* 5 Feb 2009
* Ottawa Citizen
* BY BRENDAN KENNEDY

Municipal board hears praise for backyard turbine

Expert finds structure safe and certifiable under Ontario’s building code

The Ottawa man trying to put a miniature wind turbine in his backyard is the first person to make such an application in Canada, and possibly North America, an Ontario Municipal Board hearing heard yesterday.

 
Graham Findlay, seen with his miniature wind turbine in September 2008, has taken his fight to erect the structure in his backyard to the Ontario Municipal Board after the city denied him permission in October.

“I can only imagine that the decision made in this process is going to be looked at quite closely by others,” said Jyoti Zuidema, OMB vice-chair, who presided at the hearing.

Graham Findlay’s application to skirt the city’s zoning bylaws to erect his 10-metre-tall wind turbine at the edge of his backyard at 70 Iona St., just east of Island Park Drive in Wellington West, was rejected by Ottawa’s committee of adjustment in October.

That made yesterday’s appeal to the provincial board Mr. Findlay’s last hope to get his turbine up and running in order to sell power back to the grid.

At the hearing, Mr. Findlay called several expert witnesses to support his appeal, including a city planning consultant, a structural engineer and a planner from the City of Ottawa, who all spoke in favour of his application.

The city committee that rejected Mr. Findlay’s application in October did so because they said Mr. Findlay did not present sufficient evidence of the turbine’s structural integrity to allay the concerns of abutting neighbours that the turbine might fall onto their properties.

In the rationale for its decision, the committee specifically mentioned Mr. Findlay’s lack of certification from a structural engineer as an obstacle to their consent.

Yesterday, Michael Cleland, president of Cleland-Jardine Engineering, testified that his company was retained by Mr. Findlay to provide certification and that he found the structure to be safe and certifiable under Ontario’s building code.

John Earl, whose 177 Faraday St. home backs on to Mr. Findlay’s backyard and is opposed to Mr. Findlay’s application, cross-examined Mr. Cleland and asked if the structure could withstand a catastrophic event, such as a tornado.

“We don’t design for things that don’t happen,” said Mr. Cleland.

“It’s not going to fall under the requirements of the Ontario Building Code.”

Mr. Findlay, 54, who promotes and develops large-scale commercial wind farms for a living, is asking the board to exempt his turbine from two zoning bylaws governing the height and location of accessory structures on an individual’s property.

The bylaws in question limit accessory building structures — which wind turbines are classified as — in residential areas to 4.5 metres and require that they be set off from property lines at a distance equal to their height.

Mr. Findlay’s turbine, the Energy Ball V100, stands 10 metres high — about three storeys — and he wants to install it in the very back corner of his backyard, 13 centimetres from his rear property line and 2.1 metres from his side property line.

After Mr. Findlay presented his case, Ms. Zuidema adjourned the hearing. It will resume March 25, when those opposed to Mr. Findlay’s application will present their case.