North Ridgeville council passes moratorium on wind turbines  

Credit:  By Alison Meaney, Sun News, cleveland.com 20 June 2011 ~~

Applications to build wind turbines in North Ridgeville are under a temporary moratorium after city council members voted to take at least 90 days to craft legislation to regulate them.

The vote comes shortly after a resident of Emerald Street was granted permission to erect a 35-foot turbine under the city’s current ordinances, which aren’t specific to renewable energy sources according to council’s Building and Lands Committee Chair Robert Olsen.

City Council members agreed this evening they were caught off guard by the project. In fact, the first time representative Dennis Boose reportedly heard of the turbine was from a resident complaining about the new eyesore.

But Cheryl Fule, who lives two doors down from the residential windmill, says officials’ excuse is not good enough, especially since she doubts her neighborhood’s new addition will be removed.

“North Ridgeville failed to conduct a rigorous assessment of how residential wind turbines might affect human health, aesthetic resources, noise levels, community charactar (and) bird and bat populations,” said Fule.