Area Plan Apc / Bza - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

the September 2nd, 2026, Decatur County Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. We've got three petitions tonight. First, we're gonna start off with the approval of the June 3rd meeting minutes. Those should have been provided to the members. I'll look for any comments, concerns with those as they were sent out. Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to approve those. I'll make a motion to approve them.

I'll second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay. First petition tonight is 2026-9. Trudy Ewing is requesting a variance. to not be required to build a retention pond in order to meet Decatur County draining ordinance. The request falls under Decatur County stormwater technical standards ordinance section dated November 1, 2023, and recorded April 2, 2024. The property is currently owned by Max G. and Doris M. Modlin and is located at 4204 West County Road 300 North Greensburg in Adams Township. So what I'd like to start with is whoever the representative is, please take the microphone and give us a highlight kind of of the – project and then we'll kind of get into the details of the variance itself.

Hi, I'm Adam Cooper with Gonzales Companies. We did the drainage analysis on this property. So basically what we're looking at was approximately 42 acres that Trudy's looking at subdividing into 10, approximately three and a half acre lots. I mean, that's really the gist of it. You got it up there on the screen. To kind of give a brief overview on the drainage analysis on this, now, obviously, this is all grass for the most part, so putting in 10 houses through here is going to increase it some. This drainage analysis provided those amounts that it increased. It is a very small amount, but it is an increase. And that's basically what this variance is we're trying to get here. For something like this, putting in a retention pond to meet the ordinance is extremely costly. The design on it's costly, and the installation on it's costly. For a property that you're putting a house on three and a half acres on each lot, I think falls outside of what you would normally have a retention pond for. Something like that's really geared more toward your major subdivisions that have houses sitting on sub-acre lots. That's my overview. So I'll turn it over.

Any questions from the board for Mr. Cooper?

So in your analysis, And I'm pretty familiar with the property. Where does the current water drain or how does it drain? Does it drain towards the Honda plant?

It does not. So as you're looking at it there, that's up is north. It drains northwesterly. So it drains across that drain shits running northwest, hits the north property line, it drains west and then crosses. I don't remember the street name off the top of my head, but it's on the west side of that map there.

Thank you.

Yeah, so it's draining across the road there, and then through that branch, drains along the north property line, and there's a branch that runs through this property here, which will not be developed as part of this. That's going to remain as is, and then crosses the county road to the west.

This part right here lays fairly flat. I mean, you can tell there's cattails and whatever. Oh, okay. And the water's not always moving. And then when you get, I didn't know if it was supposed to go to Honda. I mean, because obviously, what? Coming from. I know, but I didn't know if it was supposed to. That's the reason why I'm asking. Yeah.

It always has.

30 years yes that's correct yep yep so my concern would be is if you did get overloaded with water and it had to go to Honda I mean I don't know that there's the fall and the pitch to make that water go right but if it's

And I just drove by it here a while ago, and I took a second look at it.

And right where that blue line is, that's kind of a high point as well. Like these four lots to the left, I mean, they're kind of sitting in their own watershed, so to speak, and somewhat flat.

Correct. Yes, and it's shown in the announcement. There are two different basins there, but they do ultimately end up in the same point before they cross the county road to the west.

The highest point on the property would be this far?

The northeast corner.

That's probably one of the highest points.

Exactly, yep.

And then it comes down to the next highest point would be where that tree line is that's going north. Everything naturally drains towards that water. Right, yeah. Jim Ingram, and I am married to one of the daughters. And this was my mother-in-law and father-in-law's farm. And what they've done is they came up here to ask for a variance because we had it looked at for the drainage and stuff. But what we're really after is we thought that the best use for that property now is no longer farming. If you look at that property, you can see the tree lines and the waterways and all this stuff. And it's small. It just isn't the farm that it used to be. Okay, and we've seen a need in the county for some nicer higher in Home sites, so that's why we decided to go this way. I do think that we have that It's kind of first of all we're not asking for anything to be done to a ten acre spot with the barn. There's a Another we call it the swamp the area that's basically the furthest west area We're not want to change anything on it all we're wanting to change are basically divide that up and it looks like, I think we had came up with eight, three and a half acre lots. We even considered a couple three acre lots and keeping another half acre just for ourselves, just to benefit us so that we could use that waterway to water our horses and stuff out of. It's currently used as a hayfield and basically habitat, okay? Max is really, really big into bird hunting and stuff, and that's, them are shelter belts, and then the other stuff is prairie grass, so it's just a lot of grass.

So, going back to the water study, how much, you said a little bit of an increase, but can you give us an idea of what kind of increase we're talking, and how do you go about those numbers and...

So when we broke this out, we analyzed the two, 10 and 100 year. I'm not sure how familiar you are with how we had analyzed these.

A little bit, but not.

Okay. So we break this out, and we analyze each one of them on the two-year storm event, the 10-year storm event, and the 100-year storm event. Okay. So to give you a breakdown, on the 100-year storm event, the west basin, which is everything west of that blue line, the tree line that you're seeing about in the middle of the property, there was an increase of about 3.5 cubic feet per second. I'm sorry, 1.9 cubic feet per second. So that would be like what would come out of an 8 to 10-inch pipe. The East Basin, you're looking at 3.67 cubic feet per second, which would be about the 12-inch pipe. And that's taken account of a pretty modest amount of 10,000 square foot of hard surface. Now, normally that's not going to happen. You're probably going to be half that, probably. So these are pretty lenient numbers here. And then when you get into your smaller events, your two-year, your 10-year event, you're looking at 0.8 and 1.32 cubic feet per second, which now you're getting to the range of a six-inch pipe equivalent.

If there were going to be retention put in, it seems a bit unique.

I mean, we're talking about higher elevations than surrounding areas. What would be the resolution? And I understand your motivation, you know, don't want to spend the money on it, get it. What would be the best resolution to this? Where would retention be? How would it feed out? What would that look like? Are you talking like would it require... retention on each site individually or at the blue line there would need to be something to slow it down past that?

So how I would address this is you'd ultimately probably have to have two. One for each of the separate drainage basins. Okay. Just because you don't want to change your point discharge off one side to the other. There's an existing pond already on the site now. And ideally, that's pretty close to where one of the retention ponds would be. And the other one, I believe, is going to be a little bit closer toward the county road that runs along the length of the road front of the property. So yeah, now we're looking at two retention ponds. We're probably going to have an outlet control structure that's made of concrete, has different control orifices in it. A bit overkill, quite a bit overkill for something like this, but per the drainage ordinance, that's what we'd have to design to.

Okay.

Where is the pond?

I'm sorry?

Where is the pond? Is that it?

Yep, thank you.

How much over and above the ordinance are you?

Well... You really, you don't want to increase more than is existing, right? So I said we're increasing above what's there, but The problem is, um, when we design a retention pond for your ordinance, um, I would like to double check this. Um, we didn't get into detention design in this analysis, but I believe we got to take the a hundred year and release it at, I believe the, uh, existing 10 year. So it's, you're over detaining, not exactly meeting existing.

Yep.

You would refer to something called the swamp. Tell me a little bit about that. Is that because of downstream there's a restriction? What causes it to back up and be a swamp?

It's probably the lowest point.

The lowest point probably on the east side of that road. I don't know, Paul. What would have ever caused that?

So downstream is higher, apparently. I mean, it's just a marshy area.

It's actually lower. It's probably lower on that side of the street than it is on the other side of the street, just a couple feet or so would be my guess. The county did come in a few years ago and put a new culvert in there, and it might have changed it a little bit. I don't know if it's changed it much. I can't tell you. The thing that's changed the most is the power line company has cut some trees and let some sun in there. It's drier today than it has been years ago.

Where I'm going with that is this swamp area, does it make sense to make that some kind of a dry dam area that it could surge to and then slowly go out that area? I mean, we've got a low-lying area already that is non-functional outside of just constantly laying low, right? Is that a possibility?

Because to make it a drier thing, we've got to have a way to outlet it, right? And if the county culvert is higher than what it is now, that's going to be some problems.

That's what I was asking, if it was higher, just a low-lying area, what it was. Okay. Okay, any other questions?

I guess if you got, let's just say this passed and you're able to sell these lots off, could this drainage be improved in any way to help the flow? Is it pretty deep already? Okay. I didn't know if it was shallow, filled up with sediment. Restriction. Okay. Yeah, that's what I was going after.

