Officials will wait until October to act on a zoning request to allow a livestock sales barn near Admire.
The Lyon County Planning and Appeals Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to table the application from Charles Loomis to give him more time to work on his business plan and do more homework on the county’s zoning regulations.
Loomis wants to have a livestock sales barn, as well as a venue to host consignment auctions for farm-related items such as farm machinery. The proposed sale 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.
Loomis said the project would occur in two phases and each phase would take from 18 months to two years to develop. The first phase would go to developing a breeding program and creating a customer base. The second would include the sales aspect of the operation.
Board member Phil Mott said the zoning request of agriculture, special-use for a livestock sale barn wasn’t appropriate for the intended use by Loomis. Mott said the livestock sales would fit, but if Loomis’ intention was to sell other items, the property would have to be re-zoned to light industrial.
“If you’re going to have a consignment auction you’re asking for the wrong zoning in my opinion,” Mott said.
Loomis said that when livestock is brought to an auction it’s consigned and the items up for auction also would be farm/agriculture-related. Mott said that didn’t matter — the intended use still didn’t fit the requested zoning.
“You still need zoning that would fit all of your planned uses,” Mott countered.
The issue of re-zoning the land to light industrial brought another potential problem — when the land is re-zoned, no matter who buys it, the zoning stays with it. This means that any person could come in, buy the land and put anything they wanted (within industrial regulations) on the property.
Neighbors were allowed to express concerns about Loomis’s application, and those ranged from land use by future landowners to taking more grassland out of agricultural production.
After listening to neighbors’ and board members’ concerns, Loomis said he would back off the consignment auction portion of his plan and stay with the livestock sales barn. His intention is to re-write his business plan to fit the published zoning request.
Loomis said he agreed with neighbors in that he doesn’t want a gas station or any similar business on the property in the future. He said he didn’t want to see more agriculture land taken out of production than what is needed for his proposed project.
Mott recommended Loomis talk more to neighbors about his proposal and address their specific concerns. Mott also recommended Loomis take a look at the Lyon County zoning regulations and address each item as a part of his business plan.
Board member Trenton Fagg said he would like to see a plot plan, which would include a layout of where things such as lagoons are going to be located.