Hearing set on ordinance zoning polluting industries

The Alleghany County Planning Board voted unanimously Monday to endorse a plan to zone polluting industries and high impact land uses. The move apparently was aimed at stopping an asphalt plant from locating in Laurel Springs on N.C. 18.

The planning board is made up of the five county commissioners, who voted last month to take on the issue of polluting industries after passing a second moratorium in September to give the board time to study polluting industries. That moratorium will expire in December.

Following the adjournment of the planning board, the officials then re-convened as the county commission to set a public hearing on the proposed zoning ordinance. That hearing will take place at the Sparta Elementary School Auditorium on Nov. 8 at 6:30 p.m. The commissioners will then vote on the ordinance at some time following the hearing.

Officials from Maymead Inc., the Mountain City, Tenn.-based company that’s plans to build a plant on N.C. 18 near the N.C. 88 intersection caused an outcry among residents in the rural community, have said that the county’s actions now will not affect their plans. In an earlier interview, Maymead Vice President Wiley Roark said the company will begin to move equipment onto the approximately 7.5-acre property in Laurel Springs after it gets a permit from the Department of Air Quality. His claim is that the company’s efforts to build there are ‘grandfathered in’ because the company already applied for an air quality permit.

The county, on the other hand, has taken the position that the company does not have a vested right in the site that would allow it to build there despite county ordinances.

A public hearing on the air permit for the plant will be held at Sparta Elementary School on Nov. 21 at 6 p.m.

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