September 22, 2017
Nebraska

Joint planning body learns about area developments

By JERRY GUENTHER | Norfolk Daily News | Sep 22, 2017 | norfolkdailynews.com

Wind farm regulations, chicken-raising operations and emergency 911 signs all were topics discussed Thursday evening in a wide-ranging meeting of the Madison County Joint Planning Commission.

Heather McWhorter, the county’s planning and zoning administrator, updated the commission members on a variety of topics, including Pierce County’s planning and zoning commission’s recent approval of some wind farm regulations. After being discussed and worked on for months, the regulations now have been forwarded to the Pierce County commissioners for final approval.

McWhorter, who also serves as the Pierce County planning and zoning administrator, noted that among the topics discussed and addressed were setbacks, clustering of towers and shadow flickering.

The regulations, which were based in part by regulations already in place in Antelope County, include turbine setbacks of 1,000 feet for participating residential homes and 2,700 feet for non-participating residential homes.

Pierce County is in a moratorium on wind energy applications until December. The moratorium was put in place to allow the county to update its regulations.

Madison County established wind farm regulations about 10 years ago and is considering updating them. So far, there have been no applications for turbine permits in Madison County.

Planning commissioners also discussed the $300 million poultry processing plant south of Fremont, given that one of the companies involved met earlier this week with the Madison County commissioners to share plans and answer questions.

It was noted that for the county’s zoning matrix, it takes 125 chickens to equal one animal unit.

So far, no landowners in the county have requested livestock permits to raise the chickens.

The commissioners also discussed the plan to install emergency 911 signs in rural areas. Commissioners said they thought it was a good idea but noted that some towns’ rural areas, such as Newman Grove, are in three counties for fire districts.

As a result, some of the addresses are the same in two or more counties. The commissioners suggested that the rural addresses in such places also include the first letter of the county, such as placing an M in front of the number of Madison County addresses for those living in the rural Newman Grove fire district.