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What is your Shelburne/Buckland property worth? 

Credit:  Walter Cudnohufsky, Ashfield ~~

The proposal to install wind turbines on Mount Massaemet has already dramatically lowered all property values in the eleven square miles of Shelburne and Buckland lying within the most impacted two miles of the turbines. The turbines already cast a shadow on the title and expected benefits to residential property.

Property appraiser and recent Shelburne speaker, Michael McCann suggests that industrial wind installations can be tantamount to “;inverse condemnation”, or a regulatory and private taking of other’s private property rights.”

At his March 3rd presentation, Mr. McCann suggested that his well documented* and conservative estimate of twenty five percent value decline, an impressive forty five million dollar tax base depreciation would be anticipated in Shelburne alone. Buckland would certainly have a significant tax base impact as well. The depreciation has in his studies reached forty percent.
*Michael McCann has conducted twenty recent industrial turbine related appraisals evaluations, zoning compliance and impact studies across the country.

It may take two to three years for the Shelburne Buckland market place to reflect this now surmised devaluation of real estate. When the effected property values are lowered by demand, every property in the Shelburne and Buckland communities will then need to share higher property taxes to compensate for the inevitable tax base shortfall.

The reality is that Governor Patrick’s 2020 renewable energy goal, whether intentional or not, is equivalent to the taking of private property in every ridgeline community in western Massachusetts, with no planned compensation for the property owners.

Economic impacts are common sense

Common sense should tell us that 400-500 foot-tall industrial wind turbines on the tops of New England ridges will have impacts. Machines so out of scale with the surrounding landscape and visible over hundreds of square miles will diminish the natural beauty of our hills and the tourism industry that depends on them. The concern for now well documented and wide spread noise and related health effects is common knowledge to any discerning person seeking to purchase. This one two punch for health and view impacts add up to reduced interest in property purchase and reduced values.

Mr. McCann says “The approval of wind energy projects within close proximity to occupied homes is tantamount to an inverse condemnation, or regulatory taking of private property rights, as the noise and impacts are in some respects a physical invasion, an easement in gross over neighboring properties, and the direct impacts reduce property values and the rights of nearby neighbors.”

Perhaps this is the more potent measure of the turbine impacts? There has been an inevitable devaluing of over 2000 Shelburne and Buckland residential, business, and civic properties within two miles of the proposed turbines. For most of us, this is an irreplaceable retirement nest egg.

This property value impact has a name

Annie Hart Cool, a Sotheby’s realtor, lives one half mile from the Falmouth turbine and has been affected in many ways: health impacts from the low frequency noise generated by turbines; restricted use of her property; a drop in business; and a recently reduced appraisal of her property’s value. She spoke in Shelburne on January 28th 2012.

She calls it “;…an insult to homeowner’s intelligence and to their financial health to even begin the story that turbines won’t affect a buyer’s desire to buy in a neighborhood.”

As a realtor, Mrs. Cool is bound by a code of ethics that obligates her to reveal “Negative Material Facts” or “Material Adverse Effects” pertaining to the properties she deals with. These terms, used in accounting, finance, mortgage banking, thus real estate; represent a severe decline in profitability and/or the possibility that a company’s (or person’s) financial position may be seriously compromised. Any purchaser has several years to seek legal redress for unreported or misreported factors affecting the property’s value.

Base on her experience in Falmouth, Mrs. Cool confirms, “;I know installation of industrial wind turbines is a Negative Material Fact.”

An example of what we can expect in Shelburne and Buckland

Eight unsold homes exist in Annie’s immediate two block Falmouth neighborhood. Five hundred forty-nine ocean-oriented properties—a combined two billion dollars in value—lie within one-half mile of the turbines. Despite their delight with the neighborhood, the setting and the wonderful homes, Annie reports potential buyers are walking away from purchases. They note the risk of the turbine impacts as their prime reason.

As some have said, it is not whether turbines will reduce property values but rather by how much. Mr. McCann has confirmed a 25-40% reduction is to be expected within two miles and that smaller reductions over a larger area should also be anticipated. Using the more modest 25% devaluation, the Falmouth Turbines have created a $500 million decrease in tax base. Using the larger 40% estimate, this total rises to $800 million devaluation, within just the one half mile. Accounting for the two mile zone of impact, the reduction in tax base for Falmouth is likely reach into the low billions in a town with a total property value of $11 billion. The resulting decline in tax revenue must be made up by raising taxes for all Falmouth property owners; a process that has already begun.

Don’t expect wind energy companies to compensate for any loss, as this example from Hammond, New York shows. In December 2010, an article by reporter Matt McAllister in The Journal (of Ogdensburg, NY) stated, “If Hammond adopts a wind law that requires Iberdrola Renewables Inc. to compensate property owners who see drops in their land values, the company says it will scrap plans to build a proposed wind farm.”; If there is no fiscal impact as Iberdrola has claimed, it should be an easily justifiable business expense to bond that proclaimed fact. Florida Power & Light subsidiary, NextEra, made the same claim in DeKalb, Illinois, but relented when the Hearing Officer recommended denial of their project without such a guarantee. The guarantee was then agreed and the project was approved.

Some wind power companies have strategically used the buyout or noise easement purchases for silencing nearby property owners when it was demanded and became essential. Easements in Gross are easements where the benefits accrue to the ownership (developers) but not a particular property. The wind developers understandably have no intention, as the above example illustrates, to purchase such easements over the two mile and beyond impact zone.

To conclude

It is not then a question of whether or when Shelburne and Buckland properties will be devalued. The reality is that property devaluation has already taken place by the ‘negative material fact’ that a publicly registered application to construct such a wind turbine complex on Mt. Massaemet exists. This was accompanied by the public assertion by Mr. Field that “plenty of wind capacity exists on Massaemet.” The possibility is now common knowledge and is irreversible. It is irreversible even if this current proposal were formally withdrawn by the developer or even if it were denied by the Town. The on going intent and possibility exists as a permanent not removable property value devaluation.

In a Letter to the Editor of the Shelburne Falls & West County Independent, November 11, 2011, Vicki Citron of Newton Mass described her decision not to purchase land in Shelburne, 2 miles down-slope of the turbines: “We don’t want to live near this industrial site with the health hazards and lowering of property values associated with it…. I urge you to carefully consider the impact of this wind development on the economic health of Shelburne. Others interested in living in Shelburne, like us, may choose to live elsewhere.”

A single remedy exists to reinstate the affected property values: to ban industrial scale wind turbines in Shelburne, Buckland, Ashfield, in all of western MA and all of New England.

Turbines must be banned because additionally it is our tax dollars that pay for these multi million dollar out of scale installations, our money that pays exponentially accelerating electric rates when wind turbines come online. They must be banned because it is morally criminal to build turbines proven world wide to have a dismal performance as illustrated in a growing number of careful assessments. Turbines are proving only to exacerbate climate and energy problems not provide the solution promoted.

The must be banned at minimum because they constitute a “taking” of private property value.

In the simplest terms there has been “daylight robbery of your nest egg” in Shelburne and Buckland. Unintended or not, government-funded industrial wind is a scam to conscript personal money, investment, savings and assets for other private and corporate entities. It cannot and must not stand!

Source:  Walter Cudnohufsky, Ashfield

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

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