The suit alleges the six-member Cartersville-Bartow County Regional Industrial Development Authority and commissioner Clarence Brown individually violated the county's land-use plan Feb. 4 by approving a five-acre agriculture-zoned track to be rezoned for industrial use. The site is part of a 250-acre tract on US 441, about four miles east of Interstate 75 near the town of White.

Toyo plans to break ground in April on a $150-million, 150-acre plant that would employ 350 workers to turn out two million tires a year, area industrial brokers in a position to know tell GlobeSt.com. The lawsuit argues the plant should be built at any of the several industrial parks in Bartow County and not near nearby subdivisions and private five-acre home lots.

Brokers tell GlobeSt.com Toyo, which has a US headquarters in Cypress, CA, spent a year investigating several other sites in about a dozen states and 17 counties in Georgia. Toyo decided on Bartow County because of its nearness to the Interstate 75 transportation corridor, the availability of developable land and a large labor pool, according to local brokers.