Neighbours feud over wind turbine build

DESPITE the vocal opposition of concerned neighbours, an 8.35m wind turbine has been erected on a suburban Invercargill property.

Builder Scott Crosbie installed the eco-friendly turbine on October 27 after he explored eco-friendly and cost-efficient ways to partially power the newly built home.

He said that it took a few days to get the turbine functional and he was still only in the testing phase.

While still a part of the power grid, Mr Crosbie said that the low-energy house was ‘‘nearly passive’’, only missing triple glazed windows.

‘‘When you’ve got your full passive, you basically don’t need heat and all those sorts of things.’’

Mr Crosbie said that he first looked into solar power as part of the process in building a passive house, but settled on wind as the house roof was not ideally positioned for solar panels.

While still in the planning phase and before his resource consents were granted by the Invercargill City Council (ICC) to install the turbine, a group of his neighbours met council representatives and submitted a petition with 33 signatures calling for consent to not be granted.

Neighbour Wes Browning, who had lived on the street for 26 years with his wife Judy, said he had a number of concerns with the structure, largely the fact that consent was granted in the first place, and its possible adverse health effects.

Living across the road from the turbine, he said they were being affected by the shadow flicker of its rotation and ‘‘infrasound noise’’, which he said could be heard from their back yard.

Mr Crosbie said that while going through the resource consent process, an independent planner assessed the plans and said there was less than minor impact on two affected parties, as it touched the recession planes of two houses behind his own.

‘‘Across the street doesn’t matter, because they’re far enough away that they’re not affected by the recession planes.

‘‘I could have built a two-storey house, which wouldn’t have been any higher than the turbine.

‘‘It’s not sticking up any higher than — you look around to the trees and the power pole on the street and the other things in the street.

‘‘My turbine’s not higher than them.’’

He said he believed the majority of the neighbours’ concerns were based on misinformation.

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