'People have been passing zoning laws of all sorts for over a hundred years.....Doesn't matter how "small". If a majority of the guy's neighbors are opposed, they CAN force him to stop. If existing law doesn't prevent it, they can go to court and sue to stop him. Neither you nor I know who his neighbors are, or their opinions on the project. But if it were going up on a farm next door to me, you bet I'd be either in court or at the local county commission.'
This isn't some California subdivision. Its isolated rangeland in Texas. To get a zoning ordinance passed there would be a great feat indeed. :-)
If sued with some kind of viewshed pollution lawsuit, the guy would probably get a team of lawyers pro-bono from the energy industry. They would not want to risk the tiny chance that a precedent would be set.
Around here, opponents of windmills are trying to say that they are impacting endangered species.
Not really. I grew up in a rural area of comparable "remoteness", and the local governments in such locations are VERY sensitive to desires of the local constituency. It is that local constituency which controls their continuation in office, and what that constituency wants, it gets. If a sufficiently large number o f the near neighbors tell the country government that they don't want such a development, it won't happen.
They can get all the energy industry lawyers they want---those guys don't vote. The locals do.