Hart BOC to Continue Poultry House Ordinance Discussion Tonight

Hart County Commissioners have again put off the first reading of the new poultry house setback ordinance and tonight, plan to meet for a called session to go over two sticking points in that ordinance.

At their meeting last week, commissioners put off the first reading until the exact wording of the new law could be agreed upon.

The Board reportedly worked until almost 10p last Tuesday night to hammer out the language after commissioner Joey Dorsey said the law, as written was still not ready for a first reading.

Under the new ordinance agreed upon last week, a 200-foot setback would be reqired from the property line, a 300-ft setback from the rear of the building to the property line, a 600-ft setback from the tunnel end to residential structures, a 600-ft setback from property lines of public parks and public recreation areas, and a 1,000-ft setback from churches, schools and daycare centers.

But County Administrator Jon Caime there are still two areas that need clarification.  The first he said has to do with granting building permit variances.

“Does the building permit and the variance in particular apply to the person who applied or the to land?” Caime said. “So you’ve got these poultry houses that are going to be built where the builder may not even own the land. There’s one in particular on Highway 172 where some folks have been concerned about the location about that project.”

In that case, Caime said a building variance was granted, but then last week, the board was split on whether to revoke the permit after neighbors complained.

Caime said the proposed poultry house on SR172 is close to neighborhoods and on land across from the Hart County YMCA.

“That made us then take a look at the variances that had already been granted and it turned out the person who pulled the permit is not the one who actually owns the property,” Caime said.

A second issue the board plans to discuss tonight has to do with the length of time between obtaining a building permit and when construction starts.

Currently, that time limit to begin construction is 90 days, but Caime said that is not enough time in the case of constructing a poultry house.

“That’s fine for residential construction, but that doesn’t work for a commercial project,” Caime said. “Industrial or poultry house projects take several months to get into play; especially if there’s a lot of dirt work. There are a couple of projects out there that had permits. They pulled the building permit. They went out there and started doing the dirt work, but they didn’t actually start the construction of the building. So, the board needs to make a ruling on that one.”

Caime said the current county building code doesn’t address that issue.
Tonight’s called meeting takes place at 5:30p at the County Commission office.