National Wind Watch: Wind Energy News » Under protest, County council approves rezoning bylaws for two Buffalo Plains wind farm turbine locations

Under protest, Vulcan County council approved rezoning land near two wind turbine sites for ABO Wind’s Buffalo Plains 500-megawatt wind farm near Lomond.

Reeve Jason Schneider and Couns. Laurie Lyckman, Shane Cockwill and Kelly Nelson each voted in favour, under protest, on the second and third readings of two bylaws, which each rezoned land to rural general from urban fringe. Coun. Christopher Northcott voted against both readings of the two bylaws.

Both turbine locations are in Vulcan County’s urban fringe with Lomond. The overall height of each of the wind farm’s 83 turbines will be about 200 metres, with a hub height of 115 metres and, rotor diameter of 170 metres.

County council had to approve the rezoning applications following a February decision by a provincial body, the Alberta Utilities Commission, to approve the entire wind farm project, including the turbine land locations before council July 13.

Last September, Vulcan County’s Municipal Planning Commission (MPC) had already approved almost all the turbine locations, with a separate development permit issued for each turbine in the project.

On June 15, County council carried all three readings of a rezoning bylaw for one turbine location, roughly 1.6 kilometres from McGregor Reservoir, as well as carrying first reading of the other two rezoning bylaws and scheduling a public hearing on the two other rezoning bylaws.

With the three turbine locations rezoned, development permit applications for each turbine can now be submitted to Vulcan County’s MPC.

A related letter can be found here.