PETITION DRIVE IN OFFING
Windmill Foes Take
Control In Richfield
Allies Control Zoning, Planning,
Town Boards, And Zoning Code
By JIM KEVLIN • The Freeman's Journal & HOMETOWN ONEONTA
RICHFIELD – What a difference not even a decade makes.
In 2012, when plans for the six-turbine, 18.45-megawatt Monticello Hills Wind Farm surfaced for the Town of Richfield, neighbors there viewed the project “as a threat to the west end of town,” said Dan Sullivan.
However, “people in the village thought it was the best idea in the world – to get tax relief,” Sullivan said, and Village of Richfield Springs’ residents controlled the town’s Planning and Town boards.
Seven years later, neighbors who formed “Protect Richfield” in the face of the threat to their rural tranquility have turned that around.
In mid-April, perhaps mid-May, a Town Board controlled by the anti-windmill bloc is poised to approve what former Town Supervisor Nick Palevsky and other people interviewed see as a restrictive code that promotes farming, single-family homes and “agri-tourism,” and prohibits windmills of the kind Monticello Hills proposed, and limits business generally.