I was going to say, with all the rain we had recently, I mean, did it cause you any issues when we had that big old... No.

It took that inch of it.

I mean, what we're looking at is a three and a half acre lot with a home on it.

It doesn't typically need a retention pond.

That's just kind of, we were shocked.

To be quite honest with you, we were pretty shocked that it came back that you might need all the subdivisions and all the houses in Adams that are just rooftops there on quarter acre lots. There's no retention ponds.

So I guess that's what my...

That's why we question this. We're asking for the variance.

I mean, we had no intention of doing anything wrong.

Sure. We just thought a three-and-a-half acre lot would pretty much absorb anything that a house would put on.

Yeah, I mean, if you could take that roof and driveway and that solid area and spread it across a three-and-a-half, yes. But if you took ten of them and put them together and they all drained to the same end... It could be tough on it, you know, but I agree. If you could spread all of that roof and driveway area out on the three and a half, it would absorb all of it, I'm sure. Okay, any other questions from the board? Go ahead, Andy, please.

Right, yeah.

I believe the owners were all in favor of making that a restriction, no future divisions for new housing without coming back to the county. And we also were all going to ask for partial rezoning. We weren't going to rezone the entire three and a half acres, just the part that's needed for the home.

Yeah, which we can't change the zoning of any more than an acre and a half anyway, right? Yep, yep, yep.

Okay.

Good to know. Thanks, Andy. Okay, thank you, guys. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak regarding this request or this petition? Any adjoining property owners or anything else? Thank you, guys.

Hello there. I'm Chris Wiseman. I work at Kripe Architects and Engineers representing Bob Scheigert on the petition. We just had some questions in regards to it. Thank you to Doug. He submitted me the documents today. Just got them at like 4.30 to review, so I haven't had a chance to review them yet, just received them. We are reviewing it for Bob. Um, question I would have would be when I'm trying to figure out the processes and the procedures of how it goes. Um, has the, when the petition comes in for the variance, I think, I believe there's a county drainage consultant on that reviews for plans that go in for construction document phases. Has that, does that occur during this or have they been brought in to review the drainage report? I believe it's Christopher Burke is your drainage engineer.

Go ahead, Doug.

Christopher Burke wrote the ordinance, and they are our drainage consultant. But anytime somebody comes in for a subdivision of three lots or more, then we require the drainage study. So that's what we have now, the drainage study in this situation. Okay, so

So that's what I guess a concern would be. If they review it later, then deem it's necessary for the ordinance, then it seems like out of order a little bit. I was just curious if they had been engaged. Yeah. Okay. Right. Right. But so there's... So they haven't reviewed to see what their feeling is in regards to what was prepared? And they won't? So the county won't send it to them in this case at this point before you vote on the variance? We will not vote on the variance. Okay. Yeah, because the ordinance is pretty in-depth on other items, too, besides the detention. It gets pretty technical on... channel protection volume calculation so you don't erode and scour that out. But that would come up in the review process.

I think that this would be a bit of a unique situation where you've got three and a half acre lots versus a subdivision of half acre lots and 100 homes. So I think that it is written relatively technically, but this falls outside of the normal situation of a neighborhood, you know, where a lot of paved roads and such.

Correct. then we would request maybe a tabling to review the information on behalf of Bob since we just received it.

And I'm sorry, who are you representing? Is this an adjoining property owner?

It's the adjoining property owner to the north.

And what's your last name, sir? Schneider.

Schneider?

Scheigert. Scheigert, okay. So you own the property directly to the north across the back of all of them, is that right?

That's it. Okay.

That's my address. Okay, I got you.

Just three years ago, I had an earthquake come in.

It was starting to collapse.

Okay.

And the water has been there

I don't need no more. I'm going to start growing rice, I guess. That's what's going to happen.

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. If you'd like to speak, please state your name. Come on up. Before he steps down, does anyone have any questions for Mr. Wiseman? Any questions? So what you would request is, you would like... Time to just review the information we received today. And CRIPE is a similar organization as Gonzales?

Yeah, we're an architectural and engineering firm located in Indianapolis. Okay.

Questions from the board here? Does it seem reasonable to you in this scenario if basically the ordinance asks to take a 100-year event and throttle it essentially to a 10-year event, are we in agreement that that's what the ordinance is asking? Is your explanation of it correct? Is that it would need to be brought down from a 100 to a 10? If I understand you right. Okay.

I think that's accurate, too. There's a reduction from 10 to 2 as well. I think that's what it is. Every county is a little bit different. I think that's correct is what his recollection is. Indianapolis is totally different. They use a different system altogether.

What's your professional opinion of that?

reduction yeah of of of in this scenario does that fit does that make sense we've done it you know it always and the reason for the reduction in those ordinances that burke prepares burke writes like half the ordinances in the counties in the state i mean they're all pretty similar and it's just it's always to reduce the negative impact downstream and on adjacent property owners and that's why you over detain and there's other components in the ordinance too like The channel protection volume is a great thing to prevent scour and such. But that's for point discharges. So, yeah, the ordinances are in place to better the surrounding area for any flooding-prone areas. The swamp area should be, it would be reduced in theory because it would be less impact to that. But depending on where that is, I don't know if that's inside the area or outside. It may be more downstream from the affected area.

Yeah, it's on the west end of that, which isn't going to be requested to be developed, correct? That's what you would state, okay. Further questions for Mr. Wiseman?

I don't have a question, but it did help me a great deal. I tried to read your report, but I will be honest. It's very in-depth. But your explanation of what the 100-year, the 10-year as a pipe size, I thank you for that because I wasn't getting it off that report. I didn't understand. So thank you for that.

Which was protectable.

Yeah, you got where I could understand.

Okay, I think you'd like to speak if you don't mind. Thank you.

Go ahead, say your name, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Tricia Scripture. I'm part of the stake. for Doris Mondlin. And I just wanted to point out is that part of the problem with that north ditch, no, I'm not gonna say that because I don't know for sure, but they changed that waterway. So you can kind of see on the picture where it's dark and it goes up, the natural flow of that water is not along that fence line. okay so it did go up and then down and now comes straight across well I'm just saying that the ground and the way the ground goes it's the way the water flows and so a new ditch was created that changed the drainage I'm not okay okay

The waterway used to go out into the field. Basically, they still put it right back into the exact same place where it was built. But when they done that ditch, they dug it with a track hoe, and they made a bank, a larger bank. So now any water that goes into that waterway, if it goes over that where you make that rise, then it can't come back in.

or anything you'd like to contribute here, any thoughts? Drainage. Would you mind weighing in on your concern of approximately 5,000 square foot of impermeable surface being added to 3 1⁄2 acres on that potentially 10 times? Is that something that... Right.

. Yeah. .

Right. Yeah. Right. But we are dividing it that many times.

It rained right into that. I tied that, and it rained. All that rain went into that ditch. I paid for all the time. It was coming off on the east end. I put a dry dam, and I had to put a lateral, put a main drain straight down right into the ditch.

Yeah. you know

Yeah, possibly. I mean, there's a really good chance that a person buying this lot is very likely going to have some kind of a pole building, a house, an asphalt driveway. Maybe not in the first five years, but it's likely. I mean, it's likely, but I hear you. I understand. Would you mind advising us, Brad, on your professional recommendation to the board?

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you have someone else that would like to speak? Okay, please come on up here.

Backstory his family's on this farm since well before the I think is around 1860s when his descendants moved here and that used to be part of it and It's not that we're going against you guys great. You want to develop and everything but in the end we're he's tenant farming it $35,000 a year he spent $8,000 on that ditch we spent I think he spent around $10,000 on that dry dam that's on county land to catch that water coming off of it. Plus, we got $15,000 in tiles running across there at this point. I'm going to be the next steward of this. It does affect me. In the end, I mean, if it's not a profitable farm, which is what we want to be, and that's what you guys want out here, you got to give us some relief, a little bit. Listen, just a little bit.

What would you like to see?

It's really the ditch runoff there. It's awful shallow. When you get a good rain, there's a lot of water that comes off Honda.

But would you acknowledge that what they're proposing here is not going to lower that at all? The water that's existing right now, it sounds like that has been a point of contention and you'd have to do all this work, all the money you're talking about spending. None of that's on them at this point, right? That's stuff that you have had to do repair work, maintenance work.

