The Campbell County Planning and Zoning Commission approved a zone change for an RV storage facility in unincorporated Campbell County.
The project is a father-son effort between Kevin and Josh Spaulding with US 27 Red Barn LLC. Kevin Spaulding, who is local to the area, plans to construct a self-storage facility with long-term recreational vehicles, contractor storage, and an area in the back for his business. The area consists of approximately 10 acres in unincorporated Campbell County on US 27 near the intersection of Plum Creek Road.
The land was zoned “Agricultural One” but was changed by the commission to a “Rural Commercial” zone.
“It’s been on my bucket list to have an RV storage lot,” Kevin Spaulding said. “Initially, it was just the RV, camper, boat storage thing, and then I took Cindy’s (Campbell County Planning and Zoning Director Cindy Minter) recommendations to do a site plan on what I want in the future as far as storage buildings.”
The applicant also requested a variance of the “off-street parking regulations” to pave the parking lot and driveway with gravel, which was also approved. Though the commission allowed for the driveway and vehicle storage areas to be gravel, they said that should self-storage units go on the site in the future, those would need to be paved.
The gravel parking area is intended for long-term storage of recreational vehicles and will not be used for regular in-and-out business activity.
Dust was brought up during the meeting as a possible concern with the gravel driveway. Noise and dust fall within the county’s nuisance codes.
“If noise and dust become a problem, then the recourse for the neighbors is to report them to the county, and it gets investigated as a nuisance,” Planning and Zoning Commissioner Justin Verst said.
Planning and Zoning Commissioner Mike Williams said he did not foresee dust being an issue.
“Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see with gravel dust blowing everywhere,” Williams said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. It’s not a shopping center or Costco where people are going in and out all the time.”
Kevin Spaulding said they would utilize business hours and have a gate at the entrance to prevent people from coming into the facility at all hours of the day, which would help with noise.
The site’s future land use category is identified as “agricultural” in the 2008 Campbell County Comprehensive Plan; however, planning and zoning staff said that major changes within the area that were not anticipated in the comprehensive plan have “substantially altered the area’s basic character.” They noted that adjacent areas of the property include an event facility, church and bar.
Therefore, they found the zone change to be appropriate.
“Those economic and physical changes in the area would not have been anticipated in the 2008 comprehensive plan,” Campbell County Planning and Zoning AICP Principal Planner Kirk Hunter said.
The planning and zoning meeting was strictly for the zone change and gravel variance, not for specific site plans. Kevin Spaulding is not required to go back before the planning commission to approve his stage one plans but must get them approved by Campbell County Planning and Zoning staff.
“My phase one would be from half of the property back to Red Barn,” Kevin Spaulding said, which would include long-term recreational vehicle parking.
