Lake Minnetonka Wind Turbine Owner Fights Orono City Hall—and Wins

A ruling made this week by the Minnesota Court of Appeals will likely end for good an at times contentious dispute between the City of Orono and a resident wishing to construct a wind turbine on his property.

Jay Nygard first approached the Orono City Council in 2010 with plans to construct a vertical-axis wind turbine on his Lake Minnetonka property. Citing violation of city code, it took the city council just two days to deny his application.

“Instead of trying to work something out, they decided to go down this path of stubborn indignation,” Nygard said.

Nygard ignored the city’s decision and built the turbine anyway.

The city eventually took the case to court, and months of complicated legal actions ensued. 

But the appeals court’s 10-page decision clears the way for the turbine to be rebuilt and emphatically overturns a district judge’s ruling that sided with the city.

“We conclude that the city’s stated reason for denying the Nygards’ permit application is erroneous in light of the language of the zoning ordinance and the city’s concession that it allows other accessory uses in the Nygards’ zoning district even though they may not be specifically mentioned in the  zoning ordinance,” the court wrote in its opinion.

Nygard, who grew up in Orono and graduated from Orono High School, says he plans to waste little time in reconstructing the turbine.

“It’s absolutely going to go up, and now that I get to have it I’m probably going to put another 10 feet higher or so,” Nygard said.

The city could petition the State Supreme Court to hear the case, but chances justices would listen to arguments are slim.

“The opinion is written so strongly in our favor that I can’t imagine they’d try to go anywhere with it,” Nygard said.

No support

Nygard says he’s reached out to elected representatives at several levels of government during the past two years in a quest for support.

“Nobody ever got back to me,” he said.

Despite campaign talking points about the importance of clean energy, Nygard says his plight has received little attention—specifically pointing to the governor’s office as being particularly uninterested in siding with him in his fight against city hall.

“I know we’ve got a governor that’s supposedly for green jobs, and that’s what I’m trying to do,” Nygard said. “But we’ve tried to get a hold of him more than once, we’ve even talked to him a few times, but he’s just not interested.”

With the exception of a lone city councilman, Nygard says city hall has been equally uncooperative.

“The city doesn’t talk to me,” Nygard said. “I’ve tried communicating with them about several things, but they just have a hard time deciding that I’m worth responding to. Councilman Aaron Printup and I get along fine, and he eventually came over to listen to the issues.”

Nuts and bolts 

Nygard’s turbine is capable of producing electricity year-round, and it is not impeded by sub-zero temperatures, ice or snow.

At low wind speeds the turbine produces between 25 and 50 watts but can build its way up to 1,500 watts at max power.

“If you’re producing more than you need, which is common, it goes backwards through meter to your neighbor’s houses,” Nygard said. “The power company keeps track of that, and for every kilowatt you produce they give you one for free.”

Nygard vehemently refutes claims that the turbine is an eyesore on a valuable stretch of Lake Minnetonka shoreline and says the complaints he’s received about aesthetics number exactly zero.

“I have never once had anyone come over and say ‘oh God that’s ugly,’” Nygard said. “In fact, when we had it sitting in the yard after they made us take it down people who had never seen it would stop by and wonder if it was a sculpture.”

Vertical axis wind turbines like Nygard’s cost about $20,000 and about $30,000 for the more powerful model.

“I used to say it would pay itself back in 10 to 14 years, but the electric bill just went up 20 percent a few months ago,” Nygard said. “That’s the thing—the power bill goes up about 10 percent every year, so if you factor that in it would be more like eight or nine years.”

What’s Next

Nygard calls himself an entrepreneur and currently has ownership interests in several businesses. The turbine causing so much legal drama locally is made by a company which Nygard has an agreement with to manufacture in the U.S.—an opportunity he says he’ll capitalize on in the near future.

“Now that I’m able to, I’m going to manufacture these here in Minnesota,” Nygard said. “I’ve had this opportunity on the table for a year and a half, and we’ve been trying to get a hold of (Governor) Dayton to tell him that. Im not saying I need all this government money, but it would be nice to have some sort of government support to get us off the ground—to help get things going and show how these things work.”

Nygard added that the opportunity to capitalize on a clean energy business is both real and local, stressing his motivation revolves around changing the way energy is viewed.

“It’s what everyone has been talking about for the last 10 or 12 years about what we need to do,” Nygard said. “Everything right now is in the hands of the big companies. The only way people are going to control their future is to do things like I’m doing—some solar, some wind, making your house energy efficient and do other improvements to reduce your costs and protect your future.”