Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

20th meeting of the plan Commission to order and we have roll call please Meredith Jason Carnahan here Helen Dooley bill van why Sandy Harrison Jerry odor yes Frank Palmer Suzanne Davis here Angie Holt here higher Lanning Alicia Rogers here Mike McCarrow which Andrew Cruz Chris Palmer Meredith right here

We now stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We'll now have a moment if someone would like to lead us in a word of prayer.

It's bar heads. Father God, it says in your word that where two or more are gathered, you will be here also. We invite you in, Lord, to this meeting so that we can make decisions, Lord, for you and your kingdom, Lord, and also for the residents of this DeKalb County, Lord. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

You should have received the minutes from the April meeting in your packet. If there's no additions or corrections, I would entertain a motion to approve.

I'll move to approve.

I'll second. I have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

All those in favor? I do have a question. I do have one. I talked to Meredith about it. On page three, it says Mr. Dooley answered it on one instead of on. She knows the difference, though. That's just one word to change.

Okay Now if there's no other Corrections we would vote to approve signify by saying aye aye oh same Minister approved same with the claims from April packet would entertain a motion to approve As presented Second I Have a motion in a second to approve the claims from April all those in favor say aye. Aye. Oh same Claims are approved Chris old business nothing Okay, new business is petition 2618 during this hearing the Planning Commission will consider a text amendment to establish a developed standard development standards and definitions for animal feeding operations and diversified small-scale agriculture Various minor divisions may be minor revisions may be necessary to make these amendments for example page number section numbers, etc. I

Ready? Yes, sir. So the ordinance review committee met to review animal feeding operations and how we currently address these type of facilities in DeKalb County. These would be any type of facility that is under the IDEM regulations for confined feeding operations. I'm not going to read through all of this that's new, but what has been proposed is definitions for an animal feeding operation, and then diversified small scale agriculture, and then removing hobby farming from our ordinance. The hobby farming is in the UDO in the definitions, but not anywhere else. So I'm not sure what the use or what the purpose of having hobby farming in the definitions was if you're not going to have it as a permitted use or in the ordinance elsewhere. So removing that. And basically what we did is combine hobby farming with... Oops, sorry. We combined hobby farming with animal feeding operations. So if you can just take a look at that. And then on page two, showing where we added animal feeding operations and then diversified small-scale agriculture and what the differences are between the two. For the development standards, I guess the one thing that's important to note is that the animal thresholds are anything between, for cattle and calves, 25 to 299. For swine or small ruminants, sheep or goats, 50 to 599. Poultry, 100 to 29,999. And horses, 10 to 499. Setbacks for the front, the side, and the rear would all be 100 feet. And the setback for anything that would be adjacent to a residential zoning district is 300 feet. The justification there, we, the committee decided that there was a need for standards that fell below the item CFO regulations. And How currently we review these projects is through our technical review committee, through our improvement location permit application. So the health department reviews it for septic connections when applicable. In a lot of cases, it's just not required due to the absence of restroom facilities. The highway department reviews it and approves the driveway access on county roads. NDOT reviews and approves for state roads. The County Surveyor and Drainage Board reviews and approves the drainage plans and regulates the offsite water. And the Soil Water Conservation District reviews it for the Soil Water Pollution Prevention Plan and ensures compliance with IDEM's construction stormwater general permit. So we don't issue any permits until we receive approvals from those four departments. The Ordinance Review Committee was tasked with evaluating this use and developing enforceable standards for AFOs. And the committee did consider several regulatory approaches, including the minimum acreage requirements with increased setbacks, minimum acreage with existing setbacks, and increased setbacks alone. And after that review, the committee determined that it was most effective to establish just increased setbacks in conjunction with the animal unit thresholds, and then creating definitions for animal feeding operations and diversified small-scale agriculture. The committee met, I believe, Jason, was it three or four times? At least three times, yeah, in committee. to review this and have lengthy discussions and spirited discussions, I would say, about these operations and how to move forward. So with that, I'd ask for comments or questions from the Land Commission at this time.

Chris, on the list of properties that you included with that, those would be considered AFOs then under the new standard, or how does that work?

Correct. And thank you for bringing that up. The list that is incorporated in your packet is the list that we currently have from 2020 to 2026. Anything after March is what we received complaints on. And I say complaints because it's been more, I wouldn't say complaints, but based off of just speculation and hearsay more so than actual complaints on projects. So what I did here was just show the projects that we currently have, or not the projects, but the sites that are currently in existence, what their minimum acreages are, what the building square foot size is, the head count, and then how far they are from the nearest foundation of a residence.

The ones that are highlighted, it says Gray Rose were before complaints. So the complaints you've gotten have been since that, well, the last one on the list there at Graber.

Right, right. And- Like I said, complaints probably isn't the word. I guess it would be more questions and concerns, thank you, about those projects. In regards to setback? There's been some that's regard to setback, some as regards to the disposal of deceased animals, manure storage, manure management. where the projects are located in general. Setbacks was part of that discussion.

