Sale barn application again tabled
By Brandy Nance (Contact)
Originally published 09:30 p.m., November 14, 2007
Updated 01:07 p.m., November 15, 2007
After nearly two hours of discussion, a request to rezone agricultural land in north Lyon County to house a sale barn was tabled for the third month in a row at the Lyon County Planning/Appeals Board meeting Wednesday evening.
About 10 neighbors showed up for Wednesday’s meeting to express concern about Charles Loomis’ proposal for a sale barn.
At the first meeting on the request, held in September, Loomis said he wanted to have a livestock sale barn. The barn would be between 11,000 and 14,000 square feet on approximately 10 acres. It would be located at 1505 Road 310, Admire, which is on the southeast corner of Kansas Highway 99 and Road 310.
Wednesday evening, Loomis said he wants to build a 60-by-240 foot barn with lean-tos on the outside. He said the barn would be capable of holding 400 to 500 head of livestock for the sales. He said the barn would sit about 200 feet south of the north fence on Road 310 and would include two entrances.
Loomis said that he plans on holding two sales a month — probably on Saturdays for four to five hours in the afternoon. Special sales could be held between the regularly scheduled ones, Loomis said. The sale barn would be a complete livestock sale, with the exception of swine.
“We won’t go there,” Loomis said, adding that he doesn’t see a need for a swine sale.
Depending on the weather, Loomis said if the zoning is approved, construction was planned to begin in mid-March with completion in mid-August.
After Loomis described his plans for the sale barn, neighbors and board members were given a chance to talk about their concerns. One of the first concerns to be brought out was drainage off the property of both human and animal waste.
Loomis said he doesn’t plan on constructing a lagoon, rather he will have a portable system inside the building for human waste. As for animal waste, he said it would be piled under cover and then spread over the field when the conditions are right.
Several times during his statement, Loomis answered his cell phone. Board member Trenton Fagg asked him to turn the phone off, but Loomis said he was a supervisor at his job and had to answer the calls.
Millie Burns, a resident on Road 310, read a statement during public comment time. She said the area needs population growth that includes families with small children to maintain school enrollments in the small-town areas. Burns said young people are willing to building homes in the county, but wondered whether they’d be willing to build near a sale barn.
“It is my hope that the zoning board will say yes to families and no to sales barns,” Burns said.
Other neighbors said they thought a sale barn would lower the value of their property. During his rebuttal, Loomis said he didn’t think this would be the case.
“As far as devaluing anybody’s ground up there, as it sits for tonight, zero,” Loomis said, adding that he hopes to build a home near the sale barn sometime in the future.
Board members Phil Mott and Kevin Karr expressed their interpretation of the request according to the county’s comprehensive plan. They said the comprehensive plan is intended to protect agricultural land and agricultural uses, which would include the sale barn.
“Charlie’s proposal is not affecting the agricultural use of the land in the area around it,” Karr said.
After listening to audience comments and concerns and discussing the application among themselves, the board voted unanimously to table the application. They asked Loomis to bring in more detailed plans for the next meeting, including a letter from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and/or a letter from the Lyon County Health Department approving waste disposal and runoff of human and animal waste, professional plans of the building site and a viability plan of the operation.
The application will come up in the next meeting, at 7 p.m. Dec. 12.
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Posted by admireed (anonymous) on November 16, 2007 at 12:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Maybe Mr. Loomis will do a better job of maintaining his acerage. Too many landowners over graze let trees grow and generally run down the neighborhood
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