CAIRO — A decision on whether to increase restrictions on new chicken house operations in Grady County will have to wait until September 1 after a vote on the matter this week failed to break a tie.

Commissioners were unable to break a 2-2 tie Tuesday at a workshop on whether to further regulate the poultry operations they placed a moratorium on earlier this year.Commissioners June Knight and Ray Prince said they believed spacing restrictions on how far chicken houses can be built from residential dwellings and from right of ways should be increased, while commissioners Keith Moye and Phillip Drew said the ordinance should be left unchanged and the county should instead rely upon the state Department of Agriculture to regulate the matter.

With the vote evenly split, and commissioner LaFaye Copeland not present due to the death of her husband, the issue was left unresolved.

County Administrator Buddy Johnson said commissioners will have the opportunity to make the same vote at their next meeting September 1, which Copeland is expected to attend to break the tie.

“She will have the opportunity to decide which way she wants to go,” Johnson said.

Knight argued that current ordinances, which state that chicken houses may be constructed 200 feet from right of ways and 1,500 feet from neighboring houses, should be amended to increase those limits to 500 feet and 2,000 feet, respectively. Prince seconded Knight’s motion, bringing it up for a vote.

“Mr. Prince and Ms. Knight both are in districts that are highly affected by the chicken houses,” Johnson said. “I think they feel like this is something that would at least slow some of that down until we can get all of this stuff in place.”

Increasing restrictions on the practices, which nearby residents argue are unsightly and foul-smelling, would deter future poultry operations from coming to Grady County, Knight said, though Moye and Drew said the proposed changes would not help citizens already living near existing chicken houses and that the matter was a zoning issue.

Knight’s proposal would not have affected the ordinance’s regulation that poultry operations be built at least 250 feet from adjacent property lines.