In a 4-minute meeting Monday evening, the county Board of Zoning Adjustments agreed to table a vote on an appeal made by the Farmer and Frenchman.
BOZA had been scheduled to vote on F&F’s appeal of County Code Administrator Randy Tasa’s judgment to deny the business a building permit to construct a six-unit bed and breakfast on its campus.
Tasa said at a Nov. 10 BOZA meeting when F&F’s appeal was heard that allowing F&F to build without going through the planning and zoning process would set a precedent that could allow others on agricultural land to add on to their businesses in unseemly ways.
Meanwhile, F&F and its representatives say that the small farm winery is exempt from planning and zoning because its land is zoned agricultural.
BOZA heard both sides of the issue at the Nov. 10 meeting and tabled a vote on the issue till Monday night. But in the interim F&F and local economic officials discussed the issue with County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider.
Last week, those economic and business officials made a brief presentation to the Henderson County Fiscal Court, asking for a change to the ordinance that would allow F&F to proceed with its building plan, and fiscal court OK’d Schneider’s motion to start the process of writing a text amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance.
Late last week, F&F attorney Steve Arnett told the Hendersonian that F&F has put its appeal on hold and wants to see how the text amendment to the county’s zoning ordinance plays out.
If the process of amending the ordinance—which includes a public hearing at a Henderson City-County Planning Commission meeting and then that body voting on a recommendation to send back to fiscal court for a vote—ultimately leads to an amendment that allows F&F to proceed with its plans, then the business would drop the appeal, Arnett said. If fiscal court doesn’t pass a text amendment, Arnett said F&F would then re-instate the appeal and seek a vote from BOZA in the future.
All county BOZA members voted in favor of tabling the vote.
