The latest in a series of meetings with the Goshen County Economic Development Corporation focused on planning for the future and resources available for the town of Yoder.

Goshen County Economic Development Corporation (GCEDC) Executive Director Lisa Johnson led the discussion on Thursday evening. She said GCEDC priorities are to help existing businesses to expand and find markets, develop infrastructure to support new business and land use planning. She said Southeast school is one of the real assets in Yoder.

Attendees then gave their views of what Yoder should look like in 10 years. Ideas included a restaurant and bar, grocery store, child care facility, wind development, road and street maintenance, gas station, land use/solid waste management, fire department, small business development, recreational facility, training in the ag industry, increased population, a coffee shop and irrigation water.

Johnson introduced Goshen County Commissioner Ross Newman to discuss land use planning. Newman stressed that land use planning does not necessarily mean zoning, although 15 of the 23 counties in Wyoming have zoning.

“There was a bloody battle about 30 years ago on land use development,” Newman said. “A comprehensive land use plan was developed at that time and was updated about 12 years ago. The driving element now is wind use development. I am concerned it will develop here. It is an industry that must have some degree of regulation.”

Newman said Converse, Natrona, Uinta, Sweetwater and Laramie counties have wind development occurring now. He said wind development has two drivers - good wind and electrical transmission capability. To develop, wind energy has to have both. The limiting factor in Goshen County is transmission capability. According to Newman, wind energy is big business. With a single turbine costing around $2 million, wind development can cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“There are three areas of concern,” Newman said. “Setback (how close the turbine is to your property/home), impact on county roads (hundreds of thousands of tons of materials and equipment can destroy county roads) and decommissioning (the developer needs to reclaim the land after the 20-40 year useful life of the wind farm).”

Commissioner Jim Hudelson said he attended a wind conference recently in Casper, where he learned that Pacific Power is installing 66 towers just north of the power plant in Glenrock. The company said it will take 40,000 semis of material to put up the towers. Each tower weighs over 1.27 million pounds. Landowners in Goshen County are being encouraged to develop wind associations to negotiate with wind energy developers.

“The county assessor will not be assessing wind power taxes,” Newman said. “The state will assess these taxes like they do the railroad. The county only gets a portion of the property taxes. There are no sales taxes on wind equipment and many other taxes are exempt.

“We need to have the discussion to bring our existing land use plan up to date,” Newman said. “The state is groping on how to tax land correctly. Agricultural land is taxed on productivity. When wind turbines are installed, the case can be made for the land being industrial use, which falls into a higher tax bracket.”

Newman said draft regulations for wind development in Goshen County have been modeled after existing regulations in Platte and Laramie counties.

“Landowners may have land in several counties,” Newman said. “Making the regulations consistent between counties will protect personal property rights. If we (Goshen County) had a requirement for a wind energy development, we would adopt emergency regulations like Natrona County did in the last 60 days.”

After Newman’s presentation, Johnson took the floor again and said GCEDC is interested in helping existing businesses in Goshen County market their products and resources. GCEDC plans to use money generated from the optional economic development tax for business and job creation, marketing and funding for community development.

“It is good to be doing these type of projects,” Johnson said. “It is a good time in Wyoming.”

Johnson opened the floor for questions. Joe Guth asked if Yoder has guidelines for land use. Elsie Gray from the Yoder city council said the land is not platted. However, prospective uses for land come before the city council for approval before it is sold.

Another question involved lack of the ability to enforce cleanup of unsightly areas, such as junk cars or abandoned buildings. In a community like Hawk Springs, which is unincorporated, the county has little ability to take action. Last year the state legislature passed a “nuisance” statute but failed to define what constitutes a nuisance. Generally it applies to conditions that would threaten public health and safety. Hudelson said countywide zoning could place restrictions on unsightly areas but the restriction would apply to homesteads as well as towns.

To close the meeting, Johnson asked if representatives of the town of Yoder would like to talk about projects they have planned for the community. The town is working on a sidewalk project for Main Street that will include better drainage. The project is scheduled to begin in March.

The final GCEDC community forum is Wednesday, Dec. 10 at Eastern Wyoming College, Tebbet room 131-132, at 7 p.m. Community members are encouraged to attend. Speaking at that meeting will be Jeff Fuller, who was recently appointed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal to head a non-profit organization formed to follow up on idea and recommendations developed at the “Building the Wyoming We Want” conference in January. Fuller was born and raised in Torrington, and his parents still reside in the area.

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