Polluting industry ordinance is OK’d

Following a public hearing that lasted about one hour, the Alleghany County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve an ordinance zoning the location of polluting industries during a special called meeting Tuesday night at the Sparta Elementary School Auditorium.

The ordinance was made effective as of the date of its approval Tuesday. The action was spurred by plans by plans by Maymead Inc., a Mountain City, Tenn.-based materials company that plans to build an asphalt plant on N.C. 18 near the N.C. 88 intersection at the site of the former Laurel Springs School. Maymead officials 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. County Manager Don Adams said Tuesday night that the company would be welcomed to submit an application to locate in the county under the new ordinance. However, he pointed out that there are obvious differences in the ordinance and the plans of the company, including the minimum lot size and setback requirements.

“An official (decision) cannot be made until an official application is made,” Adams said of Maymead, adding that the company “must go through the application process as dictated by this ordinance.”

The county passed two 90-day moratoriums on asphalt plants and other high-impact/polluting industries — the first in August and the second in September. The first of the two moratoriums, slated to study regulations governing asphalt plants, is slated to expire soon. The second moratorium, which was to set aside time to study zoning issues involving polluting industries, will expire in December.

Meanwhile, the ordinance approved Tuesday, which covers specific industries deemed to be high-impact land uses or polluting industries, was identical to the 28-page document that the commission, then acting as a planning board, recommended on October 24. The commissioners held meetings as a planning board on Oct. 10, 17 and 24 to discuss the ordinance.

The ordinance specifically regulates the location of certain land uses, including asphalt plants, cement mixing facilities, chemical manufacturing, chip mills, dragstrips or race tracks, electricity generating facilities, fuel bulk storage facilities, facilities engaged in mining, quarrying or resource extraction and medical waste facilities.

Under the ordinance, none of the listed facilities can located within 2,000 of ‘protected facilities’, which include educational facilities, child care facilities, assisted living facilities and nursing homes, hospitals, medical centers, churches and homes or apartment buildings.

Get the rest of this article in this week's issue of the Alleghany News! Back