Entering the Lions Den

Let's be honest. It is easy to point out the flaws in local government. I could write for days on all the things that are "wrong" in this county. Often times, commissioners need to see the "wrong" things to correct them.

However, we also need to acknowledge the good things and we saw some of that yesterday evening with Commissioner Holly Davis entering what I expected to be a hostile environment. In reality, it was probably evenly split, but most everyone in there shared frustration.

About what you ask?

A concrete plant that is being built on 41 in Hernando.

Let me set it up.

Back in November, two permits were issued to build a concrete plant on a parcel of land in Hernando.

You can see the parcel at the top of the image above outlined in red and shaded in yellow. This property was purchased in Feb 2025. The first application for a permit was filed in March 2025.

The 2nd permit was applied for in August 2025.

Both were approved/issued in November 2025 so they could begin construction.

This surprised the residents in the nearby residential community of Canterbury Estates.

How could a concrete plant be built essentially in their backyards without any type of notice or approval by the county? One would presume a project like this would be before the board like we see all the time. Right?

The reason that it didn't is because it was already zoned industrial. This zoning took place back in late 1999/early 2000 and predated the residential community. However, it has always been vacant and no one really anticipated it would be a concrete plant.

I presume that many did not realize it was zoned industrial until November when this popped up... for whatever reason. That is why there was shock, concern, and frustration over this. The community largely does not want this in their back yard. Who would?

Once they found out this was happening, they did what most concerned citizens would do... Go to the BOCC and demand answers.

The BOCC does what one would expect and has staff look into the issue. Staff comes back and states everything was done by the book and nothing can be done to stop it due to the industrial zoning.

Still not satisfied, they continue to go to the BOCC, where Commissioner Davis volunteers to host a town hall type meeting to answer questions. That was last night.

Before going further, I want to applaud Commissioner Davis for doing this. It is not easy to go into what is likely to be an environment where everyone is frustrated and concerned that the county is doing nothing to help them. The easy thing to do is to pawn it off on staff and let them deal with it. But she showed up to answer questions and took quite a few of them. She didn't know all the answers, nor should anyone expect her to since the state agencies are involved, but knew quite a bit about what was going on. For things she did not know, she promised to ask the questions and provide the answers when she gets them. She also brought Eric Landon to help explain the permitting process and the county's role in that, but did not pawn the entire meeting on him, as I have seen others do in similar circumstances when staff is present. Not sure I agree in using staff in his manner, but conversation for another day.

Again, not an easy thing to do and I applaud her for doing this. Are people still frustrated? Yes... but here is an elected official doing their best to help answer questions and explain the situation and why it is happening.

I wish more commissioners took this approach. It is not an easy job and doing these types of events does not make it easier. But she showed up and did a great job answer the questions and taking the criticism... when she didn't have to.

The turnout was great by the way and everyone was respectful. A few people showed their frustration, but that is to be expected. Great job to the organizers and community for showing up and not letting this get into a shouting match. Bravo!

Now, back to concrete.

Why was the county not involved in approving this concrete plant beyond the approval of permits? Because it was an allowed use within an industrial zoned property. Industrial zoned properties are the most intense land usage the county has.

Here is what the LDC says is allowed.

Pretty much whatever someone wants to do is allowed within an Industrial zoned property. I do not see "Concrete Plant" specifically, but I imagine it falls under "Manufacturing" or "Processing" categories.

Since it is allowed "by right", this does not need to come before the BOCC for approval. Staff has various steps to go through before permits are issued and projects have to meet county standards in regards to setbacks, trees, buffering, etc. If the permit application checks all the boxes, the county can approve it.

That is the difference between this projects and many of the projects you see at the BOCC. This can be done without any further approval by the BOCC, whereas, the other projects require approval due to increasing the density of the project, requesting variances of the LDC and so on.... in other words... things not allowed by right or asking for things allowed with in the LDC.

At this point, there is no stopping this concrete plant from going forward, unless a state agency steps in for whatever reason... which is not likely at this point... or that fail one of the many inspections the county will do as part of the building process.

However, that does not mean we cannot have a discussion about the future.

As with the storage facilities and car washes, the county can make changes to the LDC to limit uses of certain things within specific zoning.

For instance, in this case, the county can require all future concrete plants to come to the board for approval by making them a conditional use within all zones. This means that even if it is zoned industrial, if someone wanted to do a concrete plant, they would have to present it to the BOCC for approval.

This allows the BOCC to review the project and approve or deny it based on the facts of the application. Had this been a thing prior to now, they BOCC could have said "this is too close to residential, we cannot allow it" and stopped the project.

It is obviously more complicated than that with the legal wording and all that, but you get the idea. There would be an approval process in place for all future concrete plants and they would no longer be allowed by right.

While it will not help this situation, perhaps it is time for the county to look at its LDC and what is allowed in various zoning districts and decide if they want those things to come without their approval or if they want to have a look at them before they get approved for permits.

This will come in handy for that proposed Data Center as well as other future projects.

The flip side to that coin is that we add more red tape and more hoops for businesses to jump through to come here... that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you ask.

Point being, it is time to ask ourselves what we want to see come here and if we want the elected officials to review things before they are built.

This is the part about being proactive we keep talking about. Time to stop being reactive and start being proactive.