That's what we're running into. It's not that we're wanting to go against that or anything. I think that's awesome, you know, but... even if you're talking $3,000 a year or $9,000 every three years to backhoe that out, I mean, that's 5% of the farm's profit right there. And like I say, I mean, we're trying real hard to be good stewards of that property, but it's getting awful tight.

Yeah, and again, understand, but... Everything you're talking about hasn't had a thing to do with any of this, right? Like, if you're having a tough time with that, it's a different conversation.

Yeah, the extra water is going to, I mean, like I said, the maintenance of that ditch. Let's just, it's on our property, we're going to maintain it. Four, five, six, ten years from now, I don't have the money to do that because the farm didn't make money, you know? That's going to affect those people that buy those lots there. And then it's going to ultimately fall on me or him.

Yeah, I mean, my property drains on the next guy too. I mean, there's always a downhill somebody somewhere, right? I mean, we're not going to change the way the water runs. There's the possibility if there's a swale and a standpipe put in these backyards, it could potentially lower the point load of that, right?

That's what I'm talking about. Like I said, we're not against it. We're just looking not for it to be our problem all the time.

I understand. Go ahead.

With him talking about this ditch, I just do want to make sure it's clear.

The part of their property that drains in this ditching question is only the right half of the property.

So that blue line to the east, that's the only thing that's going into that ditch that runs more than the property. Right. and meets back up in that timber block. So if you only look at it one, two, three, four, five, six blocks, that's actually drained into this ditch.

Yeah, but they're not responsible for the existing water. The stuff that's coming from Honda, that's already there.

I understand that, but I'm just afraid it's not going to be able to hold it and it's going to drown out my crops.

It's going to be a fixed one.

That's what I'm afraid of. I don't want that.

Yeah, I understand. Okay, any other questions?

I don't have any questions. Debbie?

Debbie? Okay. I'm going to look for a motion, and we've got a few options here. We can open it for a motion to vote or to table, correct? Those are our options right now.

I make the motion that we vote on BZA petition 2026-9.

Do we have a second to vote?

I'll second it.

We're voting.

Votes for petition 2026-9 are as follows. Janie Levinson, yes. Andrew Grunow, yes. Paul Stone, yes. Joseph Armour, yes. Scott Smith, yes.

Your request for variance passes. Thank you for following the process. Next petition is 2026-10. Deborah Cox is requesting a conditional use to have a land clearing logging business. The request falls under Decatur County Section 935. The property is currently owned by Deborah Cox and is located at 1017 South County Road, 550 West, Greensburg, Clay Township. Whoever is representing this, please come to the podium. Tell us about what you're looking to do.

Hi, I'm Debbie Cox, and our farm will be a fifth generation farm with my son and son-in-law managing the land clearing business. And I want to share... had no idea that we needed to do a conditional use. So sorry, it's taken us, I guess, we're going on five years now to get here in front of you. But we also had understood that what we were doing was an agricultural business. And what we have is ag ground. So that's kind of where we started. The majority of what we do there is storing of large equipment, just like large farming equipment, only it's land clearing equipment. They park there, they leave and go to job sites during the day, come back and park. We also have the old family tool shed. My daughter-in-law laughs and says, that's not a shed, that's a huge barn. We call it a tool shed. They do some minor repairs and work on their equipment there during their downtime. So that's what we're utilizing the property for same property also has a rental house which was the original one of my freedom Clayton Cox had there and I know it doesn't appear to be a problem for those renters, and we've talked about that. It's not our intent to cause any problems with any of our neighbors or to do anything that's illegal. But that's what we're trying to do. And I've got a young couple that are trying to make a business and take care of their family. We do, I know there's been some... aggravation by some about some burning that we're doing there and I would share there are some times that we do bring back some wood it's nothing else but wood to dispose of and that will burn. However, we also do burning there like a normal farmer does. And I'll say the last two burnings we did, one was a tree out of my house that came down from a storm. So it was my personal residence. And the one before that was a house that came down on my mom's property, which is our family's personal residence. So we use it for personal cleanup too because we own some different properties. But that's what we're asking for, is conditional use for us to continue to run the land clearing business out of that location.

You have the pointer there still?

I do.

If you don't mind, point out on here the high points of where the burning occurs, where the house is, where this building is at. Just give us an idea.

OK. Sorry, I have to keep it held down. This is the house right here. This is the tool shed we talked about. And the burning pit is back here. And typically we will kind of my rule for the guys when we started to do this was we tried and really wasn't about all of my neighbors but it was about having this renter that lives here keeping the equipment back behind this barn which we generally do so that it's not up here in an eyesore and We do have the equipment that goes in and out of there. Confirmed with the renter here, they sleep right there alongside of that, and they do not even hear the equipment coming in and out. So I thought that that might be the biggest concern about that kind of traffic in and out. But we also know there's a lot of traffic already on that road because it's agriculture and what have you.

Okay, thank you. Questions?

I don't know if, Glenn and Orion, if you have anything else I've missed. Okay.

Okay, I'll look for, if there's no questions from the board, anyone in the audience would like to speak on this petition? I'm sorry. Please come on up, state your name, anything you'd like to say.

My name is Alvin Gilbert, and I live across the road right there where you see that's like green vegetation. Okay. That is my property.

Okay.

And your name again, sir?

Alvin, A-L-V-I-N. Last name is Gilbert, G-I-L-B-E-R-T.

Thank you, Alvin. Go ahead.

And you brought that up, or somebody brought that up, and that piece of property right there that you're looking at is two pieces of property. So which piece is going to be zoned?

Not changing the zoning.

Pardon?

We're not changing. They're not asking to change the zoning.

They're wanting to do an ordinance zone. I think is what this says. Conditional use of the property ordinance section 935. Yeah. So you're changing it from agricultural a one to no, sir.

There is no zoning change.

Okay.

It's a conditional use and a conditional use is designed to prevent from changing zoning.

Okay. It's a conditional conditions. Okay, so the conditional use will be for both pieces of property?

No, I'm assuming the conditional use will be tied to one parcel, correct?

One parcel is two acres where the house is, and the other parcel, I believe, where the barn is, as they call it, tool shed, that used to be a barn for Clayton.

We actually have both parcels.

And that's another parcel. So there's two parcels there.

Both of them are listed. Yes, that's correct. There are two.

So which one will be used for that ordinance that this letter comes out and said that Section 935?

They are asking for the conditional use for both of those parcels.

Oh, okay, because I didn't see it in this letter here where they was sent out to us saying that they was going to do both pieces of property.

Yeah, I don't know what's on the letter, but that's what this hearing is for, is for explaining the details of the request and then for you to be able to ask those questions.

Okay. Well, let me ask, I'm going to state some things here. Okay. And I'm going to ask some questions. Okay. Because I've read 935, and I have it here in front of me, what 935 says. Okay. And it doesn't say anything about a business going in or a clearing business going in or a logging business going in. It doesn't state that.

Hold on. Let me stop you there.

Okay.

That's right. The idea of a conditional use is to do something else inside of that, of that not zoned business property. So the county is reluctant to change zoning. We would refer to that as spot zoning. We are reluctant to change zoning because that is a permanent change. A conditional use is not a permanent change.

Yeah, it's for five years, it says.

It can be. It can be for a maximum of five years. So the idea would be rather than us put in potentially industrial zoning out in the middle of the country on five miles out of town, that there would be a conditional use that has a life. should something not go right, should they change their business model, should something like that happen, that now we don't have four acres of industrial zone property five miles from town, that potentially anything could go into that spot. So this is not designed to hurt you. It's, in fact, designed to help protect.

It's not protecting me at all, I'll tell you that right now.

Oh, it absolutely could. It absolutely could.

And I put up with that place for five years, as she stated, smoke and ashes. My house smells like smoke. I live right across from it. You guys should have looked at the photos I have submitted. I did.

I did.

And the videos that I have submitted about the noise. Yes. It's noisy. It's any residue. You don't have to see the smoke. The residue that you smell is from that smoke.

Very good.

And that is harmful to my health and everybody else's health that's around that area. And 935 says that. is that if it's detrimental to your health or your well-being or the value of your property, then I'm stating that because I think it's all of the above.

Sure. And that's what this meeting is for, is for you to voice your concerns.

