Zoning Board of Adjustment - Regular Meeting

Sir, he should be [Music] Can you hear us? Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear me? You hear you good. Thank you. All right. Well, they did us Amazingly quiet before the storm. Can't wait.

That's nice. Oh, this is great. Okay. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Mills County Zoning Board of Adjustment. Can I get a roll call, please? Collins here. Here. White here. Warren here. Gentlemen here. Good. Yeah. Okay. You might want to mute your yours and and unmute it when you do it because there's a big background when you when when uh when somebody comes into your area though. I'm not sure I know how to do that. I got you. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay, the first item up for business is the review action and approval of the current meeting agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the current meeting agenda. I'll second motion. A second by Ted. Thank you. Second item is the review and action of the previous meeting minute and resolution which was from the November meeting I believe 2024 play Lincoln for the um RV area. motion to approve. Second, a second. Okay. The first item up for business is the discussion and formal action on the chair selection of the new 2025 zoning board of adjustment officers.

You don't like the new chair, new vice chair or you can get nomin roll with it. You can keep it the same. Somebody just got to make it a motion to that and then If you want to rotate, I'll make a motion to leave the board as is. I'll second it. Okay. Motion to leave the board as is and a second by Heather. Can I get a roll call, please? Collins. Got muted. Yeah, got to unmute. Unmuted. Collins. Good. Yeah. Gulka. Yes. Like yes. Warren. Yes. Gentlemen, yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. Tonight's new business is the discussion and formal action on the conditional use application 25001 CUP203 for the proposed resource extraction for a limestone inquiry involving on-site extraction of surface and subsurface mineral products or natural resources excluding site grading for a specific construction project or preparation of a site for subsequent development. It is in Mills County. It is in Anderson Township and is yeah is in the agricultural zoning district. If our applicants ready, you can come up to the table which you're at and you can start your presentation vice president Shelberg Construction. We've got President Mark Shelberg, executive vice president Gregory Shelberg. The man who put all the packets together is our engineer environmental manager Brandon

Montgomery. And for you unfortunate people that know this guy, Nick Jameson, he's our sales manager for Shelbergs. Like I said, my name is Seth Weise and I'm here representing Fourth Generation Shelberg Construction with our headquarters in Glenwood or Greenfield, Iowa. We are an aggregate materials producer in southwest Iowa and south central Iowa as well as northwest Missouri. Our aggregate materials range from agricultural limestone to crushed rock for road maintenance and larger aggregate for erosion controls. A little history about Shelberg Construction. My great-grandfather, EF Shelberg, started a company back in 1937. He purchased an old county quarry just north of Greenfield. There he and two others Cory and crush one load of aggregate to take five miles of towel to sell at dinner. They would return and go through the same process of blasting, picking, and crushing to return with another load at supper time. can't imagining the pace taking process that was. It's a little different these days. Through 88 years and four generations, we have now grown the company to two over 200 employees. One of EF's biggest accomplishment accomplishments that he would want me to me mention is the EF and Sylvia Shelberg's foundation. Through his hard work and growing the company, the foundation was started in 1986. foundation was created to show the ongoing expression and appreciation appreciation to the community. The purpose of the foundation was to give financial assistance to nonprofit, charitable and educational causes. The ultimate goal is to help improve support communities with a pass it on mentality. Mills County has been heavily involved and I personally love meeting with old and new applicants every year. Crushed aggregate is the building block

of all infrastructure. It is a limited resource that we have professionally extracted for past 88 years. Through extensive exploration, we found an economically feasible limestead limestone ledge to quarry right here in Mills County's backyard. with a with a Corey in this location should help cut costs, generate tax revenue, generate new employment, and help support local businesses. It will also help prolong the lifespan of our Malvin Corey that's here in Mills County. We are here today to request the board to grant us a conditional use permit for the sections of northeast Mills County located in your patents. Now our progress projects summary. Shelter Construction Inc. is proposing the creation of a new quarry site located in northeastern Mills County, Iowa. Proposed operation is a lime limestone aggregate production facility. Site will supply limestone aggregate to the surrounding areas. Operation are anticipated to start from the southern portion of the property and prog progress north over time. Top soil will be removed and stockpiled in the BMS. Remaining overburdening will be used to backfill areas already coried and top soil will be placed on top. Reclaimed ground will be returned to agricultural use. Surface water runoff will be diverted using good engineering practices to reduce erosion, improve water quality in accordance with the national pollutant discharge elimination systems permit. The remaining pit will be graded to surrounding surface water drains to the area will meet the division of soil conservation and water quality rules of the Iowa administrative code. So if we go on maybe look at some of the