We had some discussion on the committee about the foundation versus the property line. Maybe you can capture where we ended up on that, to the property line, right?

Yeah, we ended up 100 feet from the property line versus the residential structure. And partly because I think that we realized, I guess, I'm trying to think back a month or two ago, but, and feel free to speak up to everyone else that was on the committee. We felt as though that the setbacks from property lines made more sense from an enforcement, part of things than from the residence itself.

Well, and you can see, I mean, on the list of the distance to the nearest residence, every one of them exceeds what we've proposed already. To the foundation. Correct. So, I mean, they're all over 100 feet. One is at 100 feet, but the rest of them are well over. But, you know, we just saw that the lot size that had potential to get these buildings is getting smaller. So that was just kind of our thought was if the lot's going to get smaller, we want to make sure we put a little buffer on so it's not jammed into a corner of somewhere where it wouldn't be ideal to have it.

Yeah, and the committee did some calculations, too, just to figure out. what an average size of these operations are, which doesn't just include the building, but includes the building, the areas that they need to maneuver, where truck traffic comes in and out, any type of manure storage, any type of generator facilities. And that's about four to five acres. And so on a, and obviously, We're talking a square parcel here, but you need about 10 total acres. With our 100-foot setbacks, that only gives you about 4.9 acres left to build on. So even with these standards, someone's still going to need average 10 acres to put these projects.

And one of the other reasons we put it back 100 feet is that they had access to all sides of the barn instead of the 10 feet we wanted them to. Access right so ten feet Yeah, and you get that and yeah instead of a hundred feet from a foundation that might only give them ten feet in We want them farther away from the potentially.

I mean it depends on if there's an existing primary structure on the property. If there's an existing primary structure, then yes, it could be 10 feet, but if it's just that structure, yeah. Typically, they're going to be farther away than that, just because of, especially the last few that we've seen, the engineering drawings have come in with a significant area between them because of the drainage areas that are on either side of the buildings.

You guys come up with the numbers of the animals. What? Of the animals, like 10 horses being over 10 horses, 100 chickens.

So we had looked at other counties, what they had done, such as Casasco, LaGrange.

Remember who else we had looked at? We looked at Steuben's as well.

Steuben as well. So there are other counties that have ordinances in place or are working on their own as well. And this was just kind of, I guess, an average number of what they had either passed or were working on passing at this point.

And we looked at, too, what these numbers mean from going from a hobby farm or what we've changed to diversified small-scale agriculture, to where you're not making a commercial profit on it versus taking it into a commercial enterprise.

I mean, some of it was just kind of what made sense to you. Like, if you have 10 cattle, it could be like 4-H and freezer beef or whatever. But if you have 400 or 200 or, you know, whatever, that's going to be something that's more commercial. Then you're not going to eat that many. That kind of thing is what we've tried to talk through. So what makes sense could be used or, you know, shown and whatever in a year.

Any more discussion from or questions from anybody on on the board that's not on the committee have questions or I Will just raise that the committee did look at also things that we just can't enforce right like we can't enforce Potholes on County roads that's something the commissioners through the highway department would have to enforce we don't have the manpower, I guess, to enforce where this manure gets sold and gets placed on properties. There are other state and federal guidelines and authorities that can enforce those things that we just need to, I guess, for lack of a better term, stay out of, right? I mean, we decided that that just wasn't something the county needs to get into

as far as enforcement and regulation on And another thing is there several other counties is arguing with IDM and and the Kim Department that that's their responsibility because of the It's the waterways where they're at their post protection and they and they They are trying to get them to step up more because we can't we have no Authority at the state level you mean at the state level we have no authority so that kind of deal and everything So there's there's others counties is battling this issues that don't have the authority Or the I are you as do the work for it and everything There's other counties having the same issues as we have so right There was the state

Are you saying that the state is understaffed don't have the people I have no idea all the above Or is that would have no idea.

I mean, I just think the state is is who they are and You can call the state to regulate open dumping and they're not going to come out and do anything about it. I mean You guys have more interactions with the state than and I do on those type of things and I You know, if you're not, you're just not going to come out, right? Tax dollars at work? Well, I don't know if it's that. I think that everyone is stretched to their limit. I mean, if the planning commission and county commissioners would say, okay, plan commission, you're now going to go enforce manure application and count the number of animals that are out there and be out there when it rains to see where the drainage goes. No one else is getting a permit, right? Like, I'm going to be out there every day. It's just... And it's impractical, yeah.

Well, that's for these... Ones that are in gray here. That's where the neighbors were Leasing those different buildings and reporting stuff that was They felt wasn't quite kosher That's probably what's going to happen with the rest of them too if they see water runoff where it shouldn't be running off or they see Something out of the ordinary I'm sure there'll be some more gray areas on this sheet Maybe by by putting a restriction of a hundred feet off the property line and That's not going to take care of complaints You're still going to be getting complaints. Yes.

Yep. I I don't disagree.

