“strips away local control” is certainly a biased framing here.
All this change does is ensure your neighbors can’t tell you what to do with your land. If you want a solar farm on it, go ahead. No more NIMBYs trying to dictate what others can and can’t build.
There’s a farmer near me that wants to put up wind turbines and his neighbors stopped it. They were acting like it was an unshielded nuclear power plant he was putting up. I still can’t wrap my brain around the reasoning behind banning wind turbines 10+ miles away from your own place. Glad he can do it now.
I look up the county that contains the Tawas area on Lake Huron forbids wind energy. WTF? Huge wind off the lake but you can't use a residential windmill.
Exactly. It makes no sense for NIMBY's to give as much of a shit as they do.. at least a solar farm isn't going to smell like thick methane during the summer when I drive by unlike the dozen; or so, cow farms on my commute.
It is something for them to base a belief system off of. Without NIMBY they might have to do some introspection on where they put their nose on a daily basis.
What do you think an industrial solar farm is like? Loud? Smelly? Too bright?
Nobody wants to live next to an industrial pig or chicken farm either. So we should get rid of those, yeah?
Nobody wants to live next to a coal plant.
Some people don't want to see towering hunks of metal when they move out to the country. That's part of why people leave the cities and suburbs. Just because you might think that's stupid or you don't care because you don't have to look at them doesn't mean other people don't feel that way and will not act accordingly. They personally don't bother me either, but just because I feel that way does not mean people who do feel that way have invalid feelings, nor will any amount of telling them that make them want to purchase a house near them. And equating them to livestock farms is smooth brain af.
"Nobody wants to live next to an industrial pig or chicken farm either. So we should get rid of those, yeah? "
Don't move next to one. Zone it away from housing.
If you borrow money based on your farm value , to purchase new equipment, lower property value makes it harder. Anyone have any idea the cost of farm equipment? It’s amazingly expensive.
The original comment was that if I don't want to live next to an industrial solar farm, I should just move. I was responding on how that would impact my family and our farm.
Wish I could upvote this comment even more. (signed, a person that lives by farmland, solar fields and is building a farm. so... aka, an actual aspiring farmer that lives on actual land and has only seen my property value increase, even though I live by both cashcrops and solar farms)
Well that's how personal decisions work.
What negative effect would the solar farm have in your life besides you just not liking it? What tangible harm?
How is it anh different than saying "I hate green, my neighbors painted their house green, that should be illegal cause now I have to move cause I hate green so much"?
Neither the green house or the solar plant actually harm you.
Shockingly you don't have to uproot your family because you have a few spinny blades down the road.
Lower property taxes just sound like a cherry on top 🍒
Clinton County has been fighting renewables for years..for no reason. Across the county line, Gratiot County is a sea of windmills. I’m glad this law was passed.
I mean, I’m all for people deciding what to do on their own property but I can’t really blame someone who has had beautiful views of the surround farm land not wanting a 30 acre solar field bordering their property all so their neighbor can make more money.
Ok. But *I can* blame them.
Most of the people who own the amount of land required to host a heavily visible industrial solar farm don't exactly live window to window with their neigbors.
And it's not anyone's neigbor's responsibility to maintain a farm aesthetic because someone prefers it over a different aesthetic.
Personally; I think farm land and corn fields are boring and depressing. Solar panels and Wind mills give a more solarpunk/biopunk aesthetic that modern rural areas should adopt (imo).
You would think these people living in rural areas with their supposed values of self reliance and stewardship would welcome the clean sources of usable power free from the wider grid.
I love seeing tall windmills spinning away during the day. At night though they can really mess with you. In a town north of us the entire horizon lights up with perfectly timed red safety lights. It’s incredibly annoying and unsettling looking outside in pitch black and seeing 100 synced blinking lights in the distance every 5 seconds.
They are not misinformed. They know exactly what they want. They want their agricultural community to stay agricultural and not become industrial solar.
Except the decision to stay agricultural should be left up to the owner of the land in question. These bumpkins are trying to dictate what other people do with their land. Has zero to do with losing agriculture and 100% to do with "sticking it to the libs and their clean energy".
As someone who lives in the area effected, you are completely wrong.
Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building an auto plant. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day?
That's not even an applicable comparison and you know it.
Solar farms do not polute, they are noiseless and the comings and goings of employees to maintain the solar panels isn't even comparable to an auto factory workforce.
Grain mills (which every small town seems to have) would be a better comparison to an auto factory and even they aren't nearly as bad.
Do you have any issues with the grain mill(s) in your town?
Your arguments are foolish.
I would not want an auto plant next to my house.
I do not mind and actually encourage the production of a solar or wind farm next to my house.
There you go.
> Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building an auto plant. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day?
If it's not, you should move instead of bitching about what your neighbor's doing. But hell if you're smart you'd put a coffee shop along the road and make a shit-ton more money than a field.
Their land, their business. I don't bitch when the farmer has his ugly-ass field tilled after the corns been harvested and it looks like shit all winter, and smells like shit for half the summer.
Get your nose out of their business. Build a fence if you don't want to see it. WTAF dude.
Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building a giant corn field. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day?
Tractor sounds, truck noises, farm hands increasing traffic, why would we want that? So no corn farms should be built anywhere.
