HomeMy WebLinkAboutC.054.93011_1647 (2)Attarwey Pressly: All right. When was the last time this was done?
Ran Smith: We had one earlier this year. Several months ago.
Attwwy Pressly: South Iredell orea.2
Ron Smith: Ab, in north Iredell.
Attamy. Pressly: What was that?
Rai Smith: On Friendship Road
Attorney Pressly: A what?
Ron Smith: A sawmill.
Attorney Pressly: Okay. When you give your recommendations to the board do you use precedents on those
recommendations?
Ran Smith: In many cases, yes. They are al/ case-by-case basis.
Attorney Presslyr What would be your response if one of these neighbors wants to put a similar facility on
their own property?
Ran Smith: We would review it on the merits of that individual case.
Attorney Pressly: If it came up equal with this, then you wouldgive it an equal recommendation?
Ran Smith: If the situation arose that it was the same as this in all ways, yes Otherwise, we would have to
consider it case-by-case.
Att—y Pressly: The land use plan now is in effect. Is that correct?
Ron Smith: Correct.
Attorney Pressly. And the land use plan has this area designated for what?
Ran Smith: Residential.
Phil McLain: I have no questions but I do have quite a few statements This really isn't what everybody is
afraid off. It's much smaller in scale than what everybody is afraid of. It's much smaller in scale than what
people realize. It does not pose the threat and danger that people want to assume. You can pull off Internet
articles and read about explosions in Idaho, in Oregon. My experts reviewed those and what happened was
because people were doing things that were not on the same scale as what we are going to build. A lot of home
brews are being done and things are happening and mistakes are being made because people aren't doing what
they are supposed to be doing. We are going to do what we are supposed to do. We "going to do everything
within our power -- to give what other setbacks -- to do whatever greenery -- to make it as invisible in the
community as we can possibly make it We're moving it up the hill and it's going to cost us more money to do
that because we're going to have to build a building now that we already had existing. We are willing to make
that a concession. It's going to go up there between two other buildings and you're hardly going to be able to
see it The tanks that we were going to erect are much smaller than the silos that remain there now. So as
for as eye appeal to the neighbors, they are no+going to see much difference. The truck traffic is not going
to be as heavy as everybody thinks that it is going to be. Wei'egoing to add 13 trucks to the road if we go to
6 million gallons, but we've made it clear we don't know if we'll ever get halfway there. Frankly, if we canget
to a million, I think we've done pretty good, but I have to go to the extreme limit so that if something
happened very good then we would be well within what we are supposed to do here. We want to be good
neighbors so we are going to do a/1 those things. The methanol scares everybody to death, but my experts
here attest to the fact that the propane tanks that we have in our yards to heat our houses are more
explosive then what we are going to put on our farm. Were going to have much protection around them then
what we have around the propane tanks in our own yard. You open a valve and you start a flame. You don't do
that in this process. We are not hitting any flame in this process. 5o it's much, much, safer. It's unfortunate
that this has to be classified as M-2. This is not an M-2 classification but we didn't have anything else that we
could classify under. And as you have heard tonight in other testimonies, we need to have a classification for
agri-business that can do the things that they need to do. And so it was unfortunate that we had to come to
this type of application that doesn't really describe it and I hope the commission or the planning department
will look at a different use in the future so that agriculture will have the opportunity to do the things they
need to do. Another thing that was mentioned was that people seemed to look back at past history as far as
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