At the October Plan Commission meeting, the discussion on WECS’s continued. (Previously discussed here.) The Commission could not come to enough of a consensus to formulate a new Ordinance but they did take a series of votes that defined several of the issues. It would appear that proponents of banning WECS’s are achieving most of their goals. If they proceed along their current path, Culver residents would not be allowed to have a WECS that produces more than .5 kilowatts in the lake district, park district, and R1 residential district as well as within 1/4 mile of any of those districts.
I would still contend that the proponents of the ban are too focused on their distaste for the aesthetics of current wind turbine technology and fail to consider the advantages that could come from advances in the field.
Representatives from the Concerned Property Owners of Marshall County requested that Culver change their zoning ordinance regarding WECS’s and as a result, the Culver Plan Commission held a Public Hearing on an ordinance change at their August 2013 meeting. (WECS is the acronym for Wind Energy Conversion Systems and applies to any device that takes wind energy and converts it to usable forms of energy.) The initial request was for Culver to match the County’s zoning requirements which currently bans commercial WECS’s and allows residential systems with a Special Use Permit in selective zoning districts. Unfortunately audience members requested that the ordinance be tweaked to further restrict residential systems as well. At that time I spoke up and reminded the Plan Commission that they had recently created an A1 – Agricultural District with the intention of mirroring Marshall County’s A1 district. This was done to eliminate discrepancy protests to extending our Territorial Authority. The Commission agreed with my argument but still had some reservation so they decided to table the issue.
At the September Culver Plan Commission meeting the topic came up again. Russ Mason, Building Commissioner, had conversations with some farmers and had made some minor tweaks to the height restrictions for WECS’s. Audience members also spoke up and protested the allowance of WECS’s in residential areas even under the special use requirements. I again spoke up with two points:
Last Wednesday I attended the third MCEDC Economic Development For the Future Meeting at Swan Lake. Culver was represented at this meeting by Bill Githens, Dave Schoeff and Ginny Munroe. This meeting had a “report card” kind of feel. In the previous two meetings we talked about what MCEDC needed in order to help the communities and about a list of goals for each of the communities. At this meeting we listed all of those goals along with all of the associated action steps on poster boards and asked the communities to report on their progress. All of them were able to point to some of the good things they have done and areas where work was needed. A couple even added additional goals to their list.
Culver’s list was one of the longest, but that is partly due to me being an activist, as you can see from my comp plan map The Culver list is shown at the right and you can blow it up to see what is on it (feel free to step up and accomplish anything on there you would like to!)
This meeting was the first that Ginny had attended and it was interesting to hear her comments on how it energized her. Seeing how other community representatives were stepping up and taking ownership on projects was an important goal for MCEDC in these meetings. We hope to instill some civic pride and civic competition and we seem to be achieving some success.
We have already scheduled a follow up meeting for the fourth quarter of 2013 and hope to build on the successes we have seen so far. This program is already paying back with some exciting dividends.
If you haven’t done so yet, check out the mapping tool at the Culver Comprehensive Plan site here. The one I did (see right) looks like it’s pretty diseased! Others have done them and only put one or two things on there that were of most importance to them.
Each dot and symbol on the map to the right has a different meaning and text associated with it. If you go to the site, you can look at any of the maps that have been created by others and read the comments they have made. Make your own map. If all you do is reiterate what someone else has said, you will add weight to that issue. If you have specific goals or comments, this is the place to get them heard. Developing a new Comprehensive Plan is a team sport. Get on the team!
Last night was the Vision Workshop for the Culver Comprehensive Plan. I’ve been calling this effort 20/20 vision for Culver for a while now. Unfortunately with the poor turn out last night, our vision may require a stronger prescription! Less than 30 people turned out for last night’s meeting. That’s pretty dismal. There were three Plan Commission members there, but only one Redevelopment Commission member and no Town Council members. The overall poor attendance is probably due to poor advertising, but it’s unfortunate that our community leaders aren’t getting involved. I’m not in tune with all of the local groups, but I was disappointed that only one Chamber board member was there who was also the only Second Century Committee board member. That was particularly disappointing considering the leadership role SCC took in the previous Comprehensive Plan. I couldn’t identify any of the Lions Club Board, Kiwanis Board, Boys & Girls Club Board, etc. Maybe that apathy in and of itself says a lot about Culver’s future…