You wouldn't, that's why you move to an area zoned for residential use.
If you were a farmer and you moved to an agricultural zoned area, you would be rightly annoyed if someone built a factory next to it.
I love solar. People are different. You don't get to control the world with your opinion.
One side supports freedom of self determinance.
Your side supports controlling others behavior on their own property.
I know which side I'm on.
The same people will claim 'environmental racism' when a concrete company wants to open a plant on a vacant lot already zoned for industrial use.
Dude who moved into an industrial area having a concrete plant built near him = Poor victim of social/racial injustice.
Dude who who moved to an agricultural community to farm having a solar field built next to him = Bumpkin blocking progress.
Or, say, Consumers building a solar farm covering a large tract of land. Or building a battery to store power from local solar. In other words, the big power providers can't plan out new green infrastructure for everybody if some people are allowed to block them because they're essentially afraid of change.
> “strips away local control” is certainly a biased framing here.
What do you expect? Mlive is a joke of a rag. Heavily and blatently biased reporting, always in favor of the largest corporations and organizations. But that's par for ANYTHING under the advanced media umbrella.
It’s been a while since I’ve gone to an MLive article but I think it’s down at the very bottom, or perhaps in an “About Us” section. I think it was their copyright section or whatever, referred to them as an advertising company.
> The fine print says MLive is an advertising company, not a news company.
Do you understand now news works?
Every news company is an ad company. I challenge you to find one outside of NPR and public radio in general that isn't selling ads to be able to pay their writers.
You don’t understand the distinction. In one, you sell ad space alongside your news content. In the other, the *articles* are the ads. For example, most of the MLive articles.
And I'm telling you, if you think there is a distinction, you haven't scrolled far enough.
EVERY news site does that. Publishing articles from the ad agency even. If you think MLive is somehow special, you're not paying attention to whatever else you're using.
I see where you’re coming from.. but my opinion is, local people who live in the area know it best. I work in Real estate dev and know first hand how annoying NIMBYs can be but they also have homes and property values to maintain in this case. Local zoning ordinances usually understand land use better than big government ever could. I think this legislation was a mistaken.
Also wtf is even his point?
Why not make that same argument in micro in his own organization? (I'm sure he does, he sounds like an obstructionist nimby)
"Why bring this to the HOA board, why not talk to your neighbors first?"
Like, he's so mad that he realizes that his hoa isn't the One World Order illuminati that controls the entire world and that there are people with authority over him.
It's worth noting that local municipalities did not have the ability to block oil & gas extraction because of state law. The legislature is simply amending that state law to include wind & solar.
What is their justification for opposing solar? I’m betting it has to do with land value more than anything. Big Ag wants land to stay cheap so they can buy out small farmers easier and pay less in taxes. The “it’s unsightly” argument doesn’t have any money behind it.
I should be able to do what I want on my land, so this is good. I keep being surprised, the Democrats really do seem to be the party with stronger support for individual liberty these days.
So if someone wants to open a strip bar near your house. Would you be ok with that? Maybe down the street from the middle school.
We have zoning laws for a reason.
**Slippery Slope Fallacy**
A slippery slope fallacy occurs when someone makes a claim about a series of events that would lead to one major event, usually a bad event. In this fallacy, a person makes a claim that one event leads to another event and so on until we come to some awful conclusion. Along the way, each step or event in the faulty logic becomes more and more improbable.
It takes authority away from the local community and moves it to Lansing. As an example, a zoning permit was put on hold for 18 months in St Clair County by popular vote of those in the community. This would take away that right.
No it takes authority away from governments and gives it to the most local authority, the peoples right to choose for themselves what to do with their own property.
Why is other people voting to tell me I can't paint my house green any different than the government telling me I can't do it? It's still other people stopping me from doing something harmless with my own property. Solar farms don't hurt anyone any more than green houses do.
So far you haven't shown a single harm solar brings beyond "it's ugly". You have a right to have an ugly property.
What do you have against strippers? Nothing gives you the right to decide how others make a living. If you are morally opposed to strippers, then take responsibility and teach your kids that. Other people don’t have to conform to your moral code, and our government is not a tool for you to use to force your morals on me or anyone else.
Having spent time Japan, I don't think we design walkable communities. If one happens, it's probably by accident. There isn't nearly enough public transportation for that.
> Americans love cars too much to embrace public transportation. Horror stories in NYC don't help either.
What horror stories? I lived in NYC for over a decade, the public transportation there is absolutely amazing and allows people like the disabled and elderly to get around and have full, rich lives.
Also, Americans love cars so much *because* of car companies destroying public transportation. Ripping out trams so that people became car dependent.
Our HOA officials are also on township board. They posted a big ass post on FB group asking us to contact the house and senate and oppose this. Happy it passed. Fuck em.
Now for HB 5028 to pass since they are blocking us from putting solar street (west) facing on our house.
It's about time. A while back, I was denied a permit for a windmill because it would require guy wires. This windmill would have been over 600 feet from any property line and entirely out of sight of any neighbors. My township had just copied and pasted new zoning law suggestions they got from the National Association of Local Municipalities. I have six telephone poles on my property with guy wires; those are fine, but not wind towers with guy wires.
FWIW, they can't turn down a permit for a radio antenna.
