Eagle Eye Produce cellars are seen Friday near Kimberly. The Twin Falls County Planning and Zoning Commission has tabled the potato packer's application for a conditional use permit to build two more cellars at the location.
TWIN FALLS — The county Planning and Zoning Commission tabled a company’s proposal to build two new potato cellars after expressing concern that the applicant’s existing cellars are not in compliance with a conditional use permit granted in 2018.
Commissioners unanimously voted Thursday to stop Eagle Eye Produce’s request for a conditional use permit from moving forward until county planning staff examined whether the fans in the existing cellars are in accordance with the project plans the county Board of Commissioners approved.
The company is a cooperative of local growers whose potatoes are packed and shipped by Idaho Falls-based Eagle Eye Produce. The company has a packing plant in Twin Falls.
When the commissioners previously approved the construction of the first two cellars, they did so with the intention of the noise-producing fans at the ends of the cellars being placed on the west side of the buildings, away from neighbors on the other side of 3300 East in Kimberly.
But instead, the fans were installed on the east side of the storage facilities. County planner Laura Wilson said if it is determined that Eagle Eye Produce’s existing permit is not in compliance, the Planning and Zoning Commission can require this error to be fixed before approving this additional conditional use permit.
Eagle Eye Produce cellars are seen Friday near Kimberly.
Workers at Eagle Eye Produce sort Norkotah Russet potatoes in September 2016 in its packing plant in Twin Falls.
Commissioners are scheduled to hold a follow-up public hearing on May 13.
“This body, all those people, and the county commissioners agreed to something a few years ago,” commission Chairman Jay Barlogi said. “If (Eagle Eye Produce) did it the way they were supposed to do it, well there’s no harm, no foul moving forward. And if they didn’t, we need to get them into compliance before we move forward.”
Tye Giles, Eagle Eye Produce’s representative at the meeting, acknowledged the concerns about the fans’ locations in his presentation to the commissioners. He said the general contractor the company hired to build the cellars interpreted the conditional use permit as requiring the fans — which are used to control the climate in the cellars — to be placed in such a way that they direct airflow to the west.
“All I had to go off of was how it was written after the dust settled,” Giles said. “And that’s how we interpreted it.”
The fans being placed on the east side of the cellars has caused problems for Nate Steen, who lives in a home on a lot adjacent to Eagle Eye Produce’s property.
Steen told the commissioners that he and his wife’s families both farm, so they understand what it means to live in an area surrounded by agriculture production. Nonetheless, on the days when the fans run — which is not all the time — it is impossible to hear himself think.
“We’re not trying to be against anybody, we would just like to have some quality of life when the cellars are running,” Steen said. “The rest of the time it’s quiet. It’s fine. It’s not a problem. But when those things are running, you got a jet engine going across the road from you all hours of the night.”
Jill Skeem lives four houses down from Steen. She was a vocal opponent of the previous cellars, and cites, among other issues, concerns over the truck traffic generated from the proposed expansion.
She said she thinks the Twin Falls Highway District needs to study how the existing and additional cellars are affecting traffic at the intersection of 3300 East and 3700 North. But with that being unlikely, she thinks moving the fans to the west of the cellars is an improvement.
“I’ll be happy if they put the fans on the west and if they stick with the same (operating) hours,” Skeem said. “That’s the most we can hope for in a situation that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
Commission vice chairman Rocky Matthews led the push for the commission to table voting on the additional cellars until after examining whether the existing storage facilities are in compliance with the associated permit.
Matthews said the site makes sense for the proposed project as “a spud cellar in Idaho is about as ag as it comes.” He attributed some of the ongoing issues with neighbors to the city of Kimberly allowing houses to be built on the edge of its area of impact rather than closer to the town.
The site where the cellars are located is zoned for agricultural use and is located in the Twin Falls’ area of impact. Meanwhile, the homes on the other side of the road are zoned as rural-residential and are located within Kimberly’s area of impact.
“The city of Kimberly is pushing houses where houses shouldn’t be yet, in my opinion,” Matthews said.
Craig Giles, a grower who stores potatoes in the existing cellars, said life in the country can be “noisy, dirty, smelly and busy.” As more people move to the Magic Valley, homes continue to move closer to land zoned for agriculture production.
“The reality is in this valley we’re growing,” Craig Giles said. “We need houses and the houses are going to come out into the farmland, but as long as we’re zoned agriculture in this conditional use permit, we can still live together. We can still make it work.”
April 12, 2021 at 09:00PM
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Planning and Zoning Commission tables potato cellars permit - Twin Falls Times-News
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