County Attorney Responds To Complaint About New Poultry Houses Near Calmer
RISON - County Attorney Tiffany Nutt told a resident of the Calmer area that Cleveland County currently has no authority to regulate the location or construction of poultry houses in the county unless it forms a planning and zoning commission to develop such policies.
Nutt was responding to a request made by Homer Greenlee of the Calmer community to the Cleveland County Quorum Court during its regular monthly meeting Monday to see what it could do to prevent he construction of some new poultry houses near his residence on M.L. Wilson Road.
The location of the new poultry houses is along the west side of Hwy. 63 just south of the M.L. Wilson intersection.
Greenlee told the court that his home faces where the poultry houses are being built. He said he has breathing issues and was concerned about the odor and the impact the chicken houses would have on his health.
Janet Kimsey, Greenlee’s daughter, addressed the quorum court during its June meeting about the same issue. She said the odor, dust and ammonia associated with poultry houses can impact the health of nearby residents as well as the property values of homeowners in that area. Kimsey noted her father’s breathing issues during that meeting.
“We would still like y’all to help us out if you could,” Greenlee asked the court Monday night.
Nutt explained that the county had no ordinances on the books that regulate poultry houses and therefore had no power to intervene. In order to create such ordinances, she said the county would need to create a planning and zoning commission to develop a set of guidelines, and then have those guidelines approved by the quorum court to be put into an ordinance, which essentially makes it a county law.
She noted that whatever regulations such a commission would come up with would not impact any of the existing poultry houses currently nor those under construction since those guidelines would not be retroactive.
During the discussion, Nutt, who is doing some legal work for a poult…