Very little land in Fayette County will be available for confined animal feeding operations if a proposal that will be presented Monday to the Area Plan Commission becomes law.
In a 7 p.m. public meeting at Connersville City Hall, APC will consider a compromise proposal that requires CAFOs be located at least a quarter mile from the nearest residence. The proposal is based on an Indiana Model Code as well as the zoning codes from other counties.
The proposal defines a CAFO or concentrated feeding operation as at least 300 cattle, 600 swine or 30,000 fowl in an area where ground cover or vegetation covers less than half of the confinement area.
The proposal came about because of three applications for CAFOs that were considered four years ago by the APC. At that time, emotions ran deep between those who believe that CAFOs are farming operations that should not be overly regulated and those who believe that CAFOs should not be allowed, particularly in residential areas. At that time, two applications were approved and one denied.
The APC asked the planning director to update the code for the confined feeding of livestock. A committee consisting members of the APC, Board of Zoning Appeals, people involved in agriculture and rural residential property owners has reviewed the code.
“I think it’s the best compromise we can come up with,” said committee member and BZA member Kari Steele. “I think it will limit the growth of animal agriculture but you have to balance it with private property rights.”
She said the county no longer promotes animal agriculture. The proposal will not prohibit it but will not promote it, either.
Committee member and APC member Gary Breitenbach said he agrees that it was a good compromise.
“We’re a residential county, especially in the south,” he said. “There is not a huge amount space in Fayette County where CAFOs would be attractive in terms of sites. I think our proposal is consistant with a lot of communities, certainly those as residential as this one. I feel pretty good about it. I don’t see it being a major controversy here.”
APC Director Bill MacDaniel said he sees it as a victory for the those who would like to prevent large feeding operations from coming into the county as well as those who believe it’s a farming activity that should have few restrictions.
“Of the three CAFO applications we’ve had, the results would have been the same,” he said.
An “Indiana Model Code” is the basis for county zoning codes. The study committee looked at codes from several other counties, particularly Rush County, and incorporated those ideas into the new code, MacDaniel said.
At the heart of the plan is a point system meant to reduce subjective considerations. Each proposal will be scored and can earn up to 425 points. Points are available for separation between residences, subdivisions, public use areas, schools, churches and the population density of the proposed site. Odor abatement programs can add points. Injection or incorporation of manure into farm soil adds points. Letters of support from the community and notification of neighbors adds points.
Points can be deducted if there is history of violations by the operator or applicant.
To qualify for a special exception that would allow it to be built, a proposed confined feeding operation must score 234 points if it’s in an area zoned Agricultural-1 or -2, or 298 points in an A-1 zone.
Many people will argue that residents who move into the rural areas of the county should respect farming activity but the other side of that is that someone invited the new residents into the rural area by selling the land, he said.
“There is change in the character of the land from mainly agriculture to one that is really more mixed use,” he said. “Just because farming was first, those people who moved there for residential use have property rights also.
“The big issue with everything as well as this is that you try to balance property rights.”
Many issues commonly associated with animal feeding operations are covered by other agencies and not included in the zoning code, he said. For example, manure disposal is managed by the Office of the State Chemist as a fertilizer.
“What is covered in (the proposal) are things that actually do relate to zoning,” he said. “The state regulates the application and storage requirements but one of the things we can do something about is odor and that’s the buffer and separation distance to minimize the odor.”
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