(Spirit Lake)– Dickinson county is beefing up its zoning ordinance as it pertains to large electric transmission lines and other large utilities.
The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a revision adding the definitions as recommended by the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission. P & Z Administrator Megan Kardell says as of now she isn’t aware of anything like that being proposed in the county, but she says they want to make sure the bases are covered for the future…
“We currently do not address that and things with E911 bouncing from Emmet to here and over to Lake Park, we want to make sure that we’re protecting those items as well. And so in the A-1 Agricultural District, major utility facilities is a conditional use and so that would have that additional protection from the Board of Adjustment and they, too, would have to review the application. And so since we did not address those any where else in our ordinance, we thought that it fit and the commission voted 4-0 to fit it in with major utility facilities to include the language that says, so it would be disposal facilities, water and wastewater treatment plants, utility scale overhead transmission lines, and then it goes on to talk about public agencies or public and or private utility firms. We wanted to make sure, we wanted to address not only a public entity coming in, but potentially a private entity coming in.”
The Supervisors also Tuesday waived the 2nd and 3rd readings of the changes and granted the final adoption.
