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Preserving Agriculture Through Wind Energy Development: a Study of the Social, Economic, and Land Use Effects of Windfarms on Rural Landowners and Their Communities

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Preserving Agriculture Through Wind Energy Development: a Study of the Social, Economic, and Land Use Effects of Windfarms on Rural Landowners and Their Communities Preserving Agriculture through Wind Energy Development: A Study of the Social, Economic, and Land Use Effects of Windfarms on Rural Landowners and Their Communities by Sarah Banas Mills A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Urban and Regional Planning) in the University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Richard K. Norton, Chair Associate Professor Larissa Susan Larsen Emeritus Professor Robert W. Marans Professor Barry George Rabe Dedication To Francis, who insisted that I become the doctor in the family, and Cecilia, whose arrival midway through sped me to completion. ii Acknowledgements Successfully finishing a Ph.D., not unlike raising a child, takes a village. In my case it took the 14 Michigan townships selected as my case studies, plus a smattering of colleagues from North and Central Campus, and of course a small contingent from my hometown—the Village of Maybee. First and foremost, I’d like to thank the more than 1,200 farmland owners, township supervisors, planning commissioners, county commissioners, realtors, auctioneers, appraisers, and wind developers who graciously contributed their time to my project. Without their input, I would have had far less to say about the impacts of windfarms on rural communities. I would also like to thank my dissertation chair Richard Norton for his guidance as well as his willingness to give me lots of leeway to take this research in my own direction. Committee members Larissa Larsen, Robert Marans, and Barry Rabe were also extremely supportive of my off-the-beaten-path research topic, and provided crucial feedback along the way. I am grateful to the Taubman College staff that helped me navigate the research process, particularly Barb Tietjen, Sandy Patton, and Lisa Hauser. Julie Steiff’s editorial prowess helped transform my words into Ph.D.-worthy prose. I also appreciate the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) team—Tom Ivacko, Bonnie Roberts, Michael Crawford, and Debra Horner—that gave me an office and cheered me to completion. A number of friends provided feedback and comic relief when I needed it the most, especially Nick Rajkovich, my cohort-mates Justin Meyer, Josh Shake, Ian Trivers, and David Weinreich, and Missy Stults and my fellow Dow Sustainability Doctoral Fellows. Missy, along iii with my parents Hank and Carol Banas, and my husband helped un-stuff and re-stuff 1,730 mail surveys after a printing error. This group also patiently listened to my grumbling about commercial printers and the not-so-glamorous parts of academic research. A number of family friends from my hometown graciously took a pre-test of my survey and suggested a number of improvements that significantly strengthened it. This research would have been far more difficult and taken far longer to complete without the generous support of the Dow Sustainability Fellowship, as well as the Robert and Judy Marans & Kan and Lillian Chen Fellowship in Sustainability & Survey Methodology. This research was also facilitated with the moral and child-care support of my mother Carol Banas, mother-in-law Theresa Mills, and husband Francis Mills who each played a part in making sure that Cecilia was well cared for while I was away conducting interviews or holed up writing. iv Table of Contents Dedication ................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... xii List of Appendices ................................................................................................................... xiii Abstract .................................................................................................................................... xiv Chapter 1. Introduction and Overview ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 Wind Energy and Rural Land Use ................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Objectives ......................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Analytical Approach ........................................................................................................ 3 1.4 Findings and Conclusions in Brief ................................................................................... 5 Chapter 2. Literature Review and Research Questions .............................................................. 9 2.1 The Two Rural Americas ............................................................................................... 10 2.2 Agricultural Land Conversion ........................................................................................ 12 2.2.1 Residential Demand for Farmland .......................................................................... 13 2.2.2 Why Landowners Sell Farmland ............................................................................ 14 2.2.3 Summary ................................................................................................................. 16 2.3 Traditional Farmland Preservation Strategies ................................................................ 16 2.3.1 Agricultural Zoning ................................................................................................ 17 2.3.2 Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) ........................................................................ 18 2.3.3 Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) ................................................................ 19 2.3.4 Use-value Taxation ................................................................................................. 20 2.3.5 Right-to-farm Legislation ....................................................................................... 21 2.3.6 Summary ................................................................................................................. 22 2.4 Wind Energy and Rural Communities ........................................................................... 23 2.4.1 A Primer on Utility-scale Wind Development in the United States ....................... 24 2.4.2 Wind as an Undesirable Land Use .......................................................................... 26 2.4.3 Wind as a Direct Source of Farm Income ............................................................... 28 2.4.4 Wind as an Indirect Source of Income .................................................................... 29 v 2.4.5 Land Use Regulation of Wind Energy Projects ...................................................... 30 2.4.6 Summary ................................................................................................................. 31 2.5 Research Questions and Hypotheses .............................................................................. 32 Chapter 3. Research Design: Data and Methods ...................................................................... 36 3.1 A Mixed Methods Case Study Design ........................................................................... 37 3.1.1 The Rationale for Mixed Methods .......................................................................... 37 3.1.2 The Rationale for The Diverse Case Approach ...................................................... 38 3.1.3 Selecting Cases ....................................................................................................... 39 3.2 Context of the Selected Cases ........................................................................................ 44 3.2.1 Wind energy development and policy in Michigan ................................................ 44 3.2.2 Huron County (Cases 1, 2, and 3) ........................................................................... 45 3.2.3 The McBain area (High-growth case #4) ................................................................ 46 3.3 Landowner Mail Survey ................................................................................................. 47 3.4 Interviews with Realtors, Local Officials, and Wind Developers .................................. 50 3.5 Geospatial Analysis of Zoning Regulations ................................................................... 53 Chapter 4. The Supply Mechanism: Direct Payments .............................................................. 55 4.1 Prevalence as a Stated Goal: Interviews with Local Officials ...................................... 56 4.2 Long-term land use expectations .................................................................................... 58 4.2.1 Change in plans attributed to wind energy ............................................................. 62 4.2.2 Wind turbine impact on succession plans ............................................................... 65 4.3 On-farm Investment ....................................................................................................... 67 4.3.1 On-farm investment ................................................................................................ 68 4.3.2 Buying land ............................................................................................................
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