I'm here. And then it says on here, it says that the owner will occupy the land. Is that going to be followed or not followed? It says right here, the following condition uses may be approved by the Canberra County Board of Zoning, and it says section AII, that the business is operated by the owner and his family that resides upon the premises. So are we going to follow these ordinances or not?

Sure. And what I would ask, sir, is state all your questions. I am. And then what we'll do is ask them to come up and respond to your questions. Okay. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then it says that the home occupation is operated by the owner. I've highlighted several things on here. and health and safety I have addressed about the smoke and the noise and everything else. My granddaughter lives in the house that's closest to the road, and I got a grandbaby that's nine months old. Well, and go ahead.

Chelsea Spillman. So I live right diagonally right here. My grandparents that you're speaking to live right here. And the fire pit, that's right here. So last year I was pregnant and we called the health department because I couldn't even step outside. There was so much black smoke. coming in. I had to go get checked and everything. And they said, oh, sorry, there's nothing we can do. Like, don't know what to tell you. So my grandparents, they went out and they filled the house full of like air purifiers. And just to kind of touch back on how there's not a sound nuisance, I have an 11-month-old. And you can hear the semis turning on our road and when they get to about where like the bluish property that's highlighted is when they get to about there there is the loudest engine brakes that are used and my daughter she will cry she screams we can't even go sit on our porch sometimes when they burn because there's just so much smoke Like, she's 11 months old, and I've been dealing with this since before she was even born. And try to put a baby down for a nap when there is the noisiest semis. Like, we have farmers at the other end of the road, and they don't use brakes like that. But every time these guys go to pull into the drive, it is so loud.

It's so loud.

So there is definitely a noise nuisance, even though maybe other parties don't think so. There definitely is.

And she's referencing to engine brake.

Yeah.

They should not be using engine brakes, period. They should be using the brakes on their vehicle, the brakes on their trailer, their air brakes. I used to be a mechanic and work on them. And if their brakes don't work, they don't need to have those vehicles on the road. Simple as that.

Go ahead and continue, please.

I'm done.

Oh, okay. Okay. I think that's enough. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, the way we're going to do this is if you would like to respond or answer some of Mr. Gilbert's concerns, please come on up, whoever would like to speak. Come on up, state your name.

Ryan Thayer, owner of SiteTech, part owner of SiteTech.

I'm Glennon Cox, also a part owner, along with other members of our family are also partners in this. They're doing family stuff tonight, and we're here with you guys. We can start with the burning. I do know, I will say, I do know one time last year where we had a bunch of stuff piled up for a long time because it was dry, and it was dry, couldn't burn nothing. Well, we got a good rain, we burned. Always when we light our fires, I went back and checked on all of the dates on previous fires we had, always try to light it with an east wind. That way, you know, your worst part of a fire is always the first part whenever you got all the smoke, your green stuff, your leaves all out of burning. That way it's all blowing back in the wood, dissipating. That one fire last year that was the worst, it's like it just sat there and smoldered. No matter how much I stirred it, it just smoldered while the wind ended up changing. Then it started out of the southwest and went to a dead west wind. It did linger a while. I did feel bad for that. I do say that. But all the other ones... We try to always light on east wind and keep it burning clean as we can. We don't burn trash, don't burn none of that stuff in there. On coming in and out, we're hauling equipment. We're running low buoys, hauling excavators, stuff like that. We could do it without using engine brakes, but you know how many brakes will end up burning through trying to come to a complete stop all the time like that. That's why we do that. It's also the safety, too, because you can slow down quicker with your engine brakes rather than just using straight brakes alone. We do try to keep it cleaned up pretty good. You can see behind the barn, we keep our equipment lined up. Every once in a while, there'll be semis parked up front, or say we left them there at night, we're going to hop them first thing in the morning and leave. We just try to get along. We've done work for the neighbor to the north. He's been great. All of our neighbors we've had great relationships with, except for just a select few, we can tell. So besides that, it's been great. It's been pretty good. I called the other neighbors prior to this and asked if there was any concerns or any issues voiced. And they did talk about that one fire that we had last fall that, like I said, lingered for a long time. But yeah, besides that, I don't know what else.

We try to be respectful for what we're doing. We would prefer this to be in a conversation. We didn't want it to come to this. But when they won't speak to us, obviously we have to come in front of you guys and spend an evening away from our kids. So hey, we're willing to work and do whatever we need to do. We want to do the right thing. You know, I don't, we're both young trying to establish ourselves, have a dream to work, uh, work hard. We're respectful. Everything we do is honest. Um, you know, we wouldn't have a business obviously if, if we weren't. So, uh, you know, we're always very appreciative of your consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

Let me see if there's anybody else. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this petition? Sir, please come back up.

I didn't finish.

Okay.

I thought I was.

Okay.

You know, if I read it right, the Indiana Code on open burning, pit burning of commercial waste is against the law in the state of Indiana. And it says there's no exceptions to that law. And Decatur County has adopted that law and that rule because they haven't rewritten anything. So when they say they burn, they do burn. And that, to me, is commercial burning. Anytime you bring it from one location to another location, that's commercial burning. And when she said that she burnt her house there and her in-law's house there, she moved it from one location to this location to dispose of it. And that is against the law. And then I wanted to talk about the hydraulic oil, and I want to talk about the oil that comes off the semis. I want to talk about the fuel tanks that is right behind that white barn. And there is an ordinance on fuel tanks, distances, diking, spillage, runoff, and everything else. But it's right out there in the opening. And it talks about airing and the right equipment to dispense of that fuel. I mean, I've read this thing over and over and over, and I know that's what it says. So I just wanted to add that.

Come on up, please.

Just one comment.

The fuel tanks are the same place they've been for 50 years. Same one, same location we've used the whole time we've had the farm there. Not the same tank, same exact location.

Honestly, it's getting off into the weeds. This board has no control over fuel tanks, distances from stuff like, I shouldn't say distances, but the types of fuel tanks, whether they're diked or not, is not anything to do with this request.

But it talks about the safety, and that is...

Understand, but if that's a violation of this, this board can't control or enforce something to do with a fire code, something like that.

Maybe somebody can point me in the right direction.

Understand, just not right now. Great conversation. Thank you. Anything else from anyone? Any conversation?

Is there any other options on the burning, like relocating or anything like that?

I was wondering about chipping or shredding or something rather than burning.

So 99.9%. 7% of all of our material goes to either lysings out there, it goes to all the green cycle locations in India, it goes to forest commodities, stuff like that. The stuff that we ever would, our Sims bark down on 65, that great big mulch pile down there, we take a lot of stuff there. The only stuff that we ever bring home is we may have a skiff in the dump trailer, At once it's not much, but if times are dry, conditions aren't right, it'll add up a little bit over time. So you know those refuse blocks from concrete companies like the two by three? So our pit is made out of them. And so since we've been there, we just now cleaned it out last month and there was this much ash this much ash in that pit so that shows you how much we really burn in there not not that much at all it's just a little bit here and there um our three other decatur county farms if we have two it over on this side of hartsville and one down by westport you know sometimes we'll bring stuff back there and burn just because it's contained it's safe you know we know it's not gonna gonna travel or anything operate the business without burning on that side

Could you operate your business and eliminate all burning?

There.

There at that pit? Yeah.

All burning, but what about stuff from that farm itself?

Our personal property. And our personal stuff. We have farms all over, right? So instead of burning on the field side, we bring it there to burn, right?

Right. If you've got farms all over, my request would be to, and it sounds like you've got a good relationship, you mentioned that. Is there a better spot than the spot next to the sites dealing with Jake's Breaks, things like that? I mean, is that a possibility that this concrete block burn pit exists on a different location to try and ease some of this?

And the reason we like it on this location is because there's always a piece of equipment there. Sure. So, I mean, if you need to do something, you always have a piece of iron sitting there you can hop in and fix and curb any issues that you're having. Yeah, I mean, we don't, it's not like we're burning every day. I know. It's not like we're burning.

I understand. This board's job is trying to find a middle point. Sure. I know. I know. We agree with that. Keep the peace. We're on that page.

How often would you say you burn? Once, twice a month, once a month? This depends. If that. Sometimes it won't be a month. Sometimes it might be twice, maybe three times a month, but not hardly. I mean, it's not consecutive. It's not all the time.

