Planning Commission To Look At Poultry House Proposal

Plans to add poultry houses to a Freeman Creek Road property in Stephens County are headed in front of the Stephens County Planning Commission after all.

A property owner at 140 Freeman Creek Road submitted a re-zoning and variance request for the property in December to switch the 107-acre tract from Agricultural Residential to Agriculture Intensive to put broiler houses on the property and have them 150 feet from the property line.

There were four active broiler houses on the property previously at one time and after reviewing the land use ordinance, county staff then determined that the proposal did in fact fall within the permitted uses for a parcel zoned as Agricultural Residential and did not need to come before the Planning Commission.

However, Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers said that the property owner’s new plans are not exactly what were initially described to the county.

“The first set of applications that came in was for a re-zoning, but to build in the exact original footprint and that is not exactly what he was planning on doing, so he has been requested by the Planning Department to fill out the applications and provide a sketch,” said Ayers.

Ayers said that the plans as now submitted call for the poultry houses to be longer and wider from what was originally there.

Also, she said that there will now be two more houses than what was on the property previously.

As a result, the proposal to re-zone the property Agriculture Intensive is now headed before the Planning Commission in February, then to the county commission.

The plans for poultry houses on the land are concerning a number of residents in that area and they spoke to county commissioners on Tuesday.

Those residents said that the odors were unbearable from the previous poultry houses and they do not want to deal with that again.

They recommended pointing the exhaust fans in a different direction.

However, Ken Martin, who works for Fieldale Farms and will be involved in the project, said the fans cannot be moved as the residents said because it would blow the exhaust from one chicken house into another.

Also, the county commission will consider looking at the language in the ordinance regarding poultry operations in Agricultural Residential.

Currently, the language allows for poultry operations and to have farm animals for the property owner’s use and limited selling.

Calling it a potential ambiguity, County Attorney Brian Ranck suggested the county consider defining poultry as a farm animal to clear up any question.