Developers monitor hearing

The developer of a planned wind farm near Tokomaru is nervously awaiting the outcome of the Turitea Wind Farm hearing to see if there will be any impact on its own proposal.

Horowhenua Energy director Alistair Wilson said his company planned a farm of 30 to 40 turbines, but was yet to apply for a resource consent.

"We will be interested to see how Turitea deals with the cumulative effects issue," he said.

Cumulative visual effects emerged as a hot issue at the Turitea board of inquiry hearing last week. Mighty River Power has applied to build a farm of up to 121 turbines at the northern end of the Tararua Ranges others in the vicinity are Te Apiti, Te Rere Hau and Tararua. Motorimu, near Tokomaru, has a consent, but is unlikely to be built.

Horowhenua Energy's proposed site is about 6 kilometres southeast of Tokomaru and 9km northeast of Shannon.

Te Rere Hau, at the southern end of the Ruahine Ranges, has consent for 97 turbines. On May 29, New Zealand Windfarms applied to extend the farm by 56 turbines.

New Zealand Windfarms chief executive Steve Cross said his company would keep an eye on the Turitea hearing.

"Our project is a different scale to Turitea."

New Zealand Wind Energy Association chief executive Fraser Clark expected cumulative visual effects to be one of the main issues at the Turitea hearing.

However, it was not the first time cumulative effects had been raised as an issue, he said, and it could be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

"There is already case law around cumulative effects."

Another point of interest was that the Turitea Wind Farm application was handled by a Government call-in process and there was curiosity about how that process was working, he said.

The Turitea proposal was unusual in that it involved a council reserve and it was near a city and its water supply, Palmerston North City Council lawyer John Reardon said.

- © Fairfax NZ News