But I've got to tell you, as just a normal human being, I don't want to smell and have your smoke in my face. Right, sure, absolutely. I don't. But, and again, it's not fair to throttle their business.

But if there'd be just another way... And we're always trying to light it whenever everything's blowing, you know, an east wind, where everything's blowing back the woods.

We try to be respectful as we can. Absolutely right. But it'd be no different than them having a bonfire every night at their house.

The difference is it's commercial, though. There is a difference.

I do get that. But you're out in the country, right? I mean... What we're doing is forestry, which is agriculture, so I guess... You're with SiteTech, right?

Yes. That's not really agriculture. I mean, at that point, it's an excavating business.

But we're forestry.

We are forestry.

It's agriculture.

But when we're logging, too, we do buy timber, sell timber, all that kind of stuff.

That's forestry. That's commodity. That is agriculture.

So it's just like, you know, if we were farming and if we were going out and... Cutting corn putting in the grain bin there, then we're going to haul the grain out of there to somewhere else That's no difference to me going cutting timber that we bought, you know, storing it there, stacking it, loading it How many farmers have an excavator now?

A lot, right? So, you know in our opinion, right? It's you know, we're within those guidelines for the property, right? And don't get me wrong, we want to be respectful.

And it's not like when Grandpa had it. I'll say that, but he was retired and had other people farming his ground.

Yeah, I mean, it would be no different. What's the difference if I lived right across from a grain elevator and they're coming in and out all the time, right? There's no difference. It would be the exact same aspect. It's just it happens to be across from their house, right? So, you know, I mean, again, we want a solution. We want to be fair. We just, and again, we're here to come to some sort of agreement. That's what we want.

Thank you. So you're talking potentially a dump trailer load, things like that? Yes. I mean, if this stuff had a chance to dry down and you weren't burning green stuff, could we eliminate some of the green burning?

As long as it doesn't happen to where it gets to us. last fall like i was talking about winter whenever we it was dry and dry and dry you know how it was last fall and we let it lay there and lay there and lay there and when we had some moisture to burn it then we had a good east wind lit it well it burnt for a couple days and that's when the wind did change you know and it blew but we'll we'll try to haul as much as we can you know away from there but if i get charged a hundred dollars if i got a third of a dump trailer load versus a full dump trailer load you know i'd Better off to try to burn it a little bit. I understand.

I understand. I mean, I get it. I understand where you're at. We just try and keep it.

Sure. Sure. I get it.

Thank you. From a legal standpoint, can we further define the owner residing property the property is that mean does that mean occupy and operate the business does that mean needs to live on site what has to live on the site I'm sorry okay okay Anything to add, Doug?

But he's saying bring from other farms they own.

Yeah, I mean, it's what's contained on that particular parcel. That's what's exempt.

But you can't bring it in from other parts.

Right, even if you are.

Not asking to operate a business there while someone else lives at that property. The idea of a conditional use is if someone, generally what we see as a conditional use is someone's wanting to run a screen printing business out of their basement, sewing business, something of that nature. So there would be maybe a sign in the yard, maybe a few cars in and out, stuff like that. That's why they would come. And that's the majority of the conditional uses that we see. So the idea is that if they live there, generally there's some control about the noise, the traffic, the smoke, the things like that. That's the idea. Please go ahead.

I just want to circle back to like the safety issue because I've lived in the same property for 31 years, so my entire life, and I would like for it to still be there for my daughter growing up there. So, you know, it's going to be a fourth generation property as well. And there has been times where there has been flames that are bigger than the barn at nighttime left there. And then it smolders all night until the next morning. And then at one point there was a time my husband and I looked out the window and I called my grandparents and I was like, hey, the field's on fire, like the field next to the barn. And the renters actually went out there and they were stomping it down. So I'm worried. Obviously, it was windy. It was definitely blowing south, not east. And we have ash over on our cars and stuff all the time. So, like, I don't want to send my little girl outside to play on her swing set and stuff and her come in and have ash on her. So everything that's being said I don't feel like is 100% accurate from all parties. So just it's a really big health safety, and I really, really would appreciate if you guys would take that into consideration.

What would you estimate the frequency of the burn? I feel like I'm hearing quite a severity here.

It's definitely a lot more than twice a month. We have picture photo proof with time stamps and dates. It varies, but we do have photo proof, and we have sent it in, and we have multiples on multiple devices of four to five different people. I mean, they're retired, so. Okay. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

So A1, A2 conditionally used, they do have to reside at the property, and it doesn't...

I think typically the conditional uses we've approved are small auto repair shop,

I think the burning thing is the hang-up, guys. And I don't know that we can control here burning. I mean, I think that's probably technically an item function, something like that. I think that's probably who needs to be leaned on a little bit on advice on that. But technically the conditional use, you're supposed to live there. And as far as it being inside, the idea is, and not all things can occur inside. I mean, not every business can be in a structure, and I understand that. But I think the burning thing seems like the big hang-up here.

And like we said, we can make do without burning as long as it's not all burning on that property. We are doing work on that property itself.

Okay. And I would ask that be somewhat cognizant of the frequency. And if the volume were to go down potentially. Jake breaks maybe. And I believe that. And I think that this is the reconciliation of that. We all talk about this and shift down, the turning engine breaks off in the neighborhood when you're close to the other houses maybe.

I'll go slower so you don't have to brake so much.

Okay, Heather, feedback? Any advice missing? Anything you'd like to? Okay. So regarding the residing, would that require a variance then? Or what's the next step there? Yeah, it's in essence already a variance.

You're varying on the required standards because of the nature of it.

Yeah, I would agree. I'm going to recommend, should we vote on this, that we put a one-year review on this. Is that acceptable? Joe? Input? Anybody else? I'm gonna look for a motion that, go ahead Doug. I'm gonna look for a motion that we vote on this petition and I'm gonna recommend a one year review on it. That would be BZA 2026-10.

Any way to add about bringing stuff in?

Yep, and we can add that to the to the conditional use as well.

Obviously what's on the property? Yes, you got should have the right just like anybody else.

Make sure I understand. So are you saying that we should not be voting on this because they do not reside there? No, I wasn't asking that.

Just following the criteria of a conditional use.

Any motions? I'll make a motion that we vote on the BZA petition. What's the number? 2026-10.

2026-10.

Second? I'll second. Just a vote. It's a motion to vote. Yeah, the conditions would be that there is no outside goods brought in to be burned, and we would review this in one year to see how it's functioning.

on easy petition 2026 dash 10 with the stipulation no outside gives be brought in to burn and review after one year as follows Paul Stone yes just a farmer no Janie Levinson no Scott Smith yes Andrew Bruni yes it passes you have one year and

Watch how this goes because we'll be back in here, and I would say that as close as this was to begin with, do it right.

Please come up here. Okay.

Still got to get a building permit, but it is ag exempt. Thank you. Okay.

Petition 2026-11, Jody Westerfeld is requesting a conditional use to have a photography business. This request falls under Decatur County Ordinance Section 935. The property is currently owned by Abby Colbin. Jody Westerfeld is located at 4940 South County Road 240 West, Greensburg and Sand Creek Township. Please come on up, Jody, and tell us what you're looking to have happen.

I'm Jody Westerfeld and I'm requesting approval to operate my business Frame 55 at home and as a public photography studio at my Cottonwood Lake property. So Frame 55 would operate by appointment only. I would use the lake setting, the current boat dock that is there, and then there's a small cottage. So it's not going to be an event venue. I'm not going to be running traffic in and out. It is strictly by appointment only. And since it's going to be at my residence, I'm scaling it way back. Sessions will be scheduled individually. Again, traffic and activity is going to be limited. So I want to maintain the current characteristic of the neighborhood. I'm quite proud of it. My dad built the lake and then he and two other gentlemen built the subdivision. So we do not want to change that at all. I just want to be able to run my business at my house. Questions?

Plans for a sign?

It's going to be up to you guys. If it's going to be a hoopla and an extra fee and all that, I'm not into that. If it's going to take a lot of our time, that's OK. I can pass. I know there's a sign in my rendering. But again, if it's going to be extra, I can bypass that by all means.

We have, are there county fees on signage, like for permitting?

Yeah, I mean, we have a sign ordinance, but with this condition of use, we do, if you are going to approve a sign, you do need to approve it as part of this approval.

Would there be a cost to her?

Oh, yeah, there's a permit. She would pay the permit just like anybody else would for whatever reason. We would just decide on what size sign and location type.

