The owner of property on Igou Ferry Road in Soddy-Daisy is attempting to rezone a portion of the site for a portable cement plant and topsoil screening operation despite a recommendation from planning staff to deny the request because of the property’s proximity to a residential zone.
Applicant Darrell Jones is requesting the southern portion property at 2525 Igou Ferry Road be rezoned from a wholesale and light industry manufacturing district to a manufacturing district that allows for more intensive industrial use.
The northern portion property is now used as a recreational vehicle park.
Properties to the north and west are zoned for agriculture and single-unit residential use, and properties to the south and west are vacant or part of the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant.
“The request is not compatible with the adjacent residential land uses because the M-1 District permits heavy industrial uses like blast furnaces, recycling, oil refining and slaughterhouses that can cause nuisances to adjacent property,” the planning commission staff report said, referring to the potential uses of the site if rezoned for industrial manufacturing as requested by Jones.
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Staff also noted the area has no other properties zoned for heavy industrial use, and approval of the rezoning would set a precedent for future requests. The area lacks a land use plan to provide guidance on high industrial use of the property, but the planning agency is in the process of conducting a comprehensive plan that would provide guidance on future zoning of the site, the report said.
Opposition present at the June 10 Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency Commission meeting expressed concerns about truck traffic, noise and dust from the concrete plant.
Despite the staff’s recommendation to deny the request, the planning commission determined the request is compatible with adjacent uses and voted to recommend approval of the rezoning with the condition that the concrete plant be placed at least 500 feet from the southern and western property lines, but topsoil screening is allowed anywhere on the site.
Jones told county commissioners he would like the setback requirement to be changed to 350 feet because he feels the 500-foot setback would put the plant too close to Igou Ferry Road.
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Commissioner Gene-o Shipley, R-Soddy-Daisy, asked Jones at the July 17 county commission meeting how he plans to handle the dust at the site.
“Silica dust is very harmful to people, and you’re pretty close to Hunter Trace,” Shipley said, referring to a subdivision of single-family homes near the site.
Jones said all of his concrete plants have advanced dust-collecting systems used every time dust runs from a plant into a cement truck, and water is sprayed onto the dust as it enters the truck.
“We have other plants like this we’ve been running with special spray nozzles, and there’s very little residual dust,” Jones said.
The site initially will have a gravel lot, and the cement trucks will exit the property onto Igou Ferry Road toward Sequoyah Access Road, he said
“I’m amazed there’s no opposition here,” Shipley said.
The rezoning request is set to go before the county commission for a vote July 31.
Contact Emily Crisman at ecrisman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6508.
Staff file photo / Houses in the Hunter Trace subdivision, near the potential site of a portable cement plant, are shown.