mapping I'm on uh progression one the first five years should be easier to follow the legend the yellow area is the section where we're going to begin excavation and the initial pit that's where the initial pit's going to be black outline around that is going to be where our top soal BMS are going to be placed to help the visibility from the roads too into the pit. Um the blue section on north just north of the pit area it's going to be a temporary stockpile yard with access from 59. that entrance there in the middle and it's not set in stone. It it could be moved north or south, but that is that's that's where our initial stockpile yard is intended to be. So, if we move to the next progression, your five or tier 10ear, it's going to show them that we we've relocated that stock. So we could in turn mine the area where the the stockpile original stock pile is located. As you can see from the legend, the green area is that's the start of the reclamation from the land that was already fored. The next the next map it's just going to show progression to the north. probably going to show you that reclamation with the green lines. We go back if then we go to the

2025 year progression progression five. It marches all the way to the northeast uh section. And this will be where our ending or we end our excavations and in turn where the quarry pond a pond is going to be located and all that through there is going to be reclamated. When this is done the stock polyard will be reclimated. Everything will be reclated back to agriculture. Um for you interested in a topo map there's a recing topography map in the back. It kind of shows reclamation and how that the ending pit pond is going to look. With that said, we we need to be uh go through your questions and your conditionals. No, not not great stuff. What what what level is the rock? How much overburden is on this? I'm just curious. There's varies to the site, but um you get down to bedrock 40 50t or so. Well, that's it's neat. It's a little bit different where you're able to take the rock and replace almost the majority of it with farmfield. I mean, is that that's a little unique compared to most, isn't it? We we've done that. Okay. at Melbourne as we progressed north. You know, we were started off south of the road. That's went back to farm ground. We got

other assume they always ended up deep in ponds, but that's that's neat. Yeah, eventually there will be a pond, but it's not as big as some of the land owners like at the end of the day. Like, I thought it was going to be bigger. Okay. Okay. Very good, Seth. Thank you. We're going to go into the staff report right now. The staff report uh really went through with what um Mills County code allows for on this and it is a conditional use for resource extraction on these parcels of ground and which they've applied for and with this type of operation, it is so heavily permitted. Uh not just at a local level, but then through the state and federal level, the conditions on it. I know lately we've been putting on quite a few conditions, but there there isn't a whole lot of conditions that that go along with this, they do have to follow a lot of uh state and federal guidelines that goes along with it. So our re my recommendation on it would be to approve the conditional unit birth extraction with the five listed conditions on there is that the applicant would obtain the grading permit from the county for number one. Number two would be the applicant will secure the ne secure the state permit from the Iowa DNR. Number three is that the applicant will obtain the third party inspection reports showing that the site is in compliance with the engineering gradient standup submitted. Those reports will be submitted each month to the building department for review until the grading portion of the project is complete. Number four is that the applicant will secure the building permits for improvements to the site such as installation of a scale or a scale house. Uh number five would be that the applicant secure the necessary septic and well permits to support the site for

the employees. That's based on the following findings of fact. Number one is that the subject properties located in the class A agricultural district. the zoning ordinance adopted in conjunction with the land use plan stipulate that resource extraction is a permitted conditional use in the district and number two is that Mills County and Southwest Iowa do have a limestone shortage and gra and the gravel from the site will support the roads in Mills County. Okay. Okay. I'm going to switch these around instead of having discussion but going to public comment right now. Anybody that has public comment, please come up to the podium, state your name, and and give yourself a few minutes to speak. Okay, it doesn't appear that there's any public comment. We do have a letter that I think everybody on the board, so we'll go ahead and go into board discussion. There is a letter that was sent to us that we don't need to read out loud, but I think everybody's had time to look at it. It is from the adjacent land owner with some concerns about the property. Yeah. So, so my my question is anything changed in the last uh since this letter that may encourage anything for this uh for this house or this property? Seth, if you have anything. Yeah. Yeah, we um we were in talks with lawyer and John, the landowner, the homeowner, and as of this morning, we purchased that house. Okay. So the purchase really rectifies the situation that was was set up as far as um you know what the letter kind of went against as far as the performance standards and items like that. The way