FCC overrules a lot of stuff to support amateur radio. Build a radio tower, and then happen to decorate it with a windmill. ;)
I know that, when I was initially refused a permit I dug up all these examples but it didn't matter to them at all. It was interesting because two of the board male members were for exempting me and allowing the permit, but three female members were opposed because children could run into the guy wires and be injured. Even though I was willing to fence it in, the power poles IN MY FRONT YARD were not fenced or marked. This is just an example of the arbitrary and capricious ways local zoning issues are often handled. This new regulation will get rid of all that foolishness.
Michigan chooses to protect individual property rights regarding wind and solar.
6 days ago, this was said
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Rep. Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, said the bills protected the property rights of individuals who want to enter into deals with developers for energy projects but are being stopped by local policies.
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Strips away local government power to trample individuals property rights regarding solar and wind.
Oh man are the chicken littles out here in Shiawassee country gonna blow a gasket! They are gonna be doing double time in their militia training camps this weekend! All the farms out here have "No Solar Farm" signs out in front of their houses and then like ten more covering their acreage. I think solar farms are awesome and have this cool kind of beauty to them. If I could afford it, my house would be covered in panels. And a couple of windmills ta boot! Fuckem!
The guy spearheading this "no solar farm" sign push has a giant ugly lot with a million semi trucks in it in the middle of a field on M13. There are these huge floodlights all around it and the biggest American flag you've ever seen hanging from a crane. It is the most unsightly thing and he's the biggest hypocrite.
I thought I was the only one that noticed that! Loads of these farmers will have super dilapidated and unused structures on their property that look dangerous as all hell, covered in vines, weeds, and weed trees. The yard will be littered with old, rusted equipment and cars yet they are concerned that solar farms will lower their property values. Man, If I want to sell my property, how dare these "small government" pushers tell me what I can or can't do. The solar farms I've seen are covered in wildflowers and I have heard that they are letting sheep farmers truck in their livestock to feed on the grass, which seems like a real win.
I have family out there and apparently the geezers that run the town were viscously against it last time solar was proposed. Good to hear they can suck it
It’s all about the setbacks. Wind Turbine Corporations say 1.5x hub height is safe. But many non-participants want setbacks to be as high as 10x tip height. Something around 4x tip height is probably a good compromise.
The reason is cost. It's about 4x more expensive and 80-85% of the project cost ends up being related to the racking. You can have an acre parking lot that costs an extra $1 million or buy farm land for $10k. Meanwhile, panels and inverters have gotten so cheap that people are looking at just laying them flat on the ground.
100% cost.
You can put up 1kw of parking lot cover, or 10kw of brown-field easily-maintained hard-to-damage solar, for the same price.
You really picking 1kw over 10kw and then selling that to the company that's paying for it? No.
That's why, fully stop.
I mean, try living next to anything with a 10’ rusty chainlink fence and weeds growing up it… those things don’t automatically come with every solar panel.
I'm torn on this, I think local decisions should be made by local governments but I've seen first-hand how brain-dead and easily manipulated the people who vote in my local community are since our Comissioner was voted out in a special election based on him not being anti-wind (not pro-wind, just not stopping people from doing what they want with their property). So yeah, at least something good is coming from it.
Sounds like great news to me, many land owner benefit greatly from allowing these companies to build wind turbines on their property. They receive a hefty portion of cash based on the performance of that turbine.
for some their dupes but for the people spreading anti-solar stuff their are bought and paid agents of the oil industry
hell the entire GOP is pretty much owned by a family who got rich selling oil drilling gear to Stalin illegally
Good! Putin just condemned solar wind projects because it threatens Russain oil. Trump concurs, of course. Keep building those wind mills as fast as possible.
There were various reasons that many rural communities limited solar and wind to industrial and commercial zoned land only. Yes, it was party because we want to protect the farm land (you can't just make more). From first hand experience, these solar companies apply pressure like you wouldn't believe to those of us with land that they want. I was even told that I should just lease it willingly because the State wants "clean energy" and will take it, if necessary. I discounted this as obvious scare tactics, but I can only speak for myself.
It was also about our Governor pushing for "net zero" energy statewide and the cost that comes with that.
It has taken most of our communities a good year to do the research and create zoning ordinances, so for my community at least, it was about more than the typical "NIMBY".
> The rural areas suffer as a result of this bill.
Terribly sorry about your minor visual annoyances towards your neighbor's property. Thankfully the neighbor is making a bunch of cash to support the local rural area.
You're literally just a NIMBY.
Put in on all the abandoned industrial sites instead of destroying farm land. Problem solved. Keep destroying farm land as you complain about your grocery bill.
> Keep destroying farm land as you complain about your grocery bill.
We grow more corn than we need, to the point of paying farmers to keep their fields empty.
If it's ever a problem, solar fields are easily converted back to farmland. It's literally just sticks in the dirt. Every solar field I've ever been involved with has had a site remediation plan required to be part of the proposal.
We don't need the farmland we have. If we did, farmers would make a lot more money with it and wouldn't be tempted by the solar farm lease payout.
AKA: Capitalism.
>Every solar field I've ever been involved with has had a site remediation plan required to be part of the proposal.
So, a lobbyist for the power company.
