Tuesday night, the Blytheville Planning Commission unanimously approved a setback variance request by R.D. Hughes Gin, which is being forced to restructure its layout because of the future Highway 18 overpass project.
City code for I-2 properties calls for a 50-foot setback from the easement, but the gin's equipment will be within 5 feet of the easement after making accommodations for the highway expansion.
Code Enforcement's Rick Ash told the board the company has machinery that shoot the cotton seed into trailers and the trailers, if left where they are, would be blocking the street. The gin must move its shed and turn the shoots parallel to the road.
"They are pretty much land-locked," Ash said.
Representing the gin, Gary Hyde said what once was four seed lines will likely be three with the change.
"There's no other place on this property to set this without shooting it 1,000 feet or more," Hyde said. "And you can't take cotton seed over 1,000 feet, in pipe, anyway."
Planning Commission chairman Jim McClain said, to ask "an academic question," what happens if the Planning Commission doesn't approve the setback?
"It would shut us down, you would lose another business in Blytheville," Hyde said.
Hyde said the Highway Department had no issue with the gin's plans, nor did Ash, who said the need to make the change wasn't of the company's doing.
Commissioners also asked when the gin planned to start the project.
"The rumors that we're getting through the highway people are that they're going to start in August or September with this," Hyde said. "They're going to start on the bypass area first, and that's the area we're in. If that's the case, we've got to do it this summer because we gin in September and we have to have everything ready by then. Between the shed to be removed, the seed house to be removed and these lines, they're costing us $50,000. We're trying to get money off of them for that."
Meanwhile, Blytheville Courier News publisher David Tennyson asked the Commission what steps he needed to take to build a building to house rolls of newsprint that were have been at a West Ash Street warehouse. The warehouse is being purchased by the Highway Department for the highway project.
Ash said Tennyson could meet with him and he would discuss setbacks and other issues. The board did not need to take any action on the matter.
The building would be on a 40-by-40 concrete pad on the south end of the newspaper's Broadway Street property.
Currently, the newspaper is moving some 500 rolls of newsprint to a warehouse across the street from its current office, renting space from Blytheville Compress.
Tennyson opted not to place storage containers on the newspaper's parking lot, the original reason he was on the Commission's agenda.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com