There's a threshold on the surface area, 32 square feet or something like that. Is that right? Yeah. All right. So there's a fee.

I'm not that cheap. It's just, you know, like it's so minimal, this business that... As my husband says, it's an expense. It's not a business. It's an expense.

Questions, comments from the board? I'm going to look for adjoining property owners or anyone in the audience who would like to speak on this petition.

One thing I did want to ask, there's a photography trail in Decatur County. I would like to be a part of that. Do I have to run something back through here to be a part of that? And maybe that's a Brian Robbins question. Maybe. Okay. Okay. If it's approved, but all means. All right.

Yeah.

No further comments. I'll look for a motion that we vote on this petition.

Motion to vote on BZA 2026-11. I'll second that.

Votes for petition number 2026-11 are as follows. Paul Stone, yes. Scott Smith, yes. Andrew Bruni, yes. Jamie Levinson, yes. Joseph Harmer, yes.

I failed to bring up a time period on this.

Is that a default? Five years is the default.

Anyone in opposition to a five-year time period on this? Any other questions or comments from the audience? Hearing none, I'll look for a motion to adjourn.

We are adjourned.

County Area Plan Commission to order to comply with Title VI Civil Rights Act 1964. Decatur County requests that participants in this meeting complete a voluntary anonymous survey that is available on the table in the back of the room. First item on our agenda is approval of the August 5th, 2026 minutes. Everyone received those in their packet. They're fairly condensed, not too extensive. Did anybody have any additions, corrections, or comments on those? And now I'll entertain a motion to accept those.

I move that we accept the minutes as they were mailed.

Second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay, first petition on the docket. APC Petition 2026-18, Jeffrey Moore is requesting to rezone .35 acres from an R2 zoning classification to an R4 zoning classification. This request falls under Decatur County Ordinance Section Number 1045. The property is owned by the petitioner and is located at 210 Northeast Street, Westport and Sand Creek Township. Jeff, do you want to come on up and explain why you need to change?

Just like to make a slight correction there. I'm actually the pastor of the Connect on Main. And actually, it's actually Westport Wesleyan that actually owns that property. So it's actually not me. I'm just representing them tonight. That is actually our old building that you're currently looking at, which is on Bennett Street, which is right across the street from where the funeral home's at. We just built a new building at 601 East Main. And we've actually moved there. So what we're wanting to do is we really don't want more empty buildings sitting in Westport. So we're going to take that. We've already got a permit for the front building closest to Bennett Street was our old church building. And then you see where the arrow's at, that second building that's behind there. That was our old life center. And so we've already got a permit to do what we're wanting to do in the old church building. This is what we're wanting to do is we're wanting to put a duplex in that old life center that would ultimately produce income. We would just market it right back to the community. So that's really what we're offering to do. My understanding is it's already an R2, but we need to go to an R4 because we would end up having two duplexes on that same parcel property.

Currently, the old church is being converted into a duplex.

Correct.

And you're wanting to just do the building to the south.

That's correct.

As a duplex as well.

Correct. So we would end up with four units there that would be owned by the church.

Board members, do you have any questions? Seems fairly self-explanatory what you're doing. This did go through and we got the letter from the town of Westport. That was a 3-2 vote in favor. We received that. I tried to get to the minutes of that meeting, but I wasn't able to. I couldn't get the YouTube video either. Yes, that's all I got. That's the same one I saw. There wasn't much there.

It actually went down that night. I was there.

It had a three-second clip and a 35-second clip. Is there any adjoining property owners or people from Westport that have any comments, concerns, or questions? Well, if there's nothing, board, do you have anything? I do not. If not, I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion that we vote on 2026-18. I'll second that.

The votes for petition 2026-18 are as follows. Tom Hunter, yes. Portland Robertson, yes. Ryan Cannelli, yes. Tom Cherry, yes. Clay Target, yes. Paul Stone, yes. Scott Smith, yes. Brad Schuette, yes.

That passes. Thank you for following the proper procedure. Next petition, APC petition 2026-19 Park Road Radio LLC is requesting to rezone 8.92 acres from an A1 zoning classification to a B2 zoning classification. This request falls under Decatur County ordinance section number 1125 sub 23. Property is owned by the petitioner and is located at 1217 West Park Road, Greensburg in Washington Township.

We first of all just kind of want to squash the rumor about a data center. I don't know where that came from, but we have no intentions or had any conversation regarding that. we bought the property i think it was in 2010 and probably at that point it should have been a request to go from agriculture to business but at this time we're working on a business plan to somewhat restructure our technology and our equipment so you guys see the towers out there the towers are very expensive to maintain to upgrade to just in general and we have those two towers and we have a tower that we rent besides that so we've currently been working with an engineer to look at some options for us because like I said the cost is exorbitant of trying to keep everything and wear and tear finding people that actually do the maintenance and take care of that is really a problem and so what we would like to do is we are looking at like consolidating the FCC at this point in time, AM radio is, you know, kind of in the phase out and even the new cars and things, but the FCC, we can petition to them. If our engineers maps plans and everything come together, like we hope there's a consolidation to go from the three towers we currently are using. to one tower that we could upgrade. We could have the new equipment. We could have the FM back onto our property as opposed to the rented tower. And my goal is to make a stronger business presence with WTRE. At this point in time, we've got a lot of pieces to the whole puzzle. But going forward, we're hoping that we could get everything in order to make a stronger business presence. So when we apply to the FCC, they'll see that and put into place a succession plan for the next generation. Because I don't feel like if, if we don't do that and strengthen it a little bit, then there's not going to be the pieces there to keep it, keep it going.

The maintenance on the towers is extremely expensive and to find someone to climate tower right now, they're coming from Texas, generally speaking. to get them to go up. It's eight to 12 weeks. So every time we have an issue with a tower and to have them go up, we're waiting out. And the tower that we're renting on, we have to keep making repairs to that. And so we're investing in somebody else's equipment more or less. So this, we bring everything to our property. So it's just rezoning to make it all business property. And then we can petition with the FCC to go to one tower.

Because that would be more favorable to them. To have it. Obviously, you would be in correct zoning. Yeah. Whereas it's just been there forever. It has.

It's just been the cornfield forever, and we've just always, yeah.

The whole almost nine-ish acres, does it need to be, or is there some reasoning to making the whole thing business zoning?

Not really necessarily.

I'm just asking the question.

No, not necessarily. I guess I just look at it as it was the parcel, you know, and we've cut the hay off of it for the last 15 years and never really, you know, with the towers, the way they're situated and with the underground wiring, It's not something that can be farmed where you are going to turn the earth up because it's going to, you know, and several years ago they pulled the tower down by doing that. So, you know, I guess they're consideration either way.

I think I can see sort of. It's called a guy wire, what exactly that's called, but those kind of make that pretty well unusable.

There's three, and there's the three.

They come up on each tower, so it's around, is it 50 feet?

It has to have a 150-foot circumference by the FCC guidelines.

Sorry, we've had a lot of terminology in the last month or so trying to figure things out. I think that was my only question, and I understand. I just was curious if the whole thing should be, needed to be, but... And it's owned by the business.

It's owned by the business, so I think that's why she was going into the parcel.

I don't think there's a lot of... A LOT OF POTENTIAL FOR FURTHER DEVELOPING, SELLING OFF ADDITIONAL BUSINESSES. THERE'S A PRETTY GOOD LOW SPOT RIGHT THERE TO THE LESS. IT'S NOT GOING TO BE REAL CONDUCIVE TO DO A LOT.

IT'S AN ESTABLISHED DRAINAGE WAY. THERE'S A GAS LINE.

IT'S NOT A PRIZE PIECE.

THAT'S WHY THERE'S A RADIO STATION THERE. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR THOUGHTS FROM THE BOARD? I think I kind of have to agree. You've only got, I mean, the tower's gonna have to take up a substantial amount of room, regardless.

By the time you have the towers with ground under it, plus the guide wires on top of that, I mean, it's a pretty expansive area that that all could just cover.

Have any comments or questions from adjacent landowners? You could take the podium please and state your name and tell us your concerns.

