A group of Delawareans trying to overturn the Sussex County Board of Adjustment’s 2013 decision allowing Allen Harim Foods to advance plans for a Millsboro-area chicken processing plant have been set back by a judge’s ruling in Allen Harim’s favor.
A July 2 ruling by Superior Court Judge Richard F. Stokes rebutted all four prongs of the citizens’ argument that the board’s finding was invalid. The challengers, who live in neighborhoods close by the industrial property Allen Harim wants to build on, argued Allen Harim lacked standing in two respects to apply for the exception it got, and that insufficient notice was given to the public of what it wanted.
The core of their challenge, though, argued that the Board of Adjustment skipped some of its duties by failing to ask the Environmental Protection Agency and the Center for the Inland Bays for their opinions on Allen Harim’s proposal. The company announced in the spring of 2013 it wanted to convert the vacant Vlasic pickle plant just outside Millsboro into a poultry processor plant.
Judge Stokes, in a 48-page ruling, said the Board of Adjustment did not have to reach out to those environmental agencies for input. Getting data from the Department and Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), fire marshals, the Department of Transportation was diligent enough at the early stage, Stokes said.
The ruling is the first decision on Allen Harim’s plans at the Superior Court level, where a second lawsuit challenging the company’s hopes for a factory at the site is still pending. That second lawsuit challenges DNREC’s decision to approve a pollution control plan for the property.
