Reported ASI Southeast setback approval could clear path for Eastanollee expansion

ASI Southeast reportedly won approval Aug. 25 from the Stephens County Board of Commissioners to reduce the front-yard setback for its Hayes-Wilbanks Road property in Eastanollee by 20 feet, setting the setback at 60 feet. WNEG Radio, a reported-context source, attributed the account to County Administrator Christian Hamilton, but no official item-result record is attached to establish the commission’s final action.

The request concerns a planned 115,000-square-foot ASI Southeast facility in the Hayestone Brady Industrial Park, on land reported as zoned Commercial Industrial. A narrower required setback could affect how the company lays out and develops the site, making the decision consequential for an industrial expansion that WNEG reported would be the company’s fourth facility in Stephens County.

Before the commission’s reported action, the county Planning Commission recommended approving ASI Southeast’s request as submitted, according to Hamilton’s description in WNEG’s report. The requested change was specific: a 20-foot front-yard variance that would leave a 60-foot setback. That recommendation placed the proposal before county commissioners, whom WNEG then reported as approving it on Aug. 25.

ASI Southeast Plant Manager Stephen Wallace told the commission, as quoted by WNEG Radio, that the variance was important to developing the site safely while protecting future needs in the Hayes-Wilbanks Road area. Hamilton, in the same reported-context account, described the property, zoning and recommended setback terms. The report does not include a separate account from nearby residents, opponents or commissioners explaining their views.

The planned facility and the requested setback terms are described in WNEG’s report; the Planning Commission recommendation is also reported there. WNEG further reported that commissioners approved the variance, but that is a reported claim rather than an officially confirmed outcome in this record. The report says ASI has invested more than $100 million in Stephens County since 2015 and employs more than 400 people, figures not independently established here.

The next concrete public step is the release or identification of an official county commission action record that could confirm whether the variance was granted and specify any conditions or terms. Until then, it remains unresolved in the public record used here whether the reported approval took effect exactly as described, even though WNEG reported it as approved.