My name is Dawn Barnes, and my husband Jim is right here, and my family owns property immediately west of the radio station. Actually, it's the Hayfield. We're right next to the Hayfield. And I would like to speak on the rezoning of the radio station from agricultural to business. You know, we have no business or commercial development on Park Road currently, unless you go all the way to the west and you get to the country club, which is the clubhouse there. There are... No residential homes that far west, if you go all the way down there. The area consists along Park Road of farm ground, agricultural, and residential homes, which the homes are estimated to have a value, I looked into that, of $200,000 to $900,000 plus. The area where the radio station is located was at one time a residence with an agricultural acreage, which the radio station took the residence and made it into a business location for our local WTRE station. Now the building is essentially a residential building. It still has area like bedrooms, kitchen, bath, that kind of stuff. So it could be used again for a radio station if they vacated the building. To my knowledge, the radio station was grandfathered in for this use over 60 years ago. I do understand or I've heard that you guys are trying to clean up these grandfathered areas. Is that right?

As they come to us, yes.

Okay. If you decide you need to change a portion of the property to business, why not do what you did, the 75 acres that was agricultural in St. Paul for the Rex pipeline? I believe the entire property was not rezoned for the pipeline, only the footprint of the building was rezoned. The same thing could be done here with the radio station, just rezoned the residential building being utilized as the radio station office to be to and leave the rest agricultural And that would take care of your cleanup endeavor that you're trying to do. There are some neighbors here and others that I've spoken to that were not able to be here this evening would like to see it stay agricultural. To sum up my comments, this is a residential area and the radio station does not need to be fully rezoned to continue operating. It's been operating for over 60 years there. So I don't know why it needs to be changed now. All that does is open up potential for a different business later on if you change the zoning then if they sell it then somebody else could put strip mall or I mean you know different things anyway so if you incur we encourage you please rezone the eight point nine two acres of agricultural ground to business in our nice quiet to residential area on Parker questions for me before I sit down

I don't think so, and you're right, it's not, that's what kind of started my comment about whether the whole parcel needed to be rezoned or not, and your point about not rezoning 75 acres is exactly an example of when we try not to make large sweeping changes like that, but it is, is quite different 75 to nine and in this case basically the explanation is that there's it's not just a building there are multiple towers with guy wires and things like that so uh but but very very good points i i you're very well heard okay thank you yes thank you john I think that is their long-term plan to not.

I think it's all we're trying to do is say, hey, we're doing one tower. Let's just own that one tower. We're going to need to zone nine acres. That's something else we can do later. It's a beautiful area. I've seen it my whole life. My father and I left to go join the Army and come back, but I'm raising the fourth generation of our family right there. Nobody on Park Road wants to see something like that. I'm putting on something else, right? What we don't want to hear is later on, night anchors have been rezoned in something right next door. Zone that tower. We love the radio station. No one wants the radio station to go away.

Thank you. Understood. Thank you.

Anyone else in the audience? What's the board think?

How difficult is it to rezone a fraction?

Would that require a survey, Andy, if we were to... Well, I think your problem you're going to run into is you've got a building footprint and a tower. I mean, I think it would have to be a chunk.

Yeah, it's got to be.

Well, even if we made it a smaller chunk, it would be less desirable because it's still the majority of the property would be agricultural. You know, that's just what I'm, when you look at a parcel here, you know, is this, To give them enough room, which I would assume the tower would likely go directly behind the radio station where the furthest east one is now. Or do you probably don't even know that you're too far down the road. The easements are easy. I mean, that's that's a common. So you have that footprint.

Is there any other way we can protect the future? I totally get what they're saying.

No, I understand. That's what this is for. I mean, this conversation is why we're here. One of my initial concerns was exactly that. But my concerns went away some when I felt like developing it through that low area right there would present a lot of challenges. And you had mentioned that that's a drainage way.

The Greensburg would control. They would because there's an outfall from and all of this is surrounded by the city of Greensburg except for those two houses and the radio station. The field to the south, the city of Greensburg, that was several years ago that that property was rezoned and never developed.

How is it zoned?

It's resident. It's for a subdivision.

Okay.

Yeah, and then when you skip on down, then it goes back to county. Yeah, it's all back and forth down Park Road, which is fine.

From Heather all the way to the corner is all county.

Yes. But I was just referring to the drainage. That would be complicated at best.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a pleasant business. It's like our concern. You wouldn't put, like, a nice, you know, like, you're going to do something kind of nasty there.

Yeah, the only problem with a partial rezone now with them not knowing where the tower is going to go, but they need a rezone to pursue the FCC, which is, I mean, I understand their point because in order for the FCC to look favorably upon them and say, yes, you can have this tower, but you don't have a business because it's in agricultural. So that's why they're trying to rezone. Sure. Yeah, because it was grandfathered in by the FCC when Heaven's Oast Towers had been there. I may have tried to climb them one time 40 years ago.

We see this as well with other businesses that want to go to, like, Secretary of State. They've got to have zoned business to become an official business. So business is zoning. So not an uncommon thing for us to see this. Somebody that has a small car lot that wants to go to the Secretary of State and get the next level of zoning. They can't just have it out of their garage at home. So I hear you. I really do. It makes sense. So is it possible to leave anything along the road? We're not going to put a tower in this drainage area.

Paul, Missy and I had this conversation. The towers are relevant, isn't it? Because we put towers on A2 all the time. Yeah, we move them to A2. But the business itself would need to be in the B2.

So what would happen if something like this were B-Zoned?

I don't even know if I'd go that far. I would stay within the footprint of their yard. The northeast corner of the parcel.

What is all out under B2?

I was going to let her. But it's a pretty extensive list. You don't get into any of the manufacturing or any of that, but it is a pretty extensive list.

Like a strip mall wouldn't be allowed? Yeah, I think so. Okay.

Yeah, that's a common one. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think of that?

In other words, that seems logical to me.

Because then the tower could still go... off of that zoned B2. We would have, we would probably have to switch that to an A2 at that time, would that be correct?

And what you all need is for your business address to be commercially zoned, business zoned, I assume. That's the gate to get through? I understand.

It matches the use.

That's just my thought that we would go that route as far as the footprint of the mowed yard that they normally maintain. The mowed area, yeah. That small parcel where the building is now.

If you didn't pick up on it, we've had several cell towers, things like that, that we didn't change the zoning of that parcel for that because a tower is a permitted use in A2. It doesn't have to be I or B to allow that. So it can stay in agriculture zoning. A2 was developed basically. Yeah, you've got a house.

Your existing footprint, what I would call your mowed yard is one acre, the driveway to the road. I just worry about anything with doing a footprint because if they wanted to do any sort of an addition on there to add a studio for Paul's morning show, that's where the footprint I think would I just don't like... Yeah. That would be my pitch. Does that, Kathy, sound reasonable? I mean, that gives you, you know, everything that you needed, and it kind of balances between turning it all into a bee which can open Pandora's box, you know, because... We don't know what will happen in 15 years and that's where we're trying to balance this out. Just like that's why you're doing this because you don't know. Yes, yes. So what would that require then? Would they need to survey that prior to us approving?

say something like approximately one acre on the northeast corner or something and then that could be further defined I think it's the right move rather than doing the whole nine acres I don't think that it I don't think that it provides any real advantage to the need that they have. To either group, really.

Okay. And that should give you all some comfort that we're not. Yeah, I mean, it's a good compromise. You know, one acre is not going to get developed. But the whole 8.5 or 8.9, you just don't know. Because that way if we did need to add a footprint for a tower, we could save you the trouble down the road. We could do it all right now, correct? Since it would still be smaller. We may have two chunks or you may have a little strip that comes off of the back.

Yeah, I think that's a wise move. If you all aren't pushing on this from a time standpoint, basically explain to them that the county has asked that as opposed to changing with a broad brush nine acres that we rezone one acre, which gives you guys enough room should you change the footprint. But then also we could go ahead and potentially approve a future A2 for where a tower could be, which would come up to our consistency with how we've done this in the past, if that's okay with you all.

Sure.

Do we need a motion to table? I need a motion.

Would there be mail sent out again, or what would... No, it just appears at the next meeting and each meeting thereafter until it's decided.

Just walk over and ask Kathy.

So, yeah, a tabled item by default goes on to the agenda the next month. So by default it would be, but you could call the office and ask if they've asked for us to table it again or not before. If you could.

If you didn't, if that wasn't enough time for your engineer to get back with you, let them know and we'll just do a vote again to table and to carry it on to give you some more time. Does that sound okay to you all? Okay. I need a motion.

