Port Authority grants easement

The Zanesville-Muskingum County Port Authority focused on the Airport Industrial Park Tuesday during its monthly meeting. It granted an easement to the MCM group.

Its owns a 34-acre property at the park, which includes an 18,000 square foot building. The group has a plan to further develop the entire parcel by building a road on county property.

"They’ve kind of studied that property and determined that to really access the back of that property they’d like to have an easement across our property and actually take some dirt off of our property," said Executive Director of the Port Authority, Mike Jacoby.

An easement gives the right to cross or use someone else’s land for a specified purpose. Jacoby said the board approved a motion to grant the easement to the MCM group. He said the property is too close to the airport for port authority to utilize it for job growth.

"The property we own is unbuildable because the F.A.A has a flight restriction there because it’s so close to the runway, so we really can’t do anything with the property," Jacoby said. "So we’re willing to grant the easement for the road and to take some dirt off of that and allow their property to be more usable, just encouraging development."

The project is being privately done at no cost to the county. Port authority just needs to give permission for MCM to use the land.