Utility storage yard and Diamond Bluff rezone OKd

At its Wednesday, Nov. 17 meeting, the Pierce County Land Management Committee approved a conditional use permit (CUP) for an accessory residence to be used as an Airbnb for town of El Paso residents.

Phillip Kashian and Kay Peterson, N4119 400th St., Ellsworth, plan to remodel their existing milk house into a fourseason cottage/accessory residence on the 40-acre property. It would be used as a place for family and friends to stay when they visit. The residents also plan to rent it out with rental services such as Airbnb, etc.

The property is zoned “general rural.” The current three-bedroom farmhouse is 2,921 square feet, while the milk house is 327 square feet. The applicants plan to add a second story over half of the milk house, which would create an additional 162 square feet of living space for a total of 486 square feet with one bedroom. A holding tank will also be installed.

Diamond Bluff rezone

At the Nov. 3 LMC meeting, the committee voted to forward a town of Diamond Bluff rezoning recommendation to the full county board. The property to be rezoned from agriculture/residential to industrial is a 13.95-acre parcel owned by the Chad & Sarah Stone Trust off County Road OO near Highway 35. The Stones plan to use the property, which is currently wooded, for storage and warehouse uses, though no timeline has been specified.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Web Soil Survey, the property is not considered to be prime farmland due to the amount of silt loam soil.

Utility storage yard

At the Oct. 20 LMC meeting, the committee approved a CUP for a utility facility greater than 1,000 square feet for Xcel Energy on property owned by Daniel and Cheryl Ross at N8141 US Highway 63 in the town of Martell. The property is zoned commercial and currently houses a 3,150-square-foot building licensed as a truck driving school.

Over the next 10-15 years, Xcel Energy will replace wooden electric transmission structures with steel structures on a transmission line that’s routed from the St. Croix River to Eau Claire. Priorities will be given to wooden structures in the worst condition. The Ross property will be used as a storage yard to replace nine priority structures in the next year. The storage yard will be used to stage steel structures, drilling equipment and material, matting, construction vehicles, worker vehicles and a job trailer. The CUP may be renewed after one year if needed.