Okay, so I make a motion that we table APC 2026-19 until next month.

Second? Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Okay, your tables. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Now we will move on to the Decatur County Revitalization Project Show Cause Hearing. I will preface this as I always do. This is just to grant an extension on to the things that have already been set into motion and all of these complaints have been filed by neighbors. It's not Doug, it's not anyone on the board going out looking at these things. These are formal complaints that due to our new ordinance Doug handles and once that process is started, this is just one step in the process to grant more time for cleanup. Once this process starts, if the cleanup is not completed, then eventually it will move on to the court so the first one on the docket is our 2026-32 brenda barraza and edith menares do we have a representative for that one And without a representative, we will still need a motion to move this on to a court date.

I'll make a motion that we move show cause hearing number 32 on to court.

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay, that one moves on. Next on the list is R2026-33, Brian and Tina Moore. Brian? Had to sit through the whole BZA meeting and everything.

My name is Brian Moore. I received a letter, I believe it was January 6th, asking me to do some things in my yard and my roof. It was kind of cold and bad weather, so I got a hold of Mr. Westerfield over here, and we came up with an agreement of April the 15th, and everything was completed. And I don't remember if we spoke, but I did contact him to make sure that he knew it was done. And then I received another letter. I believe it was July 23rd. I didn't really care for the sleight of hand said that I received a letter on January making it look like I hadn't done anything since January This was you know our agreement was April so April May June July I received another letter July the 23rd I believe stating that I was notified, January, like I hadn't done anything, that I need to be here tonight. Now, everything was done, and I don't know if it's in those pictures, that one picture there got my canopy up there. I bought a, you know, I have chickens, and as far as I know, there is no rule or regulation about having chickens in cages. And every time you look in there, you'll see, I mean, it's weedy there, but those are mainly flowers in the front. And then I got, you know, out of control weeds there in the middle picture. But that is a new canopy that I set up and the cages do not look very good. I'm not the neatest person, but I do care about their health, so I use sheet supply wood. Sometimes I use feed sacks to separate the cages, and sometimes they get disarray, and it does look a little bit messy, in my opinion, but I'm not out there to be the neatest person. If that is a problem, I can remove them to the backyard. Now, out of all those cages, you'll see there's a trailer there by my black truck. Those are cages stacked on there that I'm taking somewhere. There's only one cage that's permanent in my front yard. And like I said, if you say, oh, Brian, we don't want no chickens in your front yard, then I'll remove them. I don't really care. But why do I have cages in my front yard? Well, I hate to admit it, I'm a little old, and it is very difficult to carry them up my heel and load them. So if I don't sell a bird, I usually put it in a cage, and two, three, four or five days later, I take it to another swap. But like I said, if you don't want my cages, In my front yard, I can remove them, but that's why my yard is a little messy. I mean, you can't see my yard because of the darn weeds right there in my flower bed, but I did weed eat it at least twice so far, but it does need weed eating again. And... There's only one cage that is permanently there, meaning it stays in the front yard. And it's a cage I made, and it has some Lakenfelters that are show chickens that I do not sell. But if you don't want it there, I can remove it.

So basically, Brian, what we're doing tonight is granting you more time. And I think the board can speak to this. It's just a matter of removing clutter. straightening things up you know you started in the right direction and then the clutter came back so I think you know really all we can do tonight is grant you say 30 more days and that gives you the time basically try to remove the clutter cleans and straightens and things up and then if it's meeting the ordinance with the clutter being gone, you'll be okay. If not, you'll end up going to court and you plead this to a judge. The same argument, which a judge would then rule on that.

So if I can make the cages look neat, I'm okay, or you do not want the cages there. That's what I need to know. All those vehicles are my vehicles that I drive.

Yeah, I think, just kind of to back up a little bit, We have had the conversations about him cleaning it up, but what generated this most recent was I was notified by a commissioner to say, hey, we really need to do something. And I literally, I get an email every other week on this property. And I got a call from the commissioner. I guess animal control was contacted. That's what was told to me. Animal was controlled. They came out and looked at my cages. Because the neighbors, issues with the neighbors, I'm getting the emails. So that's what generated this most recent letter was emails from the neighbors, phone call from the commissioner, and animal control had to be called out to the property.

So all these, I'm looking at the, drone view or whatever we got.

So what I sent out was the most recent aerial picture from Decatur County, which was like February. That was a flyover on February, March of 2026.

Does it look like that today?

No, I cleaned everything up, not in the front yard. In the backyard, in the backyard, I got several, you know, several things set up, but I mean, it doesn't bother anybody. I mean, My backyard.

Well, I think that's where some of the complaints are coming from.

Well, you know, this was started by a man who doesn't want wood on his property. So he takes his firewood and all his scrap metal and he piles it behind my house. Not on his property. And he's the one that calls you every, you know, complains to everybody. He'd call a tick police if he could. You know, you think that's the first time animal control? He calls them every week. They come out, they see that they got food and water, and they said, hey, you know, they look good. And I said, hey, he complains about everything. You know, he's the guy that I came home to get my mom to take her to the doctor's office, and he's in my mom's backyard. With some guy. I mean, he's always, I don't know, I mean.

Well, unfortunately, that's not an argument for us because the only thing that we can do is grant you more time.

But do you want my chickens not in the front yard? Is that what you want?

I think the important thing to note is front yard, back yard, doesn't matter. It's on the parcel. And the first letter went in January to be cleaned up by April.

We're four months past that.

It was all cleaned up. You want my backyard neat and tidy too? Who's coming in my backyard? It's got a fence on one side.

Yeah, it's got a fence.

It's over your head. It's over my head. I don't have any salvage. It's chickens.

So basically, we can only grant you an extension.

Do you want my backyard cleaned up too?

My chickens? All the clutter is going to have to go. I mean, that's just part of it. Anything that can be seen from the road is going to be an issue.

I can't see the backyard. My house blocks the whole thing. The front yard will be spotless, but I think it's ridiculous you're asking me to move cages in the backyard.

I think we're focused on the cages, but I think there's more than that going on.

I don't have any trash.

What I can see from the pictures, and I'll take the time to direct. Well, it doesn't matter.

If there's trash, like I said, there are going to be feed sacks or pieces of plywood. I use the shade, the side of the cages or the top to keep the rain on.

Everything in the backyard is all cages.

No, not in the backyard.

I mean the entire property.

I've never been asked anything about the backyard, always the front yard.

I want to be very clear with you. I think there's more to this than the cages. That's why I'm trying to prepare you to be ready to go in front of a judge. I don't have any say in this. Like Brad said 30 times, the only thing we can grant you is a 30-day extension. If the property does not meet the ordinance, can we get him a copy of the ordinance?

The ordinance has been sent to him.

Okay, so you have a copy of the ordinance in the notice that was sent to you.

And all that stuff was removed from the front yard. I mean, I didn't know anything about the backyard.

You can just leave clutter and stuff like that.

Did you release the property in April as being 100% cleaned up? No. Then it wasn't ever cleaned up. He didn't say it's good.

I called and either talked to you or left a message. I Removed all that and I cleaned up the front yard That you know There's a trailer sitting there and there's a bunch of wood that was leaned up against it for about two weeks because when I brought the wood home to put on my garage My back went out when I was unloading it so it was there for like two or three weeks and But if you want the backyard done too, I mean, no, I didn't do the backyard. Nobody said anything about my backyard, and no one has ever said anything about it.

Well, like I said, we've gotten recent complaints, and now we have new aerial of recent aerial of the property, so it allows us to take a look at it.

If we... 30 more days, if we look at the history... of communications and then the if we do what we you know when's the next court date september 25th then after that it's october the 4th but and then there's another date he probably wouldn't be on the september 25th

we can send it on now and he'll have over 30 days regardless so if within 30 days you get it to where you think it should be and contact Doug and make sure that it is within the ordinance otherwise you'll see the judge and you can plead that case to the judge

Yeah.

So, and here it's on Friday. So, I know what the property looks like the week of court.

And if it doesn't need to go to court, then I will take it to court. If there's any other cases, I can go there. But if it still needs to go to court, it's there.

Well, do I need to call you or do I need to call Doug?

Yeah, call Doug and the process will proceed from there. All right.

I appreciate your time.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed nay. There are no door prizes for everybody.