How do you spend 11 hours talking about pigs? Yesterday BOZA listened, and listened, and listened as the JBS Company brought in witnesses to testify about its hog processing operation in Butchertown. In the end, JBS was spared having to tear down a structure it built without zoning permission, but it also lost something in the process.
BOZA told JBS it could not expand its operation beyond the 10,500 hogs it already processes daily, which logically would mean that expansion wasn’t that necessary. And JBS has to install a bunch of bushes ($137,500 worth) to appease the neighbors.
We asked regular ‘Ville Voice Eats correspondent Tim Girton for his take on yesterday’s actions.
by Tim Girton
The ‘Ville Voice Correspondent
Back in the 1990s, when I lived in the Highlands, I used to be able to tell if it was going to rain, not based on Tom Wills’ forecast, but on the scent in the air. If I could smell something like chitterlings in the air coming from the general direction of Butchertown, it was going to rain. Makes me wonder if Tom used that sign as well. WAVE-3 isn’t that far removed from the former hog heaven.
Back then, Butchertown was home to the Bourbon Stock Yards, where farmers would bring their oinkers to market, sell them and leave them to their fate: to become an assortment of pork products gracing our tables and hardening our arteries. Most of that is gone now. The old Bourbon Stock Yards is part of the campus for the Home of the Innocents. Stock Yards Bank is still around and so is an expanding JBS, the Brazilian firm that bought Swift’s plant two years ago.
Yes, expanding. Yesterday’s 11-hour meeting of the Louisville Metro Board of Zoning Adjustment resulted in JBS getting the go-ahead to use newly installed equipment, even though the company did some illegal construction last fall on hog unloading areas.
The Butchertown Neighborhood Association wasn’t all that pleased, but it got some rewards for its fight.
The BNA argues that expansion will lead to increased production. Why else would a company want to expand its facilities? JBS wants to finish the half-million dollar expansion of the hog area, the same area it built on illegally last year.
BOZA approved the JBS expansion plan, apparently following JBS’s logic that the new area will keep the odor down. To mangle a political phrase, that’s like putting deodorant on a pig.
But BOZA said JBS cannot increase production beyond current levels, a victory for the neighborhood association. Does anyone really think JBS would spend all this money on expansion and not attempt to increase production? Will Swift bother to ask this time? Will someone be watching production levels to make sure?
8 responses so far ↓
1 Carter Burger // Sep 1, 2009 at 4:48 pm
More evidence that with BOZA, it’s better to ask for forgiveness that permission.
2 Rico // Sep 1, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Bill Schreck has been telling staff he plans on retiring by the end of the month. Well placed sources report that the administration came to him and told him it was time to go.
Besides what has been reported he is facing state investigations that will show he is an embarrassment to the administration and council.
.
3 Swine Slayer // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:12 pm
You should also realize that this is a victory in making BOZA do something!! It is a victory for everyone in the city. What BOZA did was great- they said, it would cost you $137,000 to tear down and rebuild the illegal hog shoot- but instead of having them do that- they are making them work with the BNA and spend that amount on landscaping and features in Butchertown- they are making them be a better neighbor and limiting their hog slaughter!
4 Steve // Sep 2, 2009 at 1:07 am
JBS should be willing to publicize receipts showing that the landscaping and other improvements were performed in the prescribed amount.
Or will they hide behind some absurd claim that the documentation is proprietary?
As we’ve seen, lame ducks can be real quacks.
5 J. R. // Sep 2, 2009 at 2:17 am
How about instead of telling them that they can’t increase production, why not tell them they can increase production if they hire on more workers from within the city? But I guess that would just fall into a “greater good vs. NIMBY” argument.
6 john // Sep 2, 2009 at 8:12 am
This is just more evidence that BOZA is a complete joke.
7 Caitlin // Sep 2, 2009 at 1:46 pm
JBS Swift provides over 1,000 LOUISVILLE residents good union jobs. This means living wages, health benefits and a real pension. In todays economy we should not be so quick to run companies like JBS out of our city.
8 Larry // Sep 17, 2009 at 5:52 pm
I live in Butchertown and would love to see them just GO! I understand that we don’t need to lose jobs, so just move them and bring development and much needed money to the city in that area. Its a win win…they get to expand as much as they want in an undeveloped area and Butchertown can be the cultural and arts area that it has the potential to be. With the incredible history and architecture in B-town, it’s a shame to have an unsightly processing plant right in the middle of it.
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