Angry citizens, and a representative from the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, showed up at the February Gadsden County Planning and Zoning Agency meeting last Thursday and got what they wanted.
They were able to delay a hearing on a project by the Hoover Treated Wood Products company to develop a wood-treatment facility on the land of Coastal Lumber north of Havana.
There will now be a month delay until the Gadsden County Planning and Zoning Agency takes up the project again at its March meeting before making a recommendation on how to proceed with the project to the Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners.
Representatives of Hoover Treated Wood Products said that this proposed delay would make it hard for them to meet orders they were counting on and could cause them to back out of building the facility all together.
Still, when Edward Dixon, chair of the agency, was reviewing the situation for the rest of the panel, the consensus seemed to be that the company had not done enough to notify the public about the project, even though it had gone forward in getting preliminary approvals by the Gadsden County Board of County Commissioners and the Town of Havana.
A representative from Tall Timbers said the one month delay should give it enough time to do its own testing of the possible effects of the project on its ecological system.
And Dixon hoped the Hoover Treated Wood Products company would be in communication with the concerned citizens to allay their fears before the issue comes up again at the Planning and Zoning Agency’s March meeting.
By Randall Lieberman
randall@prioritynews.net