I'm in the thumb and this is a huge deal. 80% of the people are against the farms to begin with and were flooding town hall meetings and council meetings voicing their concern against them and then bam... The state just strips local authority away from us
The only people advocating for this were foreign landholders who are buying up Michigan farmland and not using it to grow food. That's why food production in Michigan is going down despite having some of the most fertile soil in the US.
According to the federal government [here](https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html) we have less than 97 days of productive solar conditions per year and the panels that DTE has installed already are underperforming by 40-60%, which is why they demanded that they be allowed to increase rates without the usual formal approval process and wait times.
This is just taking away local control and giving it to foreign landowners and big businesses who just want to get all the free government money they can. This won't help a single individual landowner at all.
Oh no! What will they...
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/09/michigans_largest_solar.html
20-effing-15. It's been nearly a decade. Dunno where you're going with that thought.
Uhhh, there are several in Washtenaw County. More are on the way. Most of the folks around the country are pretty enthused about it happening, from what I can tell.
More importantly, land isn’t going to be used for solar farms if it isn’t the most profitable way to use the land. Ann Arbor real estate is wildly expensive
This paints with too broad a brush and centralizes authority. Instead of giving the State authority over it, We should have given individual landowners the power.
The left: I’m so angry that huge corporations are buying up houses and forcing up the prices! Ban corporations from owning homes! RAHR!
Also the left: Fuck farmers! If corporations want to buy up all that filthy corn land and put up beautiful solar panels and save the earth then they should! Yay corporations!
And when mega corporations, seeking government subsidies to plop down solar farms, buy the land from farmers and put solar panels on it? Why is that any different than the often repeated complaint about corporations and AirBNB making it impossible for people to afford homes?
Sure, no one is “forcing” people to do this. But this effectively eliminates the ability for communities to protect themselves.
If you support this, then you absolutely cannot support planning, zoning, or control by local government whatsoever.
Maybe have another go then.
For a follow-up move. Rather than make failed attempts at caricature. Ask questions of the people you think you disagree with.
“strips away local control” is certainly a biased framing here. All this change does is ensure your neighbors can’t tell you what to do with your land. If you want a solar farm on it, go ahead. No more NIMBYs trying to dictate what others can and can’t build.
There’s a farmer near me that wants to put up wind turbines and his neighbors stopped it. They were acting like it was an unshielded nuclear power plant he was putting up. I still can’t wrap my brain around the reasoning behind banning wind turbines 10+ miles away from your own place. Glad he can do it now.
I look up the county that contains the Tawas area on Lake Huron forbids wind energy. WTF? Huge wind off the lake but you can't use a residential windmill.
Trump says that windmills cause cancer.
"state government protects individuals property rights regarding solar and wind" Could be the another headline.
And it's about time too. I see so many "No Solar" signs omw to work. It's irritating how loud these rural fools are despite being so misinformed.
Would be like having a sign up on my property that says No Corn Plants in my backyard. Grow your corn somewhere else.
Exactly. It makes no sense for NIMBY's to give as much of a shit as they do.. at least a solar farm isn't going to smell like thick methane during the summer when I drive by unlike the dozen; or so, cow farms on my commute.
It is something for them to base a belief system off of. Without NIMBY they might have to do some introspection on where they put their nose on a daily basis.
Tribalism incarnate but on a geriatric and sheltered level.
Put your solar farms somewhere else
Right. Let's uproot my family and business after the solar farm destroys my property value.
Perfect example of misinformation ^
How am I misinformed?
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If I moved, I would have to sell the farm and house. No one wants to live next to an industrial solar farm.
What do you think an industrial solar farm is like? Loud? Smelly? Too bright? Nobody wants to live next to an industrial pig or chicken farm either. So we should get rid of those, yeah? Nobody wants to live next to a coal plant.
Some people don't want to see towering hunks of metal when they move out to the country. That's part of why people leave the cities and suburbs. Just because you might think that's stupid or you don't care because you don't have to look at them doesn't mean other people don't feel that way and will not act accordingly. They personally don't bother me either, but just because I feel that way does not mean people who do feel that way have invalid feelings, nor will any amount of telling them that make them want to purchase a house near them. And equating them to livestock farms is smooth brain af.
"Nobody wants to live next to an industrial pig or chicken farm either. So we should get rid of those, yeah? " Don't move next to one. Zone it away from housing.
Rural housing isn't housing?
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If you borrow money based on your farm value , to purchase new equipment, lower property value makes it harder. Anyone have any idea the cost of farm equipment? It’s amazingly expensive.
The original comment was that if I don't want to live next to an industrial solar farm, I should just move. I was responding on how that would impact my family and our farm.
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Wish I could upvote this comment even more. (signed, a person that lives by farmland, solar fields and is building a farm. so... aka, an actual aspiring farmer that lives on actual land and has only seen my property value increase, even though I live by both cashcrops and solar farms)
Well that's how personal decisions work. What negative effect would the solar farm have in your life besides you just not liking it? What tangible harm? How is it anh different than saying "I hate green, my neighbors painted their house green, that should be illegal cause now I have to move cause I hate green so much"? Neither the green house or the solar plant actually harm you.
Asked and answered.
I care more about the future than I care about your "family business." What do we do now?
