SALISBURY — The Rowan County Planning Board will consider two rezonings Monday that would allow a metal-recycling center and an ice cream shop in two rural locations.
The board will meet at 7 p.m. Monday on the second floor of the J. Newton Cohen Sr. Administration Building, 130 W. Innes St., Salisbury.
JEMM LLC has requested a rezoning for 9.51 acres at 11710 Bringle Ferry Road outside Salisbury for a metal-recycling center.
Charles Blackwelder, JEMM’s tenant, has proposed a center that would accept scrap metals, catalytic converters and sealed car batteries. Materials brought to the site would be weighed within the existing building and stored either inside the building or in containers behind it. No disassembly or demolition is proposed.
The 4,600-square-foot building on the property is permitted for residential storage only, but the previous owners operated a mobile-wash and equipment-rental business there. According to county planning staff, this may have met the special requirements for a business in a rural agricultural zone because the owners lived on an adjacent parcel.
A contractor working for JEMM, the current owner, requested permits in January from the Rowan County Environmental Health Office to install a new septic system. When planning staff learned the intended use was a scrap metal operation, they told the owner that the property needed to be rezoned to accommodate it.
On March 1, planning staff received an anonymous complaint about a “junkyard for recycled metal” in operation and informed the business operator of the violation.
JEMM’s agent, attorney Sean Walker, then submitted a request to change the zoning from rural agricultural to industrial with a conditional use district.
In the other request the board will consider, Elizabeth Withers Smith has applied for a rezoning from rural agricultural to commercial, business and industrial in order to reopen an ice cream shop at 9010 Cool Springs Road in Woodleaf.
The 1,000-square-foot commercial building on a 1-acre parcel was previously Brightner’s Corner Ice Cream Shop and is currently being used for personal storage.