Franklin County Commissioners Extend Moratorium

Franklin County Commissioners have extended the moratorium on conditional use permits for large industrial uses until July 15th.

At their called meeting last Friday evening, the Board voted unanimously to approve a resolution extending the moratorium that was put in place in early April.

Commission chair Jason Macomson said the extension is to give the Board and County staff more time to work on revising the zoning ordinance section regarding commercial and industrial properties.

“During this time while the moratorium is in effect the County has been working on a revision, specifically of the commercial industrial section of the zoning regulations of Franklin County. This work is ongoing and our Planning and Zoning Commission actually considered a draft of that proposed revision at their meeting last night (Thursday). The current plan is for our Planning Director, Scott Delozier, is to present a draft of that revision to the Board of Commissioners at our June work session. However, we won’t be able to approve anything until our next meeting on July 12, 2021,” Macomson said.

The Chairman noted the extension will give the County time to finalize the revisions so the Board can vote on it at their July meeting.

Macomson said however, the County will not stop with just the zoning ordinance revision.

“After this revision is eventually adopted hopefully we’re going to continue to work on revising our entire zoning regulations but that’s a much bigger project. That may take another six to nine months,” he said. “But we felt like the commercial/industrial section was the first place to start.”

After hearing from the Board Chair, a motion was made by Commissioner Eddie Wester to adopt the resolution to extend the moratorium on conditional use permits for large industrial applications through July 15.

That was seconded by Commissioner Kyle Foster and it passed unanimously.