball Corp. A wind turbine serving as the primary use of a property would have to be located at least 1,250 feet from any residential use. It also would have to be at least one mile — "nearest lot line to nearest lot line" — to any other wind turbine. The zoning plan includes additional regulations for wind turbines as a primary use. Turbines as accessory As an accessory use, wind turbines may be conditionally permitted by the township zoning commission in any zoning district. The turbine would be limited to 30 feet in height. It would not be permitted in the front yard or side yard of the property's principal use. It would have to be designed and located to produce no more than 40 decibels of sound, or comparable to a quiet library or a refrigerator humming. The zoning plan includes additional regulations for wind turbines as an accessory use. The proposed zoning resolution also has regulations for solar energy systems.