Rezoning Tabled After County Commissioners Split On Decision
Rezoning Tabled After County Commissioners Split On Decision
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Rezoning Tabled After County Commissioners Split On DecisionWith only two of the three county commissioners present Tuesday, a rezoning request had to be tabled to the March 17 meeting because Commissioners Bob Conley and Cary Groninger came to a “stalemate” on it.
Conley wanted to accept the Area Plan Commission’s recommendation that the request from John Ward to rezone about 10 acres from Industrial-2 to I-3 for a concrete mixing plant be approved, while Groninger struggled with the request.
Brad Jackson, commissioner for the northern district, was absent.
The property is on the east side of Ind. 15 and just to the north of the railroad in Van Buren Township, north of the town of Milford, just south of the county line with Elkhart County to the north.
A lack of a majority vote by the Area Plan Commission to approve the rezoning request at its January meeting led the Plan Commission to table it until its Feb. 5 meeting. At the Feb. 5 meeting, the Plan Commission approved it 7-1.
At Tuesday’s county commissioners meeting, Area Plan Director Dan Richard said the reason the rezoning request was being made was to accommodate a concrete mixing plant. The plant would not be allowed in an I-2 district as a permitted use or exception, but is allowed as a permitted use in an I-3 district and can have outside storage of any materials associated with it, he said. The area is surrounded by other I-2 and I-3 districts, as well as agriculture and residential.
Attorney Steve Snyder, on behalf of Ward, said it’s a somewhat isolated tract of land and originally was where hogs were shipped from, though it’s been vacant for a while. There is access to Ind. 15 and visibility is “great” at the overpass. He said it’s isolated from other properties by Ind. 15 and the railroads. A strip of land to the west is a buffer strip acquired by the Indiana Department of Transportation for purposes “other than a right of way,” Snyder said.
If the property is rezoned, it would go before the county’s technical review committee because it’s in the Northern Industrial Corridor and would still have to meet the committee’s requirements.
Snyder estimated the concrete mixing plant could create 10 to 20 new jobs, plus an additional tax base, with another 10 to 20 spin-off jobs. He said nothing else makes sense in that tract of ground, and it was the “perfect” location for the concrete mixing plant.
There were no remonstrators to the petition.
Groninger asked Richard to clarify for him what the county would be opening itself up to down the road by rezoning the land from I-2 to I-3 besides the mixing plant.
Richard said, “It could be any of the allowed I-3 uses, and some of them probably are more offensive than what a concrete plant would be. But the biggest consideration is the outside storage entailed along with it.”
He said I-3 is the one county zoning district that does allow for “junky” situations, which the county does want in I-3. Long term, if the concrete mixing plant doesn’t remain, many other uses could end up there, Richard said.
Groninger also said the trucks from the mixing plant would have to cross other state highway property to get to Ind. 15, so the mixing plant really doesn’t have access to Ind. 15. Richard said, “That was what was left to allow for access for this tract to come out through that state right of way to the north.”
During discussion of the setbacks, easements, an isolated wetland and size of the property, Groninger commented, “I feel like we’re trying to put this on a postage-stamp size lot” and it’s not going to end up to be what anyone wants. He also said he really struggled to approve the use, while Conley – who sits on the Area Plan Commission and Technical Review Committee – said he had no problem accepting the Plan Commission’s recommendation. Conley said he thought the mixing plant was the highest and best use for that ground.
Determining that they weren’t going to agree on the rezoning request, the commissioners tabled it until 9:15 a.m. March 17 in hopes that they’d have all three commissioners present to vote on it.
In other business, the commissioners:
• Heard from Highway Superintendent Steve Moriarty that the grant application for bridge 30 on Beer Road over to Turkey Creek was awarded federal funds for construction and reconstruction, totaling $1,209,120.
“Without that funding, it would be very hard to complete this bridge,” he said. “It’s a very big deal.”
• Opened bids for two single-axle dump trucks for the highway department.
The bids will be reviewed with Moriarty presenting a recommendation to the county commissioners at their March 3 meeting.
Bids received were: Trucks Center Inc., for two with trade-in, net of $202,271; Selking International Trucks, for two with trade-in, net of $201,044; Tran Chicago Truck Group, for two with trade-in, net of $204,740; and Stoops, for two with trade-in, net of $207,214.
A bid from W.A. Jones for the truck bodies was $72,984 per unit, or a total of $145,968 for both.
• Approved to rezone 4.6 acres from Commercial to Agriculture for the Dickerhoff family. The property is on the southwest corner of the town of Mentone, just outside the corporate limits. Richard said the family wants to sell off some parcels and be able to create a tract that would be all agricultural. The Plan Commission’s unanimous recommendation was to rezone it, and there were no remonstrators.
• Approved County Administrator Marsha McSherry to the Sue Ann Beattie Scholarship Fund Advisory Committee, as requested by Kosciusko County Community Foundation Executive Director and CEO Suzie Light.
Light also said the Foundation needs additional volunteers to serve on its scholarship committees, so if anyone was interested they can contact Program Director Amy Cannon at amyc@kcfoundation.org.
