Supervisors to vote on windmill tax discount Monday

Lee Belden wants to build a 46-foot tall windmill that would pump out 5,000 watts of electricity per hour at his home south of Alburnett.

The Linn County supervisors will decide Monday whether the windmill will get property tax discounts.

Belden has applied for a building permit and for an interconnect permit with the Linn County REC, which would pay him 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour for the electricity his windmill sends back into the grid.

“Hopefully it will be finished by November, but things are moving pretty slowly,” Belden said. “I thought it would make a statement that we need to start getting off fossil fuels.”

Several Iowa counties already have an ordinance that gives tax discounts to windmill generators. The Linn County ordinance will be based on one used in Story, Floyd and Carroll Counties.

The ordinance would make windmills tax exempt for one year, and then taxed at a discounted rate for at least 20 years. It would encourage locals to “reduce their carbon footprint,” Supervisor Brent Oleson said.

“This is a personal way to do that, on a personal level,” Oleson said. “A farmer can operate with a renewable energy source.”

The state already offers a tax credit of 1.5 cents for each kilowatt-hour the windmill produces. The credit can be applied toward the state's personal income tax, business tax, financial institutions tax, or sales and use tax.

Three windmill permits are in process with the Linn County department of planning and development, but windmills in the county are “few and far between,” said Brita Van Horne, a planner in the department.