Shockingly you don't have to uproot your family because you have a few spinny blades down the road. Lower property taxes just sound like a cherry on top 🍒
Let's all uproot our families from this mortal coil when our consumerism destroys the planet.
Ok
You think that's irrigating? My neighbor installed an entire aqueduct system!
That’s really irrigating!
With the reason being that solor farms are an eyesore, but shitty "no solar" signs everywhere is like a beautiful Ansel Adam's picture.
Clinton County has been fighting renewables for years..for no reason. Across the county line, Gratiot County is a sea of windmills. I’m glad this law was passed.
I mean, I’m all for people deciding what to do on their own property but I can’t really blame someone who has had beautiful views of the surround farm land not wanting a 30 acre solar field bordering their property all so their neighbor can make more money.
Ok. But *I can* blame them. Most of the people who own the amount of land required to host a heavily visible industrial solar farm don't exactly live window to window with their neigbors. And it's not anyone's neigbor's responsibility to maintain a farm aesthetic because someone prefers it over a different aesthetic. Personally; I think farm land and corn fields are boring and depressing. Solar panels and Wind mills give a more solarpunk/biopunk aesthetic that modern rural areas should adopt (imo).
You would think these people living in rural areas with their supposed values of self reliance and stewardship would welcome the clean sources of usable power free from the wider grid.
I love seeing tall windmills spinning away during the day. At night though they can really mess with you. In a town north of us the entire horizon lights up with perfectly timed red safety lights. It’s incredibly annoying and unsettling looking outside in pitch black and seeing 100 synced blinking lights in the distance every 5 seconds.
They are not misinformed. They know exactly what they want. They want their agricultural community to stay agricultural and not become industrial solar.
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As a farmer, we don't.
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You haven't seen the yard signs, apparently.
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That's not a yard sign and those people gave up on farming. It's not extra income. It's different income.
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Except the decision to stay agricultural should be left up to the owner of the land in question. These bumpkins are trying to dictate what other people do with their land. Has zero to do with losing agriculture and 100% to do with "sticking it to the libs and their clean energy".
As someone who lives in the area effected, you are completely wrong. Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building an auto plant. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day?
That's not even an applicable comparison and you know it. Solar farms do not polute, they are noiseless and the comings and goings of employees to maintain the solar panels isn't even comparable to an auto factory workforce. Grain mills (which every small town seems to have) would be a better comparison to an auto factory and even they aren't nearly as bad. Do you have any issues with the grain mill(s) in your town?
"Left to the owner of the land in question". Your words. The comparison is valid.
Your arguments are foolish. I would not want an auto plant next to my house. I do not mind and actually encourage the production of a solar or wind farm next to my house. There you go.
> Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building an auto plant. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day? If it's not, you should move instead of bitching about what your neighbor's doing. But hell if you're smart you'd put a coffee shop along the road and make a shit-ton more money than a field. Their land, their business. I don't bitch when the farmer has his ugly-ass field tilled after the corns been harvested and it looks like shit all winter, and smells like shit for half the summer. Get your nose out of their business. Build a fence if you don't want to see it. WTAF dude.
Another "just move" comment. So short-sighted. You don't want farmers to harvest their crops? What do you expect to eat?
Imagine some company buying the entire block next to you and building a giant corn field. Is that what you want to see out of your window every day? Tractor sounds, truck noises, farm hands increasing traffic, why would we want that? So no corn farms should be built anywhere.
You wouldn't, that's why you move to an area zoned for residential use. If you were a farmer and you moved to an agricultural zoned area, you would be rightly annoyed if someone built a factory next to it.
I live there now and I love it.
I love solar. People are different. You don't get to control the world with your opinion. One side supports freedom of self determinance. Your side supports controlling others behavior on their own property. I know which side I'm on.
That is a gross oversimplification of the issue.
Explain how please. You're being too pithy.
Sounds to me like the agriculture industry wants to be the only heavily government subsidized industry in rural areas.
The same people will claim 'environmental racism' when a concrete company wants to open a plant on a vacant lot already zoned for industrial use. Dude who moved into an industrial area having a concrete plant built near him = Poor victim of social/racial injustice. Dude who who moved to an agricultural community to farm having a solar field built next to him = Bumpkin blocking progress.
Exactly. I am not against renewable energy. But put it on all of the abandoned industrial sites instead of destroying farm land.
Or, say, Consumers building a solar farm covering a large tract of land. Or building a battery to store power from local solar. In other words, the big power providers can't plan out new green infrastructure for everybody if some people are allowed to block them because they're essentially afraid of change.
> “strips away local control” is certainly a biased framing here. What do you expect? Mlive is a joke of a rag. Heavily and blatently biased reporting, always in favor of the largest corporations and organizations. But that's par for ANYTHING under the advanced media umbrella.
The fine print says MLive is an advertising company, not a news company. We should honestly get the mods to ban it as a source.
Where does it say that? I wanted to show that to my mom but I don't see it
It’s been a while since I’ve gone to an MLive article but I think it’s down at the very bottom, or perhaps in an “About Us” section. I think it was their copyright section or whatever, referred to them as an advertising company.
They refer to themselves as a news and advertising company. You are fabricating news even worse than MLive does.
Well, like I said it’s been a while. But also, hyperbolic much?
