January 3, 2020
Indiana

Mount Vernon council rejects zoning ordinance amendments

By Amanda Mueller | Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW) | Jan 2, 2020 | www.tristatehomepage.com

On Thursday in Posey County, Mount Vernon City Council members vote on a zoning amendment that would regulate wind and solar energy within city limits.

You can read that amendment in its entirety here.

In a unanimous 5-0 vote, council members rejected in Mount Vernon, asking for more changes.

Since the amendment was last considered, four new council members were voted in, and only one, Andy Hoehn, returned.

So what is the next step?

“It needs to go back to Area Plan,” said Hoehn. “They need to fix it and bring it back in 45 days. It’s not something that’s not fixable. It’s just something they need to buckle down and get done.”

The Council will submit any changes back to the Area Plan Commission. The Commission will have 45 days to review it.

Some of the concerns include Doppler.

“There have been at least one situation where a tornado was hidden by a wind farm and Doppler could not read it, for I believe a period of ten minutes,” Hoehn said.

Property values were also brought up.

“Currently there’s a line in it that allows a 20 year guarantee on property values. And I don’t see that as anything that is workable.”

The amendment passed the Poseyville Town Council three weeks ago and the Cynthiana Town Council tabled its vote.

The amendment each council votes on is independent of each other and would only affect city limits not the county.

Depending on the vote, it would be possible for each of these cities to have different regulations from the others.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2020/01/03/mount-vernon-council-rejects-zoning-ordinance-amendments/