On Sept. 30, 2014, Zach and Pam Phillips closed on their property in Calhan, Colorado. About two weeks after they moved in, they received a notice about the Golden West Wind Farm Project, owned by NextEra Energy Resources, along with a map indicating their new property was situated right in the middle of it.According to the February issue of The New Falcon Herald, the Golden West Wind Farm Project includes 145 turbines, over 450 feet tall; scattered across Calhan.Pam Phillips, a teacher of electrical engineering at Colorado Technical University in Colorado Springs, said they were not informed about the project before they purchased the nearly 80-acre property; the seller’s real estate agent claimed no knowledge about the project.”If a house is haunted, they are supposed to tell you,” she said. “How could the agent just not know? And how could he just not tell us about it?”There is always an ethics component to what is taught in her engineering classes, Phillips said. If you know there is a problem, you have an obligation to fix it and do something about it. If there is an ethical or moral consideration, you have to consider that in your design, she said.Phillips said she has used various websites to monitor the value of her property and one website, Zillow, shows their property value at more than $100,000 less than what they purchased it for in 2014.Steve Schleiker, assessor for El Paso County, said it is too early to determine if the wind farm is affecting property values. ìBy law, I have to go by sales,î he said. ìThe value you see now is derived from data from July 1, 2012, to June 20, 2014. You are looking at data that is two years old.îBecause construction on the wind farm did not begin until March 2015, it will not be possible to determine the effect the wind farm has on property values until 2017, Schleiker said. ìWe will look at sales from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2016, and then that data will be used to create the May 1, 2017, valuation notices,î he said.Websites like Zillow and Trulia get their information from the assessorsí officesí websites, the county clerk and recorder and the MLS website, but they do not thoroughly research the data, Schleiker said.Christina Trevino, a real estate agent with the Patriot Real Estate Group, said at this point, she has not seen a negative effect on property values in the area. ìHonestly, I think that is because of legalized marijuana, though,î she said. ìPeople are looking to buy land out here to either use or grow marijuana.îPhillips said she and her husband purchased the property with a plan to construct a horse boarding and rescue facility they would operate when she retires from teaching. However, with the closest turbine just 502 yards outside their front door, she said the negative health effects to her family and their horses are too much, and they would not consider building something now that they cannot take with them when they move.ìThey were testing the closest turbine and even with the windows closed, you could hear the low humming and a ëwhumpí sound,î she said. “My dream horse property is turning into a nightmare. If we had the ability, we would be gone now, but it will be at least another year before we are not upside down in our loan.îSchleiker said he and his office are tracking the sales of homes and property inside the wind farmís approved zoning overlay, including the transmission lines and a 2-mile buffer outside the boundaries of the overlay. When that data is available, he will share his findings and post them on the assessorís website.”Had we known about the project, we would not have bought this property,” Phillips said.
