A proposed chicken operation near Staplehurst cleared its first hurdle in gaining a conditional use permit.
June 25, the Seward County Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval for the permit for Adam Hladky.
Hladky wants to build a four-barn broiler chicken operation on his farm almost 5 miles west and 1.5 miles south of Staplehurst. The barns will be enclosed.
The Seward County Commissioners will consider the conditional use permit for final approval at their July 17 meeting.
Hladky plans to have a contract with Lincoln Premium Poultry. LPP was formed to collaborate with Costco. Their goal is to enter into contracts with 120 growers within a 60-mile radius of Costco’s processing facility near Fremont that will go live in 2019.
This means the growers would raise chickens for Costco. Costco is also a partial owner of LPP, according to Jessica Kolterman with LPP.
Zoning Superintendent Becky Paulsen said the four buildings would hold around 43,000 chickens each for a total of 172,000 birds.
Hladky said he is a fourth generation farmer and wants to raise chickens in part to use their waste as nutrients on his fields. He said it will also get his daughter involved in agriculture.
“I think the positives outweigh the negatives 10-fold,” Hladky said.
While no one spoke against the conditional use permit during the public hearing in Seward, proposed chicken operations in other counties have faced opposition.
In Washington County, an April meeting to approve condition use permits lasted more than five hours and drew comments from concerned neighbors.
Neighbors filed a lawsuit June 19 against the Colfax County Board of Commissioners for approving a permit for a potential chicken operation in Schuyler.
Kolterman said the 15-year contracts producers sign will provide stable income for farmers and provide a larger tax base for counties.
