Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Fellowship Missions’ petition to rezone 20 acres on the west side of Warsaw from an agricultural district to a residential district was approved during Wednesday’s Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission meeting.
Eric Lane, executive director of Fellowship Missions, requested rezoning the acreage on the north side of Riverwood Ranch Road, Warsaw, from an agricultural district to a residential district. Matt Sandy, Area Plan director, told the commission that this used to be where All Things New was located before they moved.
“Everything in the subdivisions to the south and east is zoned residential,” stated Sandy. “We’ve got industrial off to the west, and Slate down to the south.”
“We’re just asking to continue the operations as it has been since the early ’70s when it was Riverwood Ranch,” Lane said. “We were going to look at opening that home up to women with kids that are continuing on through our program with Fellowship Missions.”
Lane told the commission that they were not planning on building out, but instead maintaining the property as is.
Jeremy Curry, a resident of the Windmill West neighborhood on Riverwood Ranch Road, told the commission that they never received notice of anyone moving into that property after All Things New left.
“My question here is why?” asked Curry. “Why are we moving this to a residential if there are no plans to change the area?”
Sandy explained that when All Things New went in, they went in as a rehab, “which could fit into ag zoning.” However, since Fellowship Missions is not a clinic use like All Things New had been, but more of a safe haven, it is just different enough to allow for the reclassification in the zoning of that property.
“If it is rezoned, the next step would be the exception for the specific use,” Sandy clarified, “and that goes before the Board of Zoning Appeals.”
Curry made sure that the commission understood his discomfort with rezoning to residential, and what could be done on that property in the future if it does get rezoned.
“We don’t know the exceptions, and there have been problems in this area before with different churches and facilities moving in to do various things. As a community member of that subdivision, we are all very concerned with what the next steps are,” Curry clarified.
Lee Harman, president of the APC, asked for Lane to address the concerns that Curry brought to them, and Lane said, “We have zero plans on any expansion. Part of our programming is having that space and we want to continue it, and to not lose it.”
Lane also stated that they have no plans on making another subdivision. Sandy said if the property was sold again to a new owner who wanted to break up the land into a subdivision, then they would need to go through the process again.
The commission approved sending a recommendation to the county commissioners for further approval.
In other business, Lucas Britton represented his parents, who wanted to rezone 1.69 acres of their property on CR 780W in Harrison Township from an agricultural to an agricultural II district. Britton stated that they were wanting to build a house for himself on that acre so when his parents come to needing his support, he can be there to help them.
Harman asked Britton if any of the land on the property was used in farming, to which Britton told them that most of the land was all trees, and most of the land was under the conservation reserve program, but they were planning on building around it. Sandy asked if there were any soil samples taken because of possible sewage contamination, to which Britton admitted that they just wanted to make sure this first part was approved before doing anything else.
Kevin McSherry, APC vice president, admitted that when he used to till on that property, that the soil was light and not very productive. Goodnight asked if Britton was aware of the county highway’s concern on driveways, since there have been issues as far as blind spots when getting onto roads. Britton said that he has not been made aware of anything, and that it was his first time hearing about this.
“It’s a pretty low traffic road,” Britton stated, “and I’m not saying that because I want you all to approve this, but the people that travel down this road are the ones that live on it.”
“It used to be a high-traffic road when there was industry down that way,” McSherry said, “and it’s still zoned industrial. That’s not to say there won’t be another business go into that building and the traffic increase.”
Britton stated that they had a plan to bring the driveway around to the open part of the property, and to get rid of the trees, because they are mainly stagnated. “I’m open to making it work.”
Harman stated that his biggest concern is that with the plat having trees and a CRP weighed his decision on changing it, since that land could be used potentially in the future for agriculture purposes.
It was approved by the commission for recommendation.
Attorney Steve Snyder came to the meeting as representation for Mark Jones, who wants all of his property on Chapman Lake Drive, Warsaw, to be rezoned as all residential instead of a part of the land being commercial. Sandy stated that this property was located just to the north and east of the launch on Chapman Lake.
“This goes back to the original zoning of this area,” Sandy said, when explaining why the property was split into both a residential district and a commercial district.
“There’s a structure located on these two parcels,” said Snyder. “Mark intends to convert that into a residence, but we can’t get a building permit to do it until we get the rezoning done.”
Snyder told the commission that this parcel used to be a part of the marina property. Goodnight asked if they were a combined parcel, or if they were separate parcels, to which Snyder and Sandy both confirmed that they were combined. This rezoning was approved as presented by the commission.
The commission also heard about the new animal feeding ordinance that the ad-hoc committee had been working on. It was stated that it would be advertised for the February meeting, which would allow for public comment.
Representatives from Maple Leaf Farms, Creighton Bros. Eggs and Tucker’s Golden Beef, who helped work on constructing the ordinance, helped to give some further clarification to the commission members about how the AFO would work, and how good it will be for the community.
In other business, the commission re-elected Harman, McSherry and County Surveyor Jim Moyer to serve as president, vice president and secretary for the commission, respectively.
All the approved recommendations will be taken to the county commissioners meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27.
