Planning commission recommends denying rezoning for concrete-block plant off U.S. 29

The Madison County Planning & Zoning Commission on an advisory vote recommended the Board of Commissioners deny a request to rezone about 12.64 acres along U.S. Highway 29 South from business to industrial so a concrete-block manufacturing facility could be built there.

The petition, presented by engineer Brian Kinsey for LJ Erbork Inc., would have rezoned the rear portion of a commercially zoned parcel to allow construction of a roughly 25,800-square-foot block-manufacturing building, a 3,200-square-foot storage structure and outdoor aggregate storage. The company’s proposed hours are about 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a planned maximum of about 10 employees, an estimated 40 vehicle trips per day, and an anticipated potable-water use of about 2,000 gallons per day.

Neighbors and the applicant gave competing accounts of the project’s local effects. David Kerrick, speaking for the Bryce Landing Phase 2 Homeowners Association, asked the commission to deny the request and cited the Madison County 2020–2040 Comprehensive Plan and the plan’s designation of the Daldesboro area for commercial/retail uses. “This site adjoins a residential subdivision on two sides, a church on a third side, and that alone should prevent the rezoning of…