that I have read this and then read their distinctive questioning on the causes and why they would have won it. I've went through the performance standards in their book that they've addressed from the county. Think we want to spend a few minutes looking at that. So, this would be on very first sheet. And Matt, what's Matt was saying, there's a lot of different permitting process they have to do versus what a like somebody that has done a dirt borrow pit or something like that. So there they've got a lot more people coming in on that with their seismma seismographs and stuff like that. So I've got a couple questions and probably more for Matt than anything. Looking at like the initial 0 to five year, is there any fencing requirements that they need to have? I was just thinking like as they're digging and this gets deep, you know, it's out in the middle of nowhere, kids out messing around. Is there any type of fencing that we need to require them to have just out of safety for them and people being stupid? Um I don't know that it's been a condition required before from us to defense off these defense off a site like this. Um I'm not Yeah. and and as they go back they kind of go away a little bit from the I'm just thinking I don't know it just popped in my head of so typically they have a large burm around the side itself and then they a lot of times I think there's gates that get put on parts of it but to keep kids and stuff like that out of everything I think that would be

that'd be a tough desk to that I don't really know if that really follows with what I was just asking do the permit. And then the only the other question I have is like there's a creek that runs through here. How are you going to like make sure there it doesn't get like I don't want to say contaminated because that's not the right word but so I would tell you so that's part that is going to be addressed through their general permit number four Iowa from the site and potential impacts to that stream be there I'm okay I got a question for you the letter that came from the lawyer that was representing the He stated in there that if the applicant was required to present to the planning and zoning commission is that something that's normally done because he said this wasn't right. We we couldn't approve it unless it went to the planning and zoning commission. I I saw that the way that that was written in there and I would, you know, probably respectfully disagree with that attorney on what they're saying there because the the performance standards of what's there is what's written into the code and the planning commission along with board of supervisors adopts the code. So they've really laid out those performance standard. You wouldn't run every conditional use permit to the planning commission for recommendations to the zoning board of adjustment. I mean that's is not something that's I'm going to break a little precedent and we'll only do this one time just because I want to stay on task when we have that public comment. It's really important to go speak at that time because that things can get out of hand. But go ahead. What was your question,

ma'am? It may not be the appropriate time. We're sort of lost. We should have contacted the commission long before we came. It appears this is very close to our property. In fact, it might be our property. I cannot understand where this is. And it's right off Highway 59, right? It's it's directly off Highway 59 in the very northeast corner of And in fact, across Applewood is correct. That is your Well, if I can understand it, John Paul That's John Paul and maybe we're here. But this is Highway 5. No, can't be. Is this Highway 59? This is the ones flow. Do they have to get on GIS? Yeah. With Heather all the stuff they have to do. This is almost like a mining. They are they are under the guy. I just as he was walking us through the through these I was just like digging right there. And they normally aren't like cracks like the one by Malber's by a creek. Right. But I was just talking they get like how deep it goes get in there around. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, that's because I

