Planning Commission slogs through zoning revision

 

Members negotiate on changes

By Amy Boucher

 

INDEPENDENCE – Revision of Grayson County’s zoning ordinance will be the product of arduous negotiations among members of the county planning commission over multiple issues, and some portions, like those dealing with Shoreline Recreation, may be so complex that they are not revised until this summer.

At Tuesday night’s session, members had to resort to voting to determine what number of employees would be allowed in businesses run out of homes in Rural Farm Districts.

Most of Grayson County is zoned Rural Farm.

The present ordinance requires that employees should be family members. It restricts the business to the primary residence, but commission members agreed by consensus Tuesday to allow home occupations in an auxiliary building.

Zoning Administrator Elaine Holeton asked whether such businesses should be allowed to employ people other than family members, and how many.

“I like seven, including family members,” said John Brewer, who is also chairman of the Grayson County Board of Supervisors, which mandated the zoning law revision, and required that it be done by May. That decision came on the heels of an attempted repeal of the ordinance.

“I like seven, plus family members,” said Planning Commission Member Brian Walls.

How about no set limit, said Holeton.

“I like that even better,” said Walls.

Holeton asked what, in that case, would distinguish a home business from any other business, which would need commercial or industrial zoning.

With no restriction, a home business could have 1,000 employees and skirt zoning requirements, said Commission Chairman Lindsey Carico. She suggested seven employees including family members, but longtime Commission Member Palmer Fant said seven is too many under one roof.

A home pine roping business could have a big shed and employ a large number of people, Carico countered. “Why are we going to limit the number of people working?”

While Fant stuck with the number three, the rest of the commission fought it out between seven and ten, ending up with a tie vote. Carico changed her vote to ten, saying she wanted to move on.

One attendee observed it was like watching a bidding war.

The home business issue has been particularly controversial because one of the most vocal opponents of the zoning law, Terry Combs, ran afoul of home occupations restrictions before his business burned. He had not gotten zoning approval for a business in a separate building run by family members.

His business could be allowed under the proposed revision, providing he met building code requirements.

Another contentious issue, setbacks in Rural Farm and Rural Residential districts, was settled at the planning commission’s prior work session. Structures will have to be 35 feet from the centerline of a road, and 10 feet from adjacent property lines.

A second numbers negotiation requiring two votes Tuesday night was over setbacks for high-intensity farming facilities from neighbors’ property lines.

The new high-intensity agricultural designation is being introduced to avoid the special-use permit situation for such operations, essentially to allow them in agricultural areas when they meet certain parameters, which must be set in the zoning revision. Grayson does not currently have any high-intensity farm operations.

 “High intensity” means a feeder-type operation, or a place where animals are confined for 45 days or more per year. The definition is set at 333 lactating dairy cattle; 500 feeder and slaughter cattle; 250 horses; 1,250 swine (larger than 55 pounds); 3,333 sheep; 27,500 turkeys; or 50,000 broilers and laying hens. The law will require a minimum of 50 acres for such an operation and Holeton had suggested a 1,000-foot setback from the property line for any facilities.

Brewer said he was fine with Holeton’s suggestion but Walls wanted the setback reduced “to at least 800 feet.”

Commission Member Lisa Hash wanted even less distance if adjoining landowners didn’t object.

Holeton said the only way to determine that was to make high intensity agriculture a special use, and the intent of the zoning revision is to make more things “allowed” and have fewer special uses. “We have a lot of residential homes in Rural Farm Districts…Let’s be fair about this and really look at it from all sides.”

She said noise and smell from feed lots, big poultry houses or hog operations could be objectionable.

Carico pointed out that the manure would be spread on the fields and neighbors would smell it regardless of setbacks.

Walls then said he preferred a 500-foot setback.

“It’s an environmental issue as well as a smell issue,” said Commission Member Larry Bartlett.

Hash endorsed 500 feet.

Bartlett moved to set the limit at 800 feet and lost on a tie vote. Carico weighed in with the 500 footers and that limit carried on the second vote, 8-1.

The commission meets at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday to continue its revision work and is hoping to have a public hearing April 15 on the revised zoning ordinance. The revision is intended to simplify and clarify the law and make it more “user-friendly.”