FPL dismisses lawsuit against Village of Lee
LEE – The energy company that owns a wind farm straddling the Lee-DeKalb county line has dropped a lawsuit it filed last September against the village of Lee, attorneys for the municipality said Thursday.
In September, FPL Illinois Wind Energy LLC sued the village in DeKalb County court over its refusal to permit six wind turbines to be built within its zoning area.
The proposed turbines would have fallen outside the village’s corporate limits but within its 1.5-mile zoning boundaries jurisdiction, according to state law.
The lawsuit was dropped Dec. 17, said Keith Foster, attorney for the village.
“I pretty much expected that to happen eventually,” Foster said Thursday. “We felt pretty confident they were going to lose the case if they pursued it.”
In the suit, FPL claimed the village board “arbitrarily” denied applications for permits company representatives said met Lee’s zoning requirements.
It asked a judge to compel the approval of the permits and sought at least $200,000 in damages for construction delays.
The unanimous vote to deny the permits came after more than three hours of testimony at an Aug. 31 public hearing in Lee. After the vote, board members cited resident opposition and the proximity of the turbines to homes as the reasons why the permit requests were denied.
Attempts to reach FPL representatives Thursday were unsuccessful.
In June, the DeKalb County board granted NextEra Energy Resources permission to build and operate 119 turbines in Afton, Clinton, Milan and Shabbona townships.
NextEra, a subsidiary of FPL, had proposed a total of 151 turbines in DeKalb and Lee Counties. Of those, 119 are in unincorporated DeKalb County and the others were scheduled to be in Lee County and the villages of Lee and Shabbona.
Construction of the remaining 145 turbines in the wind farm project was completed in November. Earlier this month, FPL representatives said they expected the project to go online Dec. 31 if not earlier.
A second suit involving the wind farm was dismissed Dec. 9, but the plaintiff, a citizen group that opposes the entire wind farm project, was given 28 days to amend its complaint.
That means the 39 members of the group, Citizens for Open Government, have until Jan. 6 to refile their complaint seeking to shut down the project.
By DANA HERRA
Daily Chronicle
25 December 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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