wonder about Like I said, I was going to only do that once, guys. I I gave we had the time for the public comment. Um I hate doing it, but it just it gets out of hand if we don't. Um that's a fair question. What they had um one quick second. Go ahead. Our our main concern was is the roads. What is Mill County going to take care of the roads? The traffic once once it's put in with extra with extra traffic. They go by my house and it shakes the house. The rock trucks do when they Okay. when they go by. And if they got the driveway up 59, the driveway they got that's going to be over the crest of a hill. That's going to be danger as far as I'm concerned. But they've got the driveway permit. Now the Yeah, the state highway. We're we're not our board doesn't do anything with the traffic nor does it have. It's just the land in question. That's our main main concern. that that's the state's jurisdiction. That's their responsibility to care for 59 and H12. But H12 is a county road. So, and that's the one that's really bad already now without traffic. I don't we understand that we're being what the board we're on is sitting on the land. That's we're not the county with the road department or anything like that. We don't have any say with that. It's just about what can be done with the land itself. Can I ask one more question? Okay. Okay. We've we live all around where this site is and so can you talk to us or anybody is this how is this going to affect our water? We have cattle, we have animals. Like how is this are we going to have to make sure that like who's going to pay for our well to be tested to make sure our water's still okay? So there's free water testing available from Gar counties through the county that they'll come out and they'll test your water for you. Will it need to be tested then more

often with all of this going on right next to our homes? You know, I'll give that I'll I'll let that question and then this is the last one. I promise this is the last one. In the in the back in the past when you have had a quarry somewhere, how has that affected if or not if not if or if not the water quality or the amount of water around your sites? Uh first off, my question would be are you on the same side of the river as we are? We're on we're on the east side of the creek. Okay. So right there the ri all the water flows into the the ground water flows in there. So if you're on the east side of the river, you know, our water would not be connected. But what about the well part of the wellwater deeper well? U yeah, but a lot of people don't have deeper. You said a deeper well. No, as you said, what would happen with your wellwater? It would if if you're not on a deep well, it'd be the same as the groundwater. It is all going to go to the river. Uh we we maintain test wells on our property, just uh more to cover your butt type deal, and we go ahead and monthly just check those for depth. And uh so at least we'll have a record of what we're doing close by to ours. Is that something we're going to have to do then because we're going to have to test ours every month to make sure we still have water. We we just check the level just to just to have a record of our on our side of the river.

How far away are you? [Music] There won't be any effect at all. I I can tell you one thing. This a lot of times this comes up on almost every single application and it seems like it can be a it sounds like a credible deal. We it's never came back to this board in the last since 2008 since the board started that there's been something that's came back and affected the water quality on with all of the associations and all the people they have to go through a company like this. This is somewhat like a mining permit is what I'm going to call it almost. They've got so many eyeballs on it and the EPA and everybody else that's involved in it. They can't take away a right from somebody else. Okay. So, we're going to try to stick with the meeting here. Um, if we do any more future meetings, please come up when it's when it's the public comment time. It really helps a lot of the back and forth. Okay. So, we're still on board discussion. So, with the lucky Pat, it's up to you if you want to unmute during this time. So, you can unmute. Mshaw. That's That is my one more time. Pat, sorry I muted you again. The microphone. There it is. Gotcha. No, I really don't have any questions. I mean, this is allowed in the county legal owners. I mean I think we need to approve this. Thanks

Pat. We're going through I'm going through all the conditions, you know, we talk about the stop files, the explosives, the traffic congestionally addressed with easily accessible entrances, adequate room for road trust in the site. This is in the site or strongly related regulated by DNR, EPA, MH, ATF and state fire marshal regulations protect Does everybody feel this letter? That's kind of a mute point now with the recent Yes. Well, that kind of takes away the safety. Any more board discussion? Yes. Yes. How we can say no? Well, I I I think they're good points. I mean, I can understand anybody that's going to be close to one, but I also understand that the regulations that they go through these things are not a cookie cutter type thing. And um it is going to be something that benefits the county. It benefits Mills County people, benefits that side of the county. You've got Rockar that are closer to that area. Sorry. So, when we're talking about benefits to the county, you know, I'm not sure what the property is exactly going to be assessed at and what the tax