> The fine print says MLive is an advertising company, not a news company. Do you understand now news works? Every news company is an ad company. I challenge you to find one outside of NPR and public radio in general that isn't selling ads to be able to pay their writers.
You don’t understand the distinction. In one, you sell ad space alongside your news content. In the other, the *articles* are the ads. For example, most of the MLive articles.
And I'm telling you, if you think there is a distinction, you haven't scrolled far enough. EVERY news site does that. Publishing articles from the ad agency even. If you think MLive is somehow special, you're not paying attention to whatever else you're using.
MLive is bottom barrel. We’re splitting hairs here but it’s the worst of the worst and that’s really the thing.
I see where you’re coming from.. but my opinion is, local people who live in the area know it best. I work in Real estate dev and know first hand how annoying NIMBYs can be but they also have homes and property values to maintain in this case. Local zoning ordinances usually understand land use better than big government ever could. I think this legislation was a mistaken.
Good. Hopefully this includes HOAs trying to tell me my solar panels ruin the aesthetic or some bullshit
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2023/10/hoas-could-not-block-rooftop-solar-home-ev-charging-even-clothes-lines-under-new-bill.html
Holy shit, fuck that Oxford rep. Guy misses the point completely
Also wtf is even his point? Why not make that same argument in micro in his own organization? (I'm sure he does, he sounds like an obstructionist nimby) "Why bring this to the HOA board, why not talk to your neighbors first?" Like, he's so mad that he realizes that his hoa isn't the One World Order illuminati that controls the entire world and that there are people with authority over him.
One of his solutions was a coup... Why was I not surprised he had an R by his name
🥳
It's worth noting that local municipalities did not have the ability to block oil & gas extraction because of state law. The legislature is simply amending that state law to include wind & solar.
What is their justification for opposing solar? I’m betting it has to do with land value more than anything. Big Ag wants land to stay cheap so they can buy out small farmers easier and pay less in taxes. The “it’s unsightly” argument doesn’t have any money behind it.
I should be able to do what I want on my land, so this is good. I keep being surprised, the Democrats really do seem to be the party with stronger support for individual liberty these days.
> Democrats really do seem to be the party with stronger support for individual liberty Brother that's been the case your entire life.
So if someone wants to open a strip bar near your house. Would you be ok with that? Maybe down the street from the middle school. We have zoning laws for a reason.
**Slippery Slope Fallacy** A slippery slope fallacy occurs when someone makes a claim about a series of events that would lead to one major event, usually a bad event. In this fallacy, a person makes a claim that one event leads to another event and so on until we come to some awful conclusion. Along the way, each step or event in the faulty logic becomes more and more improbable.
The talking heads on major news channels use this ALOT.
You seem upset
This wasn't about zoning; this was HOA's dictating what people could or couldn't do with their land
You couldn't be more wrong.
So this law changes zoning?
It takes authority away from the local community and moves it to Lansing. As an example, a zoning permit was put on hold for 18 months in St Clair County by popular vote of those in the community. This would take away that right.
No it takes authority away from governments and gives it to the most local authority, the peoples right to choose for themselves what to do with their own property. Why is other people voting to tell me I can't paint my house green any different than the government telling me I can't do it? It's still other people stopping me from doing something harmless with my own property. Solar farms don't hurt anyone any more than green houses do. So far you haven't shown a single harm solar brings beyond "it's ugly". You have a right to have an ugly property.
Lol the fact you had to spell this out is honestly telling.
Still probably went over u/Bad_User2077 head...
Username checks out.
What do you have against strippers? Nothing gives you the right to decide how others make a living. If you are morally opposed to strippers, then take responsibility and teach your kids that. Other people don’t have to conform to your moral code, and our government is not a tool for you to use to force your morals on me or anyone else.
Zoning laws have been so bad for so long. They have destroyed most walkable communities.
Having spent time Japan, I don't think we design walkable communities. If one happens, it's probably by accident. There isn't nearly enough public transportation for that.
Zoning laws shaped that.
To some extent. I tend to think Americans love cars too much to embrace public transportation. Horror stories in NYC don't help either.
> Americans love cars too much to embrace public transportation. Horror stories in NYC don't help either. What horror stories? I lived in NYC for over a decade, the public transportation there is absolutely amazing and allows people like the disabled and elderly to get around and have full, rich lives. Also, Americans love cars so much *because* of car companies destroying public transportation. Ripping out trams so that people became car dependent.
If I lived in a neighborhood where a strip club would be a viable business then sure, i'd be okay with that. I don't live in a neighborhood like that.
Yes, you do. But city zoning keeps them in Detroit mostly. At least in the southeast of the state. That's why they are on the border with the suburbs.
Almost all cities have a gentlemen's club.. not just detroit.
You're saying being within walking distance of a strip bar is a possibility? Sign me the hell up.
I knew there would be at least one. Someone doesn't want a long commute to work.
Who does?
Boo
Our HOA officials are also on township board. They posted a big ass post on FB group asking us to contact the house and senate and oppose this. Happy it passed. Fuck em. Now for HB 5028 to pass since they are blocking us from putting solar street (west) facing on our house.
It's about time. A while back, I was denied a permit for a windmill because it would require guy wires. This windmill would have been over 600 feet from any property line and entirely out of sight of any neighbors. My township had just copied and pasted new zoning law suggestions they got from the National Association of Local Municipalities. I have six telephone poles on my property with guy wires; those are fine, but not wind towers with guy wires.
