After six months of hearings and in spite of a last-minute request for delay, amendments to the Brown County zoning ordinance were adopted Thursday.

The request for delay came from New Ulm Farmers Co-op Elevator, which operates a fertilizer plant in Essig.

Prior to Thursday’s county board meeting each commissioner had received a visit from supporters of the elevator who told of a new compromise to be suggested on one final parcel of elevator land.

The land, presently used for parking machinery and fertilizer applicator tanks, is zoned residential and would remain residential under the amendments.

THURSDAY MORNING, elevator supporters made their formal appeal to the county board, suggesting that a buffer zone of 44 or 91 feet along East Street be zoned residential, with the balance of the parcel to be zoned industrial.

Also presented was a petition in support of the proposal, signed by 108 customers and stockholders of the elevator.

An elevator spokesman asked the board to delay adopting the zoning amendments for further consideration of the buffer zone proposal.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON the county board asked five Essig residents present for the formal adoption or rejection what their reaction was to the elevator proposal.

The residents said they would want to know specifically what type of building the elevator planned for the parking lot before the land was zoned industrial.

Mrs. Adelle Madsen said the land was zoned residential in 1971, and the elevator bought it in 1972. She said if the elevator board, manager and lawyer forgot to check the zoning before they bought it this was their error and Essig homeowners shouldn’t be penalized for it.

Mrs. Lois Berg said residents had op-posed original construction of the plant in about 1967, and had been told certain things wouldn’t be put in, but those very things had been put in.

“You get took once you don’t like to be taken again,” she said.

Bill Fischer, elevator manager, said a building very similar to the present building is proposed by the elevator if the parking area is rezoned, to be used for dry storage.

COMMISSIONERS TEETERED back and forth for 30 minutes between adopting the ordinance and referring it back to the zoning commission for a hearing on the buffer proposal.

Finally, though, they said a public hearing would be required on the buffer proposal whatever they did.

“We really aren’t doing anybody any favor by postponing,” Commissioner Denis Warta said.

And the amendments were adopted.

Other changes in the amendments concern residential lot size requirements, bringing lakeshore and flood plain areas into compliance with state regulations, and requiring conditional-use permits for construction of rural non-farm residences.

New Ulm Daily Journal

April 17, 1975