The Mackinaw City Village Planning Commission will form a committee to further discuss a wind turbine ordinance after its next regularly scheduled meeting later this month. The commission agreed at a special meeting Thursday, September 10, that more research is needed, outside of its normal twicea month, two-hour meetings, to adequately address the topic.

The goal is to expedite information gathering and to better guide the Planning Commission to pen an ordinance all eight commissioners feel comfortable approving.

"It's to gather information about specific technical things that need to be known about it," Village Manager Jeff Lawson said. "Normally, it's done just to consolidate some time to allow a small group to get into more detail of some of the technical issues and present it back so the whole board doesn't have to research the topics."

Commissioners were given a copy of a draft ordinance at the meeting and agreed to take that draft home to make notes and comments about how they would like to see such an ordinance applied to Mackinaw City. When the commission reconvenes September 24, members of the committee will be selected. The wind turbine committee will address the notes and comments made by the Planning Commission.

"Our problem is to really to do our homework and not get involved in some issues that may slide past us that we later regret," commissioner John Riemer said.

The purpose of the ordinance is to allow installation of small residential and commercial turbines in the village while guiding construction, ascetics, and public safety. If the ordinance is approved as a stand-alone ordinance, as it is written, it will allow for turbine installation in all zoned districts in the village, provided all provisions are met about noise, vibration, setback, ground clearance, communication signal interference, shadow flicker, avian risk, environmental impact, and safety.

Provisions in the first draft would require a turbine to be set back at least 1.25 times its total height from the nearest structure, a turbine cannot exceed 55 decibels audibly, and all electrical lines con- nected to the turbine must be buried underground. Larger turbines' blades would require at least 50 feet of ground clearance and smaller blades would require 20 feet of clearance.

"The setbacks from buildings and property lines really drive the reality of where things can be built," Mr. Lawson said. "This ordinance really takes a lot of properties out of actuality with it, so, by default, a lot of properties in our residential district can't even have small turbines because they just don't have the setbacks on their property."

As the ordinance is written, however, a property owner without the minimum amount of land to meet setbacks can, through the Zoning Board of Appeals, get a neighboring property owner to sign a waiver to allow construction of such turbines.

The village only has regulations for large commercial turbines. They were drafted in 2001 to regulate the two turbines erected on the village's south side.

"We're in a much better position now because we can see what turbines look like, so we're not starting from scratch and not knowing anything about them," Mr. Lawson said. "Now we're trying to catch up with what's changed in the last 10 years in technology."

In other news, the commission unanimously approved a set of bylaws to outline meeting procedure, policy, and action. The state is requiring planning commissions in Michigan to adopt bylaws by 2011. The Mackinaw City Village Planning Commission has not had bylaws before and began its review of the five-page document in January.

"You have had time to go through this," commission chair Rob Most said to the rest of the commission. "You've done a terrific job on this."

The Planning Commission will meet next Thursday, September 24, at the Village Hall on South Huron Avenue at 7 p.m.