Hoffman on Municipalities Banning Wind Power

Student Author Nicholas Hoffman of the University of Missouri-Kansas City has published COMMENT: A DON QUIXOTE TALE OF MODERN RENEWABLE ENERGY: COUNTIES AND MUNICIPALITIES FIGHT TO BAN COMMERCIAL WIND POWER ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

From the introduction:

This comment explores the legal nature of claims brought by landowners against zoning ordinances or other entities attempting to limit the use of private wind rights. Part II provides a discussion of the legal issues surrounding commercial wind energy and formulating wind as a property right connected to a fee simple interest in one's land. Part III discusses and explores recent cases furthering, stretching, and defining the legal issues. Finally, Part IV looks to the future implications and the horizon for wind energy in terms of its impacts on the surrounding world and how those impacts might shape the legal policies governing and defining wind rights. If wind energy is going to continue to grow, the interplay of incentive programs, tax credits, local government and community support, technological feasibility, and general unity in the law will need to interact on similar bases. 

I find this article particulary interesting because the UGA Land Use Clinic recently worked with the Georgia Wind Working Group and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to create a guidebook and model wind ordinance for local governments wishing to faciliate, rather than ban, small scale wind facilities.  Perhaps it's a matter of scope and scale - large scale wind facilities aren't particularly feasible in Georgia, and so we haven't had as much controversy over wind as other states.

Jamie Baker Roskie