WATERLOO --- Black Hawk County zoning officials have dealt a blow to Monsanto Co.'s plans for a $90 million seed corn production plant in the rural area south of Waterloo.

Planning and Zoning Commission members voted 4-2 Tuesday, following a three-hour public hearing before a capacity crowd, to reject the company's request to rezone 153 acres for the plant on the southwest corner of Kimball Avenue and Washburn Road, about a mile south of the city limits.

Commission members Peter Beck, Dale Stevenson, Ken Frost and Marleen Rottinghaus voted against the zoning, which they felt would best be located in a city industrial park or on something other than prime agricultural land. Commission members Eric Sage and John Mixdorf supported the zoning change.

The recommendation of denial means the county Board of Supervisors will need the support of at least four of the five members to overturn the commission and approve the project at another hearing scheduled for Jan. 29. A separate request for a special permit for the site will be considered by the Board of Adjustment on the same day.

"We're trying to mold it and shape it and fit it into an area that it's really not designed for," Beck said. "The incorporated areas of Black Hawk County are suited for this."

Sage said the project was closely related to agriculture and would help the industry flourish locally.

"As residential moves out it creates a tougher and tougher environment for farming," he said. "I'm trying to protect the industry of agriculture."

Monsanto has been considering sites in Black Hawk and Grundy counties when it settled on the proposed location. The new state-of-the-art $90 million project in Black Hawk County would be part of a $231 million Monsanto expansion at four Iowa locations and a $610 expansion company-wide.

The plant would create 47 full-time jobs at first with 57 full-time jobs at full build-out, while hundreds of temporary part-time jobs, primarily detasseling workers, would draw paychecks. Construction would begin in March 2008 and the plant would open in June 2009.

The zoning hearing, which was moved to Waterloo City Hall to accommodate the large crowd, included heavy opposition from surrounding homeowners. A smaller group of corn growers and economic development officials spoke in favor of the project.

Brian Michael, a former Waterloo resident now living in Des Moines, spoke on behalf of 28 property owners. He said there were concerns about noise, truck traffic, runoff, lights, air pollution and other issues that were not adequately addressed. But the group's primarily argument was that the proposed project should not be allowed based on the county's zoning regulations to protect prime agricultural land.

"This is a manufacturing plant," he said. "I think it's a dangerous precedent to say this is closely related to agriculture...This whole development requires special exceptions and interpretations."

Resident Mike Lacoste said Monsanto should consider land in the city of Waterloo's Northeast Industrial Site or Midport Industrial Park.

"Let it be known that John Deere and Tyson are also tied to agriculture, but they are also industries and they are located in existing industrial sites," he said.

Other residents said the more than 300 trucks that would be heading to the plant each day during the peak season would create a dangerous situation. While county officials and Monsanto said the trucks would be directed onto Washburn Road between Iowa Highway 21 and the plant, the county does not have any money identified to date to pay for paving what is now a gravel road.

But Monsanto officials vowed the project would be suitable for the area.

"We try to be as friendly and as good a neighbor as we possibly can," said Vern Oziah of Monsanto Manufacturing. "We will do everything we can to make this facility as compatible to the surrounding community ... as we possibly can."

Local attorney Mike Young, who represented Monsanto at the hearing, argued the project, despite needing a manufacturing zoning designation, was more suited to agriculture and was a valid use exception to the county zoning ordinance.

"We're not asking to put in a manufacturing plant in this area," he said. "This is a seed corn processing plant. This plant is about as close to agricultural as you can get."

Young noted Monsanto had agreed to numerous conditions to mitigate traffic concerns and would have to meet a number of conditions imposed by state and federal regulatory bodies on air quality, construction features and flood plain remediation.

Lisa Skubal, director of marketing at the Greater Cedar Valley Alliance economic development group, said Monsanto's recent rezonings for the expansion projects in Grinnell and Boone drew no opposition.

And GCVA board member Jean Trainor said the plant "unquestionably makes sense for our local economic base," citing a University of Northern Iowa study that found it would have a $238 million economic impact on the Cedar Valley.

Farmers also rose in Monsanto's corner.

This is a clean business that is proposed," said Lee Miller, a Monsanto grower. "In the area there are several 50-year family seed corn growers."

Jerry Steimel, president-elect of the Black Hawk County Corngrowers Association, toured Monsanto's Grinnell site last week.

"I was amazed by how clean it was, and quiet," he said. "I feel this will be a tremendous boost for the ag community in Black Hawk County."

Commission member Mixdorf noted the Monsanto project was still very much in play, citing what happened last May with the $10 million Peregrine Financial Group office building proposed near Beaver Hills Country Club. The zoning commission unanimously recommended denial of that project, which the Board of Supervisors later approved unanimously after bowing to economic development concerns.

"We are little more than a speed bump," Mixdorf quipped.

Contact Tim Jamison at (319) 291-1577 or tim.jamison@wcfcourier.com.