Board of Adjustment approves special use permit for Farmers Co-Op

At a public hearing in the county engineer’s office on Friday morning, a large group of Dike area residents voiced their objections to the Grundy County Board of Adjustments over the proposed location of Farmer’s Co-Op’s new anhydrous ammonia storage facility just a half mile north of town, but the board eventually voted unanimously to approve a special use permit that will give the co-op a green light to move forward with construction of the new building.
 
The most common refrain during the hearing, which lasted just over an hour, was that the location of the new facility is still too close to the city limits and would sit on a busy road (T55) with heavy school traffic between New Hartford and Dike. The current building, which holds two 18,000-gallon tanks, lies within Dike near a daycare, and moving it out of town has been a top priority for Farmers Co-Op.
 
“A more modern plant will be safer, and it just makes more sense because we’ll have more room to move around (at the new location),” Farmers Co-Op Asset Manager Todd Drake said. “If this is not approved, we’ll continue to search for a piece of property we can build on.”
 
According to Drake, Farmers Co-Op, an Iowa-based company, has put up 15 new plants throughout its service area in the last five years without any major issues.
 
Dike-New Hartford Superintendent Larry Hunt addressed the board in opposition to the plan as he noted that currently, Dike’s best hope for expansion is to the north, and as his district attempts to attract more students, the presence of the facility could potentially hinder development. 
 
Read more in this week's Grundy Register.