Kansas City, Mo. ? A development agency has approved tax incentives to help build a $500 million nuclear weapons plant in south Kansas City.

The Kansas City Star reported on its Web site that Planned Industrial Expansion Authority voted unanimously Friday to support replacing the current weapons plant at the Bannister Federal Complex with a 1.4 million-square-foot complex across from the former Richard-Gebaur Memorial Airport.

Half of the property taxes generated by the new facility would pay for $40 million in highway and other infrastructure costs.

The present facility employs 2,100 and makes 85 percent of the non-nuclear components for nuclear weapons.

Peace activists and others criticized the incentives.

The Kansas City Council is scheduled to take up the measure in September.