Overwhelming grassroots support leads to approval of wind farm

Our grassroots outreach efforts yielded as many supportive petition signatures as there were registered voters in the jurisdiction.

Background

A wind energy company proposed to develop a large wind farm that stretched a large rural area. While the footprint of the proposed wind farm was home to only a small number of residents, a few non-participating landowners and out of town opponents of wind energy organized a formidable region-wide opposition group. The opponents were able to raise enough money to hire an attorney and several experts to contest the approval during the public hearing process.

Our Approach

Our experience defeating developments gave us unique insight into the strategy that the opponents would employ. Organizing community support would be just part of a winning strategy. Helping our client avoid the legal traps that the opposition would set at the public hearing would be essential to preventing an approval from being overturned by a court.

Land Use Experts immediately went to work finding supporters of the proposed wind farm in both the footprint and the greater community – showing the contrast between local supporters and the mostly out of town opponents. Our grassroots outreach efforts yielded as many supportive petition signatures as there were registered voters in the jurisdiction. We successfully gathered letters of support from nearly 90% of the residents in the footprint of the wind farm. We converted the identified supporters into visible support by turning out a large crowd of supporters to each public hearing. We also organized residents living near other wind farms to attend the public hearings and speak in favor of the proposed wind farm.

During the public hearings the opponents tried to set legal traps that would give them legal grounds to appeal an approval. The opposition group repeatedly tried to create procedural errors in the public hearing process. The experience of Land Use Experts allowed us to identify these traps as the opponents tried to set them. Guiding the client and their legal team through the public hearings, we were able to provide essential advice that helped to prevent a legal challenge.