Paul

Rivers won't have to tear down his new pole barn,

nor will he have to pay the costs of having

four-generation farm land rezoned in order to

keep it.

That

was the choice he faced until County

Commissioners last week voted to pay the cost of

rezoning 188 acres owned by Rivers' grandmother,

Sarah, and to do the same for anyone else facing

the same circumstances.

Rivers

said he was surprised recently when a county

marshal stopped by to inform him that the pole

barn he had just finished building wasn't allowed

under new county zoning ordinances.

"I

had called [the county zoning ordinance] around

January to ask if it was allowed," Rivers

said, "and they told me that it was."

It

was a few months before Rivers had time to build

the new structure to replace an old one that had

fallen into disrepair. In the meantime, the

county had passed a new set of rules prohibiting

farm outbuildings on land zoned R-70, a category

that allows subdivisions with lots as small as

two acres.

Further

complicating the issue, the Rivers family never

asked to have the zoning category of its farm

land changed from its original A-R

(agricultural-residential), a category that would

have allowed all manner of farm outbuildings. The

county rezoned about 6,000 acres, including the

Rivers property, in 1973 in a move designed to

encourage growth of subdivisions with two-acre

lots and discourage one-acre neighborhoods.

The

marshal told Rivers he would have to tear down

the barn, but then relented and suggested he talk

to the county zoning office about a rezoning,

Rivers said. "Then he asked me if he could

fish in our lake," he added. "I didn't

let him."

Rivers

decided to put his problem in the lap of the

commissioners when he found out how much the

rezoning would cost - $350 for the

application fee, plus several hundred more for

surveying and advertising.

"I

just want it to be zoned correctly for what it's

used for now," Rivers told the commissioners

during an earlier meeting. "Under R-70 our

whole farming operation is illegal. I feel like

we were wrongly done."

Commissioners

agreed, but during the earlier meeting expressed

concern about setting a precedent. They tabled

the matter at that time.

But

during last week's meeting the majority decided

to go ahead and allow Rivers to apply for

rezoning at the county's expense, precedent

notwithstanding.

Other

residents who are using their land for farming,

but who were affected by the 1973 blanket

rezoning, will be allowed the same privilege, as

long as they owned the land before 1973. If they

bought their property after it was rezoned,

they're on their own.

Only

Commissioner Herb Frady voted against the motion.

He suggested asking the Planning Commission to

study the idea of changing the R-70 category so

that farm outbuildings are allowed on five acres

or more. "It seems a lot simpler than

rezoning it back to five acres," Frady said.

But Chairman Harold Bost argued that the

commission just got through doing away with farm

outbuildings in R-70.

"Those

changes were made after much, much thought,"

he said. Changing back now, he said, "would

have ramifications throughout other regulations

and ordinances."

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