Disclaimer: In compliance with Chapter 68 of the New York City Charter, I am required to disclose that the views expressed in this article are wholly my own as a private citizen. Nothing I write here is to be construed as an official position of Queens Community Board 7, the City of New York, or any of its agencies.
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How and Why I Decided to Join My Local Community Board | What a Community Board Meeting is Like| Land Use Committee
On Community Board Committees
All community board members are required to serve on at least a couple of standing committees within their board in addition to attending monthly meetings. While the exact makeup of committees varies from board to board, common ones include land use, education, transit, parks & recreation, etc. Since my appointment to CB 7 this spring, I had been awaiting committee assignments, and finally got them a few weeks ago.
I had instructed the District Manager of CB 7 to assign me to whatever committees were most in need of additional members. As stated before, my primary motivation is to learn as much as possible, and to be placed in the committees where the community needs me most, not necessarily in the ones I have an interest in. My assignments ended up being with the Transit, and Police/Fire/Public Safety. Lucky for me, I happen to have an abiding interest in transit of all different modes.
As it turns out, the Public Safety Committee did have some business to attend to right after my assignment to it: we were to meet and discuss a proposal for a wind turbine to be installed on FDNY property in Fort Totten.
Role of Committees, Flow of the Meeting
I’m not able to generalize given this is based on my first committee meeting. Still, I can provide a couple of observations about how these meetings differ from larger general meetings of the entire board, and talk about the purpose committee meetings serve. Each committee has a defined role and area of responsibility. For example, the Transit Committee would be convened if there were a proposal related to expansion of new transit services, and cancellation or modification of existing services. The committees can provide reports to the board about activity within their realm of responsibility. They also formulate recommendations on proposals that require the vote of the board. These recommendations are intended to assist other board members in understanding the matter at hand. Committees are in this sense the bodies that perform due diligence on matters prior to their presentation to the board.
Because committees are inherently smaller than the board itself, the tenor and flow of committee meetings is distinct as well. The setting of the meeting feels more casual, and conversational. The meeting we had functioned a lot like a Q&A with the stakeholders who were presenting the proposal to install the wind turbine at Fort Totten. There were still formalities and procedures to follow, such as putting forward motions, opening up a period of questions on the motions, and a vote — just the same as there would be for a general meeting. Still, because of the relatively uncontroversial nature of the proposal at hand and the small number of people present, things moved much quicker than usual.
Substance of the Meeting: Queens’ First Wind Turbine?
First, I should provide some historical background and context about the proposal we were gathered to consider. The entirety of Fort Totten used to house an active Army base (parts of the Fort are still operated by the Army), but most of the base was decommissioned decades ago and turned over to the city. Following this transfer, there were a few groups that had an interest in converting the property for housing or educational purposes, among these was St. John’s University. These groups withdrew from consideration for various reasons. The land was eventually transferred to the FDNY as a public conveyance. It now houses the FDNY’s EMS training facility, and most of the training that doesn’t deal directly with fires.
The FDNY has an established track record of supporting the development of renewable energy generation capacity in the city. They were the first to install a solar array on a city property. This proposed wind turbine would be the first installed by a city agency, the first of its kind in Queens, and only the second one in the city as a whole. However, the FDNY cannot build this turbine in the proposed location as-of-right because it is a Special Natural Area District. This designation “created in 1975, is to guide development to preserve unique natural features by requiring City Planning Commission review of new developments and site alteration on primarily vacant land.” Representatives from the FDNY at the meeting specifically noted a regulation that bans any construction of structures over 40 feet tall in the Fort Totten SNAD. This of course would be an issue for a wind turbine that tops out at 120 feet with blades that extend an additional 40 feet on top of that. The FDNY came to the committee as part of their overall approach in obtaining the necessary clearances to build this wind turbine on this SNAD land.
A representative from Northern Power Systems, the company whose turbine would be installed, provided us with a technical overview of the wind turbine that is envisioned for this site. NPS is a Vermont-based company that manufactures all their turbines in the US and has a proven track record of successful installations across the globe as well as within the country. In fact, they have several installations in Long Island as well as the only other wind turbine in the city which is installed at a privately held metal recycling facility in Sunset Park. Here are some highlights of the specifications for this turbine, the NPS 100C:
- 160 feet tall to the tip of the blades
- 120 feet to the top of the tower
- 100 kW power generation potential
- Would take an acre of solar panels to produce this amount of power
- Automatically shuts off during low winds
- 25-year minimum lifespan if well-maintained, maybe longer
- Max rated for 132 mph winds (equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane)
- Acoustic profile of the turbine, maximum at 30m from the turbine is 55 decibels. This is not much louder than the decibel of children playing.
We were informed that this turbine was expected to generate around 211,000 kWh a year, enough to power 10–15 homes. The tentative plan for the energy generated would be to fully power a few buildings on the FDNY’s Ft. Totten campus. It would represent about 5% of their total electrical usage.
Q&A and Reaching a Decision
Committee members were given ample opportunity to ask clarifying questions and address concerns they had for this project. These included environmental impacts, noise pollution, construction costs, and a few others. The FDNY and NPS representatives answered all of our concerns in turn. For small turbines like this, environmental impacts have been studied and shown to be minimal with respect to birds. Noise pollution is also a minimal issue in this case because the site of the turbine is well away from residential properties, and the turbine is designed to have only one moving part, a “direct drive” that specifically minimizes noise. The FDNY stated they have ample funds in their capital budget to construct this turbine even without the city’s help. The turbine would pay itself off in approximately 15 years given savings on utility bills and net metering.
The committee chair summarized the pros and cons of this project, and basically came to the conclusion that any cons were adequately addressed and that there were several demonstrable benefits from the project. A motion to approve moving forward on the project was approved by the committee unanimously.
Next up: a report later this year about something of interest from another meeting
