Commission to serve as a planning board

The Alleghany County Board of Commissioners agreed Monday night to serve a dual role as a planning board beginning with a meeting Monday morning at 9 a.m.

The action came as a result of the county’s action to enact a moratorium on polluting industries, which gives the board 90 days to enact an ordinance covering such industries. The county has passed two such moratoriums, one to study regulations of polluting industries and the other to study zoning issues for those industries.

County Manager Don Adams said Monday that the board would need to create a planning board to work on the issue. At an earlier meeting, Commissioner Ken Richardson had asked if the commission itself could be the planning board. After researching the issue, the county manager learned that it could do so.

“The commissioners have already decided to schedule meetings as a planning board,” Adams said. “They have already scheduled meetings for the next three Mondays at 9 a.m.,” said Adams. Those meetings will be held on Oct. 10, 17 and 24.

The board’s goal is to have an ordinance or at least recommendations for such an ordinance to look over by its first meeting in November. Adams pointed out that time is short. “On Dec. 1, the first moratorium expires,” he said. The latest the board can take action would be sometime in December, he added.

According to the document presented to the public Monday night, the board can seek advice from a special advisory committee, but is not required to do so. The commissioners earlier appointed a 15-member committee to study zoning issues in the county. The board opted not to take that committee off-track with the polluting industries issue, since the 15-member committee has been asked to bring recommendations to the board by January.

After Adams briefly detailed the ordinance, Chair Eldon Edwards opened the floor for public comments.

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