City and County commissioners heard the first reading for an ordinance amending text for articles of the Owensboro Metropolitan Zoning Ordinance which, if voted in approval, could allow distilled spirits to be stored in agricultural zones rather than being forced to build in I-2 industrial zones.
After O.Z. Tyler Distillery announced they plan to build bourbon storage warehouses in Ohio County rather than in Daviess County, the Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission (OMPC) has outlined an agreement that could hopefully prevent the same incident from reoccurring.
The ordinance outlines an agreement that would allow distilled spirits to be stored within an agricultural zone, although this ordinance does come with protective stipulations. However, it opens the door for current and future distillers to find space within Daviess County limits.
“We contacted many counties to see how they dealt with distilled spirits storage, since several of those counties have distilleries,” said OMPC Director Brian Howard. “Besides Nelson County, they all operate in heavy industrial zones. Nelson County allows agricultural zones to store distilled spirits, so we followed their outline.”
After taking a close look at Nelson County’s zoning ordinance, OMPC began amending the zoning ordinance to allow distilleries to purchase conditional use permits to store distilled spirits in agricultural zones that encompass 100 acres of land, are 200 feet from a property line and 750 feet away from a principal structure on any adjoining property. Once a waiver has been granted by the adjoining property, the perimeter of said property must undergo a screening.
“At the end of the day it allows a much broader area within Daviess County the potential to store distilled spirits compared to an I-2 zone,” Howard said.
Daviess County Judge-Executive Al Mattingly spoke in approval of the zoning amendments.
“Someone said, ‘Oh, you’re just doing this for O.Z. Tyler,’” Mattingly said. “Well, certainly for O.Z. Tyler — we want to continue to be a community where they can grow, but we have Sazerac down on Highway 144 and Sazerac is expanding and getting larger. We would love to attract more distillers into this community.”
Mattingly said I-2 zones are becoming more scarce and expensive over time and, because of that, Fiscal Court and City commissioners wanted to provide more opportunities for growth and development in the local area.
Mattingly and Howard said the zoning amendment could be further amended in the future — namely to cut back on the amount of land required to build storage warehouses as the ordinance currently requires. Because Nelson County’s benchmark stands at 100 acres, OMPC felt it made sense to adopt the same standards. However, high costs for purchasing that amount of land could pose problems for distilleries, and so OMPC and City and County leaders agree they may look into amending that aspect of the ordinance.