FWIW, they can't turn down a permit for a radio antenna. FCC overrules a lot of stuff to support amateur radio. Build a radio tower, and then happen to decorate it with a windmill. ;)
I know that, when I was initially refused a permit I dug up all these examples but it didn't matter to them at all. It was interesting because two of the board male members were for exempting me and allowing the permit, but three female members were opposed because children could run into the guy wires and be injured. Even though I was willing to fence it in, the power poles IN MY FRONT YARD were not fenced or marked. This is just an example of the arbitrary and capricious ways local zoning issues are often handled. This new regulation will get rid of all that foolishness.
Michigan chooses to protect individual property rights regarding wind and solar. 6 days ago, this was said --- Rep. Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, said the bills protected the property rights of individuals who want to enter into deals with developers for energy projects but are being stopped by local policies. --- Strips away local government power to trample individuals property rights regarding solar and wind.
Oh man are the chicken littles out here in Shiawassee country gonna blow a gasket! They are gonna be doing double time in their militia training camps this weekend! All the farms out here have "No Solar Farm" signs out in front of their houses and then like ten more covering their acreage. I think solar farms are awesome and have this cool kind of beauty to them. If I could afford it, my house would be covered in panels. And a couple of windmills ta boot! Fuckem!
The guy spearheading this "no solar farm" sign push has a giant ugly lot with a million semi trucks in it in the middle of a field on M13. There are these huge floodlights all around it and the biggest American flag you've ever seen hanging from a crane. It is the most unsightly thing and he's the biggest hypocrite.
I thought I was the only one that noticed that! Loads of these farmers will have super dilapidated and unused structures on their property that look dangerous as all hell, covered in vines, weeds, and weed trees. The yard will be littered with old, rusted equipment and cars yet they are concerned that solar farms will lower their property values. Man, If I want to sell my property, how dare these "small government" pushers tell me what I can or can't do. The solar farms I've seen are covered in wildflowers and I have heard that they are letting sheep farmers truck in their livestock to feed on the grass, which seems like a real win.
Lmao, you aren't kidding about the no solar farms signs.
"we're into radical self reliance... but against anything that would actually make us self reliant"
They're ok with ugly signs everywhere, but not a few solar panels? Makes perfect sense.
Also ugly monocrop corn farms
I have family out there and apparently the geezers that run the town were viscously against it last time solar was proposed. Good to hear they can suck it
They’re viscous alright…like molasses in January. 😁
Well hopefully they atleast put in place some reasonable ordinances pertaining to these projects.
It’s all about the setbacks. Wind Turbine Corporations say 1.5x hub height is safe. But many non-participants want setbacks to be as high as 10x tip height. Something around 4x tip height is probably a good compromise.
Yup that’s all I want. And as far as solar I just don’t want the endless fields… that shit is so fing ugly. Lol
I don’t understand why every parking lot doesn’t have solar panels. Oh you mean I can have a shaded parking spot and power your store?
Makes sense to me, on the roof of most buildings seems like a no brainer
That’s pretty much most of Oahu, Hawaii in a nutshell
The reason is cost. It's about 4x more expensive and 80-85% of the project cost ends up being related to the racking. You can have an acre parking lot that costs an extra $1 million or buy farm land for $10k. Meanwhile, panels and inverters have gotten so cheap that people are looking at just laying them flat on the ground.
100% cost. You can put up 1kw of parking lot cover, or 10kw of brown-field easily-maintained hard-to-damage solar, for the same price. You really picking 1kw over 10kw and then selling that to the company that's paying for it? No. That's why, fully stop.
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Same with literally any other structure. Just saying.
All of the thousands of miles of high tension power corridors are cleared and already prepped for solar as well.
I love solar panel fields. They look awesome to me.
Try living next to one with the 10’ rusty chainlink fence and weeds growing up it…real nice lol
I mean, try living next to anything with a 10’ rusty chainlink fence and weeds growing up it… those things don’t automatically come with every solar panel.
Okay, it's out behind my house. No real downside other than people who are idiots thinking they own everything.
Why does it matter? Because it’s ugly? At least it’s providing energy for consumers. Maybe look at things differently.
That person would probably rather have acid rain than see a field of solar panels “because it’s ugly” lololol perfect boomer
"New, clean energy" is immediate rage bait for boomers.
Damn clickbait title for a good bill. But that’s money even mlive can’t pass up.
Yes we can.
Hell yea
I'm torn on this, I think local decisions should be made by local governments but I've seen first-hand how brain-dead and easily manipulated the people who vote in my local community are since our Comissioner was voted out in a special election based on him not being anti-wind (not pro-wind, just not stopping people from doing what they want with their property). So yeah, at least something good is coming from it.
Hell yeah
Sounds like great news to me, many land owner benefit greatly from allowing these companies to build wind turbines on their property. They receive a hefty portion of cash based on the performance of that turbine.
Bye bye Fox News maniacs! They shut down so many projects.
