Supervisors consider change to county ordinance

The Lafayette County Board of Supervisors discussed changing county ordinance language, requiring buildings along the highway in Zone A1 to have brick exteriors during a public forum Monday evening.

During the meeting, the board granted Kizer Flooring a permit to construct an 8,400 square foot structure in Zone A1 at 668 Hwy 6, on the condition the company brick the front of the building.

That condition sparked conversation in a public forum, with board members Chad McClarty and Kevin Frye beginning the discussion. McClarty asked if the board should change its plan of review and make bricking structures in the ordinance language a requirement rather than conditional.

“I’m not a big fan of that,” McClarty said of making design guidelines. “If we’re going to sit here every time we have a conditional use permit, and come up with different things that they need to be doing, I agree we should get on the same page.”

Frye proposed that the board, instead of requiring buildings to have brick exteriors, could inform engineers ahead of time they might be asked to brick the front of their structures.

One of the reasons the board was requiring brick on the structure, was because that fell in line with some of the goals and objectives that County Building Inspector Joel Hollowell explained before the board voted to grant Kizer Flooring a permit.

These goals and objectives included enhancing and promoting the city image, establishing a sense of arrival along the highway interchanges and promoting commercial and industrial growth in Lafayette County.

“There are these goals that we set forth, and that’s where this is coming from,” Frye said.

Originally, the board wanted Kizer Flooring to brick the front and sides of the structure, but Eric Jones, an engineer with Williams Engineering who represented Kizer Flooring at the meeting, said that would have be too expensive due to he fire safety expenses Kizer Flooring added on to the building, which cost around $25,000. Jones also proposed a stone exterior, however the board denied that proposition