Opponents of windmills in Amsterdam try to get referendum off the ground
Opponents of windmills along the edge of Amsterdam are trying to organize a referendum in the province of North Holland. In this way they want to achieve that the turbines have to be placed at a greater distance from them.
Within North Holland, until recently, wind turbines were not allowed within 600 meters of homes. The board appointed in 2019 wants to get rid of this, because it is an extra rule that is only in this province and because it makes it more difficult to generate more wind energy in the future.
Action group Windalarm, founded two years ago in protest against wind turbines near IJburg, has informed the province that the wish for a referendum is alive. On a website of the province, the submitters must now first collect five hundred signatures from North Hollanders who are entitled to vote in order to get it on the agenda of the Provincial Council.
Long way to go
If there is actually a referendum, the petitioners still have a long way to go. For example, not all subjects lend themselves to a plebiscite. If it succeeds in getting the signatures, the Provincial Council will consider this at the beginning of March. Attempts to organize a referendum have already faltered more on this first hurdle.
Then at least ten eligible voters for a thousand referendum. After that, 45,000 North Holland transactions must be supported with their signature. If it comes to a referendum, the result counts if the majority consists of at least 30 percent of the more than 2 million people entitled to vote in North Holland.
Minimum distance
With the referendum, Windalarm wants to force the distance to homes to be increased to ten times the ‘axis height’ of the wind turbine. In that case, wind turbines in the municipality of Amsterdam are excluded, with the exception of the harbor and the IJmeer. But windmills in nature, such as near the IJmeer, the action group also wants to declare to be out of the question with the referendum.
When taking office at the end of last year, the cabinet also announced that there will be a minimum distance between wind turbines and homes. It is not known which ‘distance standard’ the cabinet wants to set.
On Thursday, various parties in the Amsterdam city council insisted that the city council put its plans to build seventeen windmills on the back burner until the cabinet has come up with the distance standard. Alderman Marieke van Doorninck (Sustainability) rejected the proposal on Thursday with the support of a majority in the municipal council.