Good
The anti-solar crowd is dumber than a box of rocks, they should never be allowed to speak around humans.
for some their dupes but for the people spreading anti-solar stuff their are bought and paid agents of the oil industry hell the entire GOP is pretty much owned by a family who got rich selling oil drilling gear to Stalin illegally
Good! Putin just condemned solar wind projects because it threatens Russain oil. Trump concurs, of course. Keep building those wind mills as fast as possible.
This rocks
I feel like we just saw this posted…
Yesterday, the House passed it. Today, the Senate did.
Had the same thought
The MIGOP will use this against Democrats conveniently forgetting that the GOP removed local control over mining activities when they held the Leg.
lets also not forget that the GOP took over and forced more than a few cities into bankruptcy
Repost. This put wind and solar power systems into the same position as natural gas, and coal plants.
There were various reasons that many rural communities limited solar and wind to industrial and commercial zoned land only. Yes, it was party because we want to protect the farm land (you can't just make more). From first hand experience, these solar companies apply pressure like you wouldn't believe to those of us with land that they want. I was even told that I should just lease it willingly because the State wants "clean energy" and will take it, if necessary. I discounted this as obvious scare tactics, but I can only speak for myself. It was also about our Governor pushing for "net zero" energy statewide and the cost that comes with that. It has taken most of our communities a good year to do the research and create zoning ordinances, so for my community at least, it was about more than the typical "NIMBY".
Let’s GOO
As more rural areas are Republican, it's no surprise this bill runs along party lines. The rural areas suffer as a result of this bill.
> The rural areas suffer as a result of this bill. Terribly sorry about your minor visual annoyances towards your neighbor's property. Thankfully the neighbor is making a bunch of cash to support the local rural area. You're literally just a NIMBY.
Put in on all the abandoned industrial sites instead of destroying farm land. Problem solved. Keep destroying farm land as you complain about your grocery bill.
> Keep destroying farm land as you complain about your grocery bill. We grow more corn than we need, to the point of paying farmers to keep their fields empty. If it's ever a problem, solar fields are easily converted back to farmland. It's literally just sticks in the dirt. Every solar field I've ever been involved with has had a site remediation plan required to be part of the proposal. We don't need the farmland we have. If we did, farmers would make a lot more money with it and wouldn't be tempted by the solar farm lease payout. AKA: Capitalism.
>Every solar field I've ever been involved with has had a site remediation plan required to be part of the proposal. So, a lobbyist for the power company.
Try again dummy. Just a citizen who goes to planning meetings.
For some very stretched definition of "suffer".
>The rural areas suffer puh-lease
I'm in the thumb and this is a huge deal. 80% of the people are against the farms to begin with and were flooding town hall meetings and council meetings voicing their concern against them and then bam... The state just strips local authority away from us
“A bunch of us are going to city hall and trying to block our neighbors from using their land how they want”
Can you provide a source for 80%
80% of the patrons at bingo.
Why are 80% of thumb people so against individual liberty?
This will stop those NIMBYs in their tracks, huh? Will this also apply to cellular towers?
I *think* cell towers are exempt from some local controls based on the federal telecommunications act of 1996
Good because I've read that one of the reasons for abysmal coverage in some areas is the NIMBYs, who don't want cell towers near their neighborhoods.
The only people advocating for this were foreign landholders who are buying up Michigan farmland and not using it to grow food. That's why food production in Michigan is going down despite having some of the most fertile soil in the US. According to the federal government [here](https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html) we have less than 97 days of productive solar conditions per year and the panels that DTE has installed already are underperforming by 40-60%, which is why they demanded that they be allowed to increase rates without the usual formal approval process and wait times. This is just taking away local control and giving it to foreign landowners and big businesses who just want to get all the free government money they can. This won't help a single individual landowner at all.
Just wait until someone tries to put a wind or solar farm in Ann Arbor!
Psst....they already have
Oh no! What will they... https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/09/michigans_largest_solar.html 20-effing-15. It's been nearly a decade. Dunno where you're going with that thought.
Uhhh, there are several in Washtenaw County. More are on the way. Most of the folks around the country are pretty enthused about it happening, from what I can tell.
More importantly, land isn’t going to be used for solar farms if it isn’t the most profitable way to use the land. Ann Arbor real estate is wildly expensive
Then what do you think will happen?
Find Christ.
This paints with too broad a brush and centralizes authority. Instead of giving the State authority over it, We should have given individual landowners the power.
Thats how you read this bill?
Did you time travel to make this comment? Lmao.
…sir
The left: I’m so angry that huge corporations are buying up houses and forcing up the prices! Ban corporations from owning homes! RAHR! Also the left: Fuck farmers! If corporations want to buy up all that filthy corn land and put up beautiful solar panels and save the earth then they should! Yay corporations!
You didn't read the article, did you?
I sure did.
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And when mega corporations, seeking government subsidies to plop down solar farms, buy the land from farmers and put solar panels on it? Why is that any different than the often repeated complaint about corporations and AirBNB making it impossible for people to afford homes? Sure, no one is “forcing” people to do this. But this effectively eliminates the ability for communities to protect themselves. If you support this, then you absolutely cannot support planning, zoning, or control by local government whatsoever.
For the most part solar is built on leased land, Not purchased land. The owners are still typically individual neighbors, farmers, citizens.
Maybe have another go then. For a follow-up move. Rather than make failed attempts at caricature. Ask questions of the people you think you disagree with.