The Decatur County Area Plan Commission met on Wednesday.
Robyn Enneking requested to subdivide 1.5 acres out of 154.579 acres an rezone the 1.5 acres from an A-1 to an A-2 zoning classification for a single family detached dwelling. The property is owned by the petitioners mother with her and her sister being on the trust. There are no plans to sell off the subdivided area. The property is owned by the Deborah Smith Living Trust in Greensburg, Sand Creek Township. Petition 2021-7 was approved.
Jennifer McNealy came to the board to have a discussion on where the effort stands on CFO ordinances that were not changed at the December meeting where the Comprehensive Plan updates had been approved. There had been a mention at that meeting that they would not be dropping the discussion of the CFO ordinances but the comprehensive plan had to move forward while those would be discussed later. Paul Stone responded to McNealy. The process started with the comprehensive plan had involved no fewer than 3 committees, which then had to be approved by the APC board, and then moving on to the county commissioners before being put in action. That being said, the problem is then the amount of gates that these ordinances would need to go through and the opportunity for failure is high. Stone understands the frustration with these CFO ordinances however hopes others understand that they will need to find a different way of discussing these that had less of an opportunity of failure and does not prolong the decisions. These ordinances have a lot of time and effort put into them and will need to have more than a general committee. Stone feels as though it is not fair to come up with only one set of numbers for all CFOs considering the wide range of sizes that there are throughout the county. There will be a point once an ordinance is written that a public hearing will be held for the public to voice their opinion. The comprehensive plan is used everyday by multiple people in the offices who try to live by it, meaning the ordinances must be written well so they can do their jobs effectively.
Brian Robbins with the EDC presented a draft of the Solar Energy Facilities ordinance. This is something that can help the county in the future and the board is looking for inputs and thoughts before making it a public document. They believe that the draft is a decent start considering how much information there is. Patty Langfisher with the Farm Bureau did address this and had a survey done for how people felt about A-1 zoning having alternative energy farms on a commercial scale. In the survey 27% supported, 61% did not support, and 12% abstained. There were suggestions to use landscaping to help these fit in more with the country aesthetic, add chain link fences as they do not obstruct the landscape, and to not make setbacks too large as it would be wasting A lot of land. There was also a question of if they attract more lightening which will be looked into. This is solely for solar energy. This will take a lot of review time and everything is up for discussion.
Morgan Schofield
WTRE News
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