June 23, 2010
06/23/10
It’s officially on the books, Marshall County now has guidelines in place regarding commercial wind energy systems.
The Marshall County Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals spent considerable time working on the amendment to the county zoning ordinance to include some safeguards and guidelines regarding the cutting edge power systems, because companies are showing interested in Marshall County as a site for operations.
The Marshall County Commissioners sent the amendments back to the Plan Commission for further tweaking and when the ordinance came before the Commissioners again a representative of the wind energy industry questioned a few of the stipulations in the ordinance. At that time Deb Griewank, president of the Plan Commission, urged the Commissioners to pass the ordinance, even if they felt it needed work, to get something on the books to protect the county and its taxpayers and pledged that the Commission would continue to work on any shortcomings in the ordinance.
Monday at the meeting of the Commissioners former Plan Commission member Dennis Thornton urged the board to do the same thing saying, “…we have to put something in the books because what we have right now is inadequate.”
All three Commissioners unanimously gave the Plan Commission what they wanted as they voted the ordinance onto the books on second and third reading.
“We aren’t going to change anything for the advantage of one company or interest,” said President of the Commissioners, Kevin Overmyer. “We have to take care of the citizens of Marshall County and that’s what we are going to do.”
Plan Commission Director Ralph Booker also brought an ordinance to update fee schedules for his offices permits such as building permits and setting fees for newly created industries such as wind farms that did not exist before. The ordinance raises most permit fees slightly.
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