The potential investment of $10 million dollars by an Indiana company seeking to build a facility producing doors for carports hit another snag when the Surry County Board of Commissioners rejected the recommendation of the Planning Board to approve the request with conditions.
Industrial Development LLC is seeking to rezone 27.04 acres off South McKinney Road, to the South of Interstate 74, from Rural Agricultural to Highway Business Conditional. The board voted 4-1 to deny the request but also voted to waive the one-year filing moratorium to allow the company to apply again.
County land use attorney Howard Jones explained at the meeting, “There was back and forth between the owner and the members of the community… There was a consensus reached in that room that everyone there could live with.”
The board approved the rezoning with six conditions including that the entire facility, including parking lot and access/egress points, be contained by an eight foot fence that shall not be made of wood. Two stipulations were added for rows of vegetative buffering between the site and neighboring lots and a change to required buffer depth from a pond to allow the vegetative buffers to be planted.
For the business itself, conditions were added that no minerals be sold on site, the building shall be completely insulated to dampen noise, and that there be no business outside of house 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. A verbal agreement on those conditions was vetoed by the owner of the company over the hours of operation.
Chairman Van Tucker said, “They hammered it out for three hours and came up with six conditions, but since that time one of these conditions is no longer on the table.”
Tony Hartsoe, counsel for Industrial Development LLC, said he was told by the company the condition on hours was an issue, “We knew it would be problematic when we hard form the owner... that it was not something they wanted to agree to because they are not sure whether or not they would want to have greater production at that location.”
He explained the company wanted to ensure that if they make a multi-million dollar investment in building and equipment that their hands are not tied regarding future expansion by the conditions on hours of operation.
“It’s a $10 million project so when they are considering whether to move forward or not, they have to be able to understand how they can recoup their cost and how long it’s going to take,” Hartsoe told the board. “It wasn’t a bait and switch, it wasn’t a thing where they just immediately went back on their word,” he said calling it a miscommunication between the company and their agents on the ground locally.
Michael Burton spoke for the company and tried to calm fears, “We have been in operation 22 years in Indiana on one shift, eight years in Texas at our main plant on one shift, in Nacogdoches, and California — one shift.”
“We don’t have any intention of doing anything but one shift... but years from now if we need to go to a second shift, we’d be locked in because of these conditions,” he said. “We’re asking for consideration that if we grow, we would have the flexibility to do so.”
“Based on 22 years we have not needed to do that, but we wanted you to understand what our concern was. If we’re putting ten million dollars on the ground and then we could not expand our hours to meet customer demand, it puts us in a very difficult position.”
Belinda Utt was the only neighbor in attendance to speak to the board about the plan because she said, “Everyone was in consensus that this had been agreed upon and that there was no need for them to come.”
She expressed concern for the amount of noise that the facility may create and emphasized her disappointment that so much time and effort had been put into the agreement reached only for it not to be signed.
Vice Chair Mark Marion said the agreement made between the parties, even though verbal only, leading to the conditions would be all he could support, “I’m all for what the Planning Board approved, I’m not in favor of a variance because it’s not what they approved.”
Commissioner Bill Goins added, “I would support what the Planning Board presented because I think a lot of hard work went into that. We appoint a Planning Board and that’s why we appoint them.”
He wondered why the company could not move ahead with the plans as written, “You can make a $10 million investment and run one shift for a few years and then, if there’s no noise or what have you, you’ll have time to prove yourself. If you’re being a good neighbor you’ll have the opportunity to come back and work with the neighbors to say you want to expand hours.”
“It seems to me we have an impasse between the Planning Board, the folks who live in that neighborhood, and the corporation,” Commissioner Eddie Harris said signaling his opposition to the rezone as a whole — regardless of conditions.
“I’m not going to sacrifice the quality of life and the investment of those people in their homes for an out of state corporations. I would be in favor of voting it down outright and being done with it.”
He made a motion to deny the request, “I don’t think it’s a fit for that site in light of the negotiations that have transpired and the land use plan.”
“This getting a little ambiguous about what the future plans are and there are so many unknowns,” Tucker said in seconding the motion to deny the rezone request which passed.
The board also voted to waive the one year waiting period for the company to apply for a third time for the rezone; they had previously voted down the rezone request in April. Hartsoe gave the county notice of their intent to refile.
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