The other thing to remember is that as an individual landowner, in a large multiple landowner project... you have VERY little leverage to try to get the leasing company to accommodate desired changes. However, if you all, as a group, work together to achieve more landowner-beneficial changes, you then command considerable power to achieve them.
The difficulty in this then is that YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO WORK TOGETHER AS A GROUP! All in... together, making decisions that will apply to all of the land represented by the group. This is a personal choice then, to bow to the will of the group, in regard to the lease language.
We were able to get a clause written into our lease that if the terms (like payments for example) into the future got changed for a "better deal", in order to bring in some remaining "hold-out properties"............ then those same terms would have to be offered and apply retroactively to those properties that signed into the project early on (early signers would still have to individually agree to and sign off on those changes to the terms of course, and would have the right to reject those terms, if they so chose). Everybody in the project gets the same deal... no bad feelings in the community because of "preferential treatment".
There are so many things that we were able to accomplish in terms of changing that lease language for the benefit of the landowners... it's hard to know where to begin! We (the members of the advisory board) worked hard on that lease trying our best to get it written to protect and benefit landowners, and honestly, we absolutely did end up with what is still the best, most comprehensive landowner friendly lease language that I've ever seen on a wind project. However, in the end, the project still failed to move forward because we still couldn't get enough contiguous properties signed in to make the project feasible. THAT was mostly because of the "anti-wind activists", both from within the footprint and from outside of it, and those from within the footprint consisting primarily of "non-ag residences in the ag district", that didn't have a large enough tract to be eligible to participate (setbacks from residences) vehemently objecting... almost to the point of violently objecting..., and then some of the ag landowners that had land that was eligible not wanting to "upset the community" by going along with the project. So the non-ag residence objector's tantrums to protect their residential property values in an ag protection district worked as planned (and I agree that it is legitimately "debatable" whether solar and wind is or should be considered an agricultural venture.................. however ALL we do is "grow energy" in one form or another out here... half our corn crop is sold currently into the ethanol market, our soybeans go to biodiesel, etc......., and of course, food of any type, for any creature, IS energy). As a result, there are NO windmills in our entire county, anywhere. Many would say that's OK... and I "might" agree, looking at it all now 10 years later.
That being said, the two counties just 2 miles away from my farm have them all over the place, and they ARE benefiting in a large way, from a tax generation basis. I see hundreds of red blinking lights across the night skyscape from my place, and the windfarm projects continue westward from here all across southern Minnesota. Some of these installations are 20+ years old... the newest ones are probably approaching 10 years old now. NONE of the "health concerns" that are always and constantly being raised in objection have materialized locally to my knowledge at all. THAT concern, in reality, just doesn't exist "broadly" (I'm not saying that there isn't "someone" that may have been affected somehow, for example like the suggestion that an epileptic child may potentially have some impacts... I'm just not aware of any legitimate cases that have been made publicly and have been verified as fact to date in Minnesota or Iowa). The aesthetic objection is a personal preference thing, and so that CAN have "some merit"... IMO. The "noise" issue... may have some merit... as can the "flicker" issue... both of these are mostly related to the proper siting of the turbines themself. There are good projects and bad out there... and it is these kinds of things that our advisory board was responsible for ferreting out and working on, to "get it right". Potential for aerial application issues, air medivac concerns, potential TV and GPS guidance interference concerns, balance of payments issues (spreading payments out to ALL the landowners in the area equitably... even if you didn't necessarily get a turbine sited on your property), payments for roads, and transmission lines, be they underground or overhead, etc., what can and can't a landowner do with the property (like building a tall grain leg, shelterbelts, etc.), and within a specified distance of a turbine, etc. SOOOOOOOOOOOO many things that we addressed!
ALL of those first wind projects that went up ONLY got the developer's "boiler plate lease language"... take it or leave it............. ALL specifically written by, and for the benefit of the developer, and with only HIS concerns in mind. Our project was initiated about 10 years after those first projects went in up here... and landowners were becoming much better informed about what these leases contained and their potential impacts. I would very strongly recommend that you insist that the company that is intending to develop in your area include an advisory panel of local residents in ALL of their planning meetings for the project, and that they be allowed to have input to help to "steer" that project. Some things just won't be feasible to accomplish obviously... and if you unrealistically push too hard or ask for too much, the developer is going to pack up his ball and bat and go home..................but ALOT CAN BE accomplished to make those leases more palatable to the landowners as well.
If the landowners aren't working together as a community though, you'll not have the leverage to accomplish these kinds of things.