By John Howell

Members of the Batesville Planning Commission meeting Monday, Feb. 22 adopted by unanimous vote a resolution urging the city to annex property adjacent to the planned Highway 6/278 bypass route south of the city.

“Annexation takes a long time; it takes a long time to get the wheels moving,” commission chairman Richard Corson said. Corson recommended that the city annex property within 300 yards of the bypass right-of-way to control development of the area as a “green way.”

“I think it would answer a lot of questions ahead of time,” commission member Kim LaVergne said.

The Highway 6/278 bypass will leave the present route near its intersection with Good Hope Road and skirt the city in a loop that drops south of present corporate limits. The bypass will rejoin Highway 6/278 near its present intersection with Chapeltown Road.

Present in addition to Corson and LaVergne were commission members Dave Billingsley, Barbara Bruce, Billy Downs, Willie King, Terry Townsend, Everett Redd, and Lou Verda Miles and city code administrator Pam Comer.

Commission members approved four requests for conditional use permits. The permits would allow use of temporary use of property other than for which it is zoned. Following the planning commission approval, public hearings will be conducted April 6 to allow citizen input. The final step is approval by the board of aldermen.

— Chris Smith is seeking a conditional use to operate a weekend crawfish cooking and sales outlet from a trailer on Loden property in the Fred’s parking lot. Smith told planning commission members that he would operate from April 10 through July 4.

—    Ernie Capwell is also seeking a permit to cook and sell crawfish on Highway 6. Capwell said that, pending aldermen’s approval, he plans to sell the boiled freshwater crustaceans from April 10 through August 28 in Randy Boren’s parking lot at the Pebble Creek office complex.

—    James Bryant seeks to operate his Bryant Shaved Ice in the Panola Plaza Shopping Center parking lot from April 10 to the end of October.

—    Tory Patrick is seeking a conditional use permit to open an auto repair shop at 208 Van Voris, he told commission members.

Near the end of the 45-minute meeting, commission members discussed increasing requests from vendors seeking to operate from temporary trailers.

“It seems like we’re getting more and more of these,” Redd said.

Redd’s comments triggered a discussion about giving temporary vendors an advantage over established vendors with higher fixed overhead costs. Comer told commission members they had the option of not recommending approval for the conditional use permits.

Commission members approved Lawrence Hoskins’s request to rezone his property at 115 Patterson Street to allow operation of an adult day-care center. The planning commission’s recommendation will be forwarded to the board of aldermen who will vote after a public hearing to approve or disapprove the rezoning request.