By Kelsey Bent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Listowel Banner
January 27, 2024
NORTH PERTH – A delegation to North Perth council on Jan. 15 asked to pass a zoning bylaw to regulate wind turbines.
Warren Howard, of the Elma-Mornington Concerned Citizens group, shared that the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) recently announced its plans to add five terawatt hours (TWh) by 2030.
Howard said this announcement is in response to the demand for power which is expected to grow sharply, the retirement of Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, and federal clean energy regulations to be carbon neutral by 2040.
To answer to these factors, Howard told council the IESO is proposing a three-phased procurement approach of 2,000 megawatts in 2025, and 1,500 megawatts in the subsequent procurements in 2027 and 2029.
“What can qualify for those RFPs is wind, solar, hydroelectric storage, and vital energy and wind seems to be the popular thing,” he said. “You can start getting municipal support requests this year, like any time. There is prospecting going on for sites in various parts of the province. I haven’t heard about any here, but they are out there.”
North Perth has some experience with wind turbines; the largest was Invenergy’s Conestoga project, which included 26 turbines, however, according to Howard, it was terminated because they couldn’t find enough qualified sites.
Howard said North Perth has one wind turbine operating in the municipality. According to the delegation it was originally owned by Mapleton Wind, but it is now owned by a cooperative from Kitchener.
“Back when the Invenergy Conestoga project was ongoing this council declared North Perth was an unwilling host for wind turbines,” Howard said.
He added that municipalities today have more options, compared to past experiences.
“The Planning Act was amended in 2019, previously municipalities had no role in approving projects,” Howard said. “They could provide input but it was ignored.”
According to the delegation, municipal support is now required for new projects, and changes to the Planning Actallow municipalities to pass zoning bylaws to control minimum setbacks. Howard’s delegation to council was to ask North Perth to update its zoning bylaw.
He explained that the draft of the new Perth County Official Plan, anticipated to be approved sometime this year, is “largely silent” regarding wind turbines. Rather it protects prime agricultural land and limits energy projects to on-farm diversified use, which is defined as one hectare or two per cent of the land area. He explained that the details have to go into a zoning bylaw and that’s where the problems are.
“The province has not updated the setbacks for wind turbines since they were set out in 2009 and the number of complaints that have come in for those turbines suggests that they are a problem,” Howard said.
His suggestions are:
On prime farmland require a setback of 2,000 metres for protection from both audible and low-frequency noises.
Establish setbacks from property lines of 1,200 metres, which would limit the impact of turbine failure and ice thrown; and
Establish setbacks from designated growth areas.
Wallace Ward Coun. Lee Anne Andriessen asked if “it would be powerful enough or sufficient enough for a municipality to pass these bylaws or do you believe it should come from Perth County?”
Howard suggested following the municipality’s regular process for zoning bylaws.
“Municipalities have the authority to pass zoning bylaws, and they cannot be sued for passing those,” he said. “That is essentially what the Planning Act says, as I understand it. Probably it should be a combination of Perth County and local, I think.”
Andriessen asked if staff could provide council with next steps to move forward, and Mayor Todd Kasenberg agreed.
“Ontario has released a plan and it is actually an interesting read, so I think perhaps staff could be commissioned to create a report that will probably reference the province’s plans as well as in the context of this issue,” he said.
Wallace Ward Coun. Marc Noordam asked if other energy projects could be included in this report.
“There have been proposals for solar farms as well, could we add that to the report to look into ways we can prevent that as well as wind turbines,” he said.
Kasenberg cautioned Noordam’s word choice.
“I’d be cautious of the word ‘prevent.’ I think we should let staff bring forward a recommendation of how we proceed,” he said. “It may be that there needs to be more public discussion about this but at this point, I think let’s watch that word if I might make a gentle suggestion.”
Howard suggested alternatively “regulate it very closely.”
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Council carried the motion without further discussion.