The Henderson County Fiscal Court has proposed a text amendment that includes a “small farm winery farmstay” as a conditional use for an agriculture zone and would provide a path for the Farmer & Frenchman to build a proposed six-unit bed and breakfast on its Robards campus.
In a resolution the fiscal court approved Tuesday, it sends the proposal to the Henderson City-County Planning Commission to hold a public hearing about the text amendment and then to vote on a recommendation to send back to the fiscal court.
The planning commission will hold a public hearing at its Jan. 6 meeting, according to Brian Bishop, the planning commission executive director.
The proposed text amendment adds “small farm winery farmstays” to qualifying activities for agritourism. It also adds the definition of “small farm winery farmstay” and includes it as a conditional use in an agricultural zone.
The proposal to change the text amendment came after several recent events as the Farmer & Frenchman sought to build a six-unit bed and breakfast. First, County Codes Administrator Randy Tasa denied the business a building permit. He said F&F should go through the planning and zoning process for the project because otherwise it 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 believed that the small farm winery is exempt from planning and zoning because its land is zoned agricultural. They appealed Tasa’s ruling to the county Board of Zoning Adjustments.
At a Nov. 10 BOZA hearing, County Attorney Steve Gold agreed with Tasa and said that allowing F&F to build without going through the planning and zoning process could have negative unintended effects. But he also said there were ways that F&F could proceed with the project, one of them being to seek a text amendment to the county’s current zoning ordinances.
F&F reps, along with local economic and business reps, spoke with County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider, who put the issue on Nov. 25 fiscal court agenda.
Henderson Tourist Commission Executive Director Abby Dixon spoke at that meeting and said updating the ordinance will provide “clarity, fairness and a predictable path forward” both for F&F other agricultural businesses that may want to build a bed and breakfast in the future. The fiscal court that day OK’d starting the process for the text amendment to be made.
In other news:
- The fiscal court approved a memorandum of understanding with Deaconess Henderson Hospital in which $318,796 from Henderson County’s National Opioid Settlement will be given to the hospital so that it can purchase three pieces of equipment: a C-arm, which is a mobile x-ray imaging device; an ultrasound machine; and a procedure table. The equipment will be used to help the hospital support non-opioid pain treatment alternatives. n a letter to Schneider, Linda White, Deaconess Henderson Hospital’s chief administrative officer, said that the three pieces of equipment would be used to expand pain management services at the hospital. One piece of that care is to provide patients alternatives to opioid dependance and withdrawal, said the letter.
