The Wellington (Colorado) Planning Commission is launching a community discussion on whether to allow additional animal slaughtering facilities within town limits.

Area residents can expect to see the item on the March 1 planning commission agenda and likely on the March 23 town board agenda. Topics for local government meetings are posted online at www.townofwellington.com  a few days before the boards meet.

Wellington’s zoning code currently states that “manufacturing and preparing food products” are a permitted principal use in an industrial zone, and town attorney Brad March has interpreted that to include slaughtering plants. As a result, town leaders in January approved a site plan and a development agreement for a poultry processing facility of 4,200 square feet to be built on the far north side of town. The owners hope to be in production by late April.

Town administrator Larry Lorentzen told planning commissioners on Feb. 1 that he has received requests to amend the zoning code to not allow any type of animal slaughtering in Wellington. Such a change would not shut down the already approved chicken processing facility.

“It can’t be retroactive,” Lorentzen said. “The courts would never allow it.”

Depending on code changes, however, the facility may not be able to expand.

Jim Pieper and Derrel Baker, owners of the processing facility, asked the planning commission to let them retain the option for growth.

“We have no plans now to expand,” Baker said, “but we don’t want to have one arm tied behind us.”

Planning commissioner Travis Vieira said he would want the town board to have authority to review any future growth request from the processing facility even if expansion is allowed.

Lorentzen said zoning code changes could be written in a variety of ways. The code could prohibit all animal slaughtering. It could be less restrictive on poultry processing than it would be for other animals. It could allow but limit the size of slaughtering facilities. He will provide the planning commission with several choices in wording when it meets on March 1.

A number of other industrial uses will be considered at the same time. Lorentzen has suggested the town simply prohibit feedlots, fat rendering facilities, gas and oil refining facilities, petroleum refining and electric power generation and distribution.

Lorentzen added that if town leaders didn’t make the zoning code more restrictive, he would expect town residents to put a measure on the ballot.

“A lot of people expect the town board and the planning commission to act,” he said.

In Wellington, industrial and light industrial zones are located adjacent to residential subdivisions. Residents of Buffalo Creek subdivision in northwest Wellington gathered enough signatures last summer to call for a community vote against the poultry processing plant when it tried to locate in a light industrial zone as a conditional use. The issue resolved itself when backers of that plan disbanded.