First Cedar Rapids wind-turbine project takes crucial step forward

CEDAR RAPIDS - A first foray into wind energy under the city's six-month-old wind-turbine ordinance took a crucial step on Wednesday toward reality.

On a unanimous vote, the City Planning Commission approved a scaled-back proposal by the Cedar Rapids-Iowa City Electrical Training Center, 2300 Johnson Ave. NW, to erect two, 37-foot-tall turbines on its site.

The training center initially had wanted to put up three wind turbines, including a 61-footer, but neighbors objected and the city's Board of Adjustment in November turned down its request on a 2-2 vote.

Mike Carson, training director at the center, on Wednesday presented a new plan to the City Planning Commission, one that features two turbines that don't look like the traditional wind turbine with a three-blade rotor spinning at the top of a tower. Instead, an airfoil around the length of the turbine tower moves in the wind to generate electricity.

Carson must now win approval from the Board of Adjustment at its Feb. 14 meeting.

Tom Zenisek, a former member of the Board of Adjustment and a neighbor who had opposed the training center's initial plan, attended Wednesday's City Planning Commission meeting but did not object to the training center's new plan.

Afterward, Zenisek said the new proposal calls for smaller turbines that he said were kind of attractive. There only about this wide around, he said, holding his arms in about a 4-foot circle.

Zenisek said he likely will speak at the Board of Adjustment meeting to seek a provision in the approval that makes sure that the turbines, once in place, don't exceed the city's noise ordinance.

Carson said the electrical training center wants to install the turbines so its 120 apprentices and 650 journeyman electricians can train on them. A federal grant is helping with the cost.

David Osterberg, executive director of the Iowa Policy Project and associate clinical professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa, spoke in support of the training center project, saying Iowa needed people trained to service the state's substantial and growing wind industry.

Osterberg presented the commission with descriptions of four studies, three of which concluded that property values don't decline on properties near wind turbines. Osterberg didn't put much stock in the study that disputed the finding of the three other studies.