Ontario wind power bringing down property values

[alp227]

Ontario's rapid expansion in wind power projects has provoked a backlash from rural residents living near industrial wind turbines who say their property values are plummeting and they are unable to sell their homes, a CBC News investigation has found.

The government and the wind energy industry have long maintained turbines have no adverse effects on property values, health or the environment.

The CBC has documented scores of families who've discovered their property values are not only going downward, but also some who are unable to sell and have even abandoned their homes because of concerns nearby turbines are affecting their health.

"I have to tell you not a soul has come to look at it," says Stephana Johnston, 81, of Clear Creek, a hamlet in Haldimand County on the north shore of Lake Erie, about 60 kilometres southeast of London.

full: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/30/ontario-wind-power-property-values.html

[MADem]

1. Real estate is in the shits, no matter what's nearby.

I've been close up to those things and haven't noticed any ill effects. I think they look pretty neat.

[kristopher]

2. They actually have it backwards - having a view of wind turbines improves property values.

As you say, real estate is depressed everywhere and the article smack of antiwind propaganda. The compiled data from around the world is pretty consistent that a view a wind farms tends to improve property values and that the "health effects" that are reported are related to stress from general land use conflict (ie they just don't want the turbines there) rather than any actual physical property related to wind turbine operation.

[MADem]

3. Maybe I have an unusual sense of what is appealing, but I find them

really beautiful. Mesmerizing!

The very first time I ever saw a whole bunch of 'em all lined up on a hill in a row was in California back in the eighties, in farm-ish country between Monterey and SF. I just thought they were the neatest thing since sliced bread.

I see them in Northern Maine and think they look great against the blue, blue sky. There is a ski area in a town called Mars Hill that has a whole bunch of the things up on the mountain above the ski area--it looks really neat. I've spent days and evenings at the facility and never gotten any ill effects, and you're pretty close to the things if you're at that facility.

[kristopher]

4. No, you're actually rather typical...

That is why property values are generally enhanced.

I've done a pretty fair amount of field work talking to people on this point, and my conclusion is that those who object most are people who have moved into an area for the specific viewscape that it possessed when they arrived. Long term local residents have not made that emotional and financial commitment to the view and they have seen the area change over time, so they tend to be far more accepting of alterations to the looks of the area. Once the turbines are in place, of course, fresh newcomers to the area see them as part of the existing viewshed and judge them on their aesthetic merits - which is almost always similar to the judgment you've rendered.

I have sympathy for those who object because they really do treasure the area as they found it or they would have never moved there, however, there are somethings we just need to try and accept in life.

[Tesha]

5. To me, the wind turbines represent "Not Merrimack Station" and "Not Seabrook Station".

I think *THAT* is really beautiful.

Tesha

(Merrimack Station is my local utility's big coal-fired plant.
Seabrook Station is my utility's nuke.)