evaluation is going to be. I'm sure that whatever the taxes are, it's going to be more than if it were farm ground. Uh, you guys don't qualify for the rollbacks that farm ground does. In addition to that, we can include the jobs as part of it. Do we know roughly how many people could be employed at this site? say 13 to 15. Okay. And then also we have instances right now at the Malvin Rock Corey where every once in a while we run out of rock. We got to find rock somewhere else. And so that's why we have a huge stockpile back on the north side of this building. Um we have multiple places where we can get rock. not only has cost savings for the county, but also makes sure that we have a reliable supply. I was pretty concerned when it came to John Paul's ground. I was pretty concerned about just he's had that house for a long time. I didn't want anything to be intrusive on us too much. I know his wife has had some health issues, but from my standpoint, I see the benefits, the jobs, the taxes, and I see the benefits of the rock for the county secondary roads. In addition to that, since John sold out his property to you folks, I don't I would agree that I don't think any reason why this board would approve it, excuse me, would not approve it. You know, when it comes to the board of adjustment, we really just check if people met the qualifications to get a conditional use permit. There's really not a whole lot of back and forth. That's did you did you guys meet the ordinances? Okay, you did. We're going to prove it. So, I say that because some people in the audience don't know that. I didn't know until my first board of adjustment meeting. So, okay. Thank you, Jack. Yeah. Is there a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve. Yes, we have a motion by path to approve. I'll second. We have a second. Can I get a roll call, please? Collins, yes. Yes. Like, yes. Warren, yes. Gentlemen, yes. And I want to make one more point. It's approved as is with the staff recommendations. Okay. Is there any other business? Uh so in your uh packets there, we provided you a calendar with an attendance report since this is the first meeting of the year. Members like to see this to give them some bragging rights and so I was too technically even though I was on Zoom. kept me like and then um same thing. So for the calendar the this year it would be just keep meeting at the same dates and times that we have and then it does look and so then the next thing is upcoming meeting it does look like next month we will have a request on the common books we will have a meeting. I'll be zoom on that one. Audra, I'll be I'll need to zoom on that one. I'll be in I just have to say my dad there's a just to give the zoning board of adjustment kind of there was there's some state legislature work going on about variances, right? Because they're they're always tough when they come in here and they ask about them. And I don't think that this if it goes through

at the state level, it's going to make it even tougher on us and the board because they're changing the they want to change the verbiage for a zoning board of adjustment to move to practical difficulties and with practical difficulties not necessarily being defined. You know, a tree in the way is practical difficulty. Uh I mean you could define it as almost anything not having any money to do it, right? that could be a practical difficulty if I have to move it back, you know, and I don't have can't afford the dirt work to go with it or something. So, um I think you know we Dave Seek reached out about this and I gave him my points of view. It's been a a big talk on the zoning administrators uh email streams back and forth about what to do about this necessary thing. So, it does take away what could be, you know, could be seen as local control. And that's kind of what some of the state people are pushing at it is that, you know, we want the people of the counties that have zoning ordinances, which is almost all of them. Uh, you know, they're there for a reason. We want those things to be put in place. And if you attend those ISU training sessions for zoning board adjustment people, they don't want, you know, that their recommendation is not to give out any variances. I mean, really push hard on those things. And it's so for the state people to make it hard, you know, harder for the zoning board of adjustment to say no. Um, I think it's a little bit unfair on some of the things that go on. So, but I'll keep tracking that and as you know by next month I should have another update for you on where that's moving through at the state legislature. But Dave voted against it. It didn't move forward. It did pass even though he voted against. See where it goes. I guess a couple years ago, whoever the assistant attorney's name was at that time, he gave us this big whole thing about, you know, no more variances. Yeah. That was that was maybe our that came from the county attorney. She I believe that person was wanting to not allow any variances but but I felt like it came from the not just county

but it came from down from the state too of no more variances. I can't remember it's in my notebook. It should be right now, you know, it should be pretty hard to meet the criteria at which the zoning word adjustment should say yes to a variance. But with them throwing out practical diff just putting in the term practical difficulty, I mean that's could be about anything. It would be hard to say no at that point in time. We had variances left and right then. Then at that point you're registering your zoning ordinance null two setbacks. I mean then you're just building whatever wherever there needs to be a little bit of uniformity to it because people always come in you talk about the property values. Well, you're going to well that right there would potentially decrease property values if you could little things right up against the road property lines. Yeah. All around. But I will update you next month. Um, I'll watch it as it goes through and give you a heads up on what the state's doing. So, that's all I have for you tonight. All right. Can I get a motion to motion to adjourn? I'll second. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Pat. Yeah. Thank you.