I don't disagree. Was odor, I'm trying to think back to the committee, odor is part of the discussion, but I think with different types of farming, there can be different levels of odor, right? And that's why you might not move it five foot from a foundation. You'd want at least 100 foot from a property.

Maybe. I mean, I think. My philosophy on living in the country and odor is you live in the country, and there's odor, right? But, yeah.

Any more discussion? Do you want to bring up that correspondence now or later? We'll now open it up to the public you speak on this proposal for or against or whatever state your name address Try to keep it fairly brief to the point good And whoever's up first please just make sure the microphone is on Hey, Tim Haines 1499 Cairo 40

We are one of these, well, we're not on the list, but we should be, number-wise, but we were earlier. The 100-foot setback, I don't see that being an issue. One question I do have on that is to the foundation. So how does driveway or parking area between that and the 100 affect that? Because I know there's been questions that it's to the driveway, not to the foundation. So... well from the property line to the foundation, but if you have a drive in between there, how does that?

Just a building. So you're fine.

But you're good there. You're talking about the state agencies, if you put this into place and add these numbers, the state chemist's office covers this area now. So now if you put an ordinance in, does that move the responsibility to you on the head count and stuff? Would be a question I would have because that's the question. I mean, if there is a question or concern as to if somebody's over the number count, who's responsible for checking that out? I think at this point right now, it goes back to the state not EPA or not IDEM, you know, that's the ones that are above the levels. So, but if you guys put an ordinance in, does that bring the responsibility to you, even though you don't want it? Because now you put the numbers in, I guess is my question.

It does. Yeah.

So you might have to learn to count. Yeah. So.

We'd be counting, we did the calculations once, Charity in my office, and we'd be counting seven days a week, 24 hours a day, on 27,000 chickens. And that's just not practical. So the committee needs to realize that too, that if we get a complaint that someone's at 30,001 chickens, what do you want us to do about that?

At that point, I mean, one step would be to report it to the state item. They're violating items rules at that point, probably. Right. At 30,001, but... Correct.

But if it's... Correct, but he's right that our numbers are requiring us to enforce that as well. Right.

And I don't have a problem with the numbers. I understand how you got them. You know, my one concern, too, as a producer, if you come to me and say, prove me your numbers, well, I'm under that, you know, sign a paper, I don't know if that's... Any justice you know I can show you with our robot farm. I can pull up numbers and show you I'm milking or 245 cows today, so but you know if if you don't have that are you just asking somebody to Say yeah, I'm under the 300 or the threshold Well, I mean I think that if there is a reasonable belief about a violation then we would pursue it like a violation of anything I

other ordinance and Potentially if it's serious enough you might have to go to court and get an order to go count I mean because it is private property So it you know, but I think going to court would be an option. Hopefully we wouldn't have to do that It's the only option we have yeah

Hi, I'm Rick Gerke. I live on 4721 County Road 64. And they just put in a barn, chicken barn, a year ago next to us. And 100 feet is nothing for the smell. You go out there, that smell goes half mile. I have a daughter that has bad lungs because of COVID. I have a granddaughter who has asthma real bad, I have a neighbor that has lung cancer, and we're all within a little bit more than a stone's throw away from this barn. And we've all been out there 20, 25 years, and this barn, or people that put in the barn, has been there two years. So there is six houses within that area that's getting affected by this barn. Now, I admit, it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. But still, we've been out there 20-some years. They come out there two years, and they throw this barn in. Now, is that fair? I just think you need to go out and look to see where these barns are going in at. And think of the people that are living around them and how fair it is to them. We've been out there, like I said, 20-some years. And they come out and live there for two years. I know they have a right to put in a barn, have a living, but we've been out there a long time too. So I think you do need to think about these barns. And the water don't stay within 100 feet. The smell don't stay within 100 feet. And we all suffer from it. But I do admit it doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would.

Does that smell every day, or is there a certain day? Well, for us, it depends which way the wind's blowing.

Of course. And we're west of it. Of course, that would kill me more. But like I said, to me, it's just not fair. I know they need to make a living. That's true. But we've been out there 27 years. Should we get punished for it? No. So, anyway. Really think about go out and look see where they're putting them in at how many houses are affected by people's lives When it does smell my daughter my granddaughter's gotta go in the house.

Yeah, and then that smell I Just want to remind everyone that we're here to talk about the setbacks and not permitting the use itself The use is permitted Buy right right now with 30 foot setbacks off the property line or 10 feet 10 foot setbacks off the property line We're not here to talk about whether we're going to permit them or we're not going to permit them. They're already permitted we're here to talk about revising the ordinance to tighten up the definitions and tighten up the setbacks Just so everyone's aware and in the audience What the Planning Commission is here to talk about tonight is not whether we're gonna permit them or not. I

My name is Russell rhyme I live at seven six one nine County Road 68 The property was purchased by my father in 1978 I have effectively lived on that property my entire life When we moved out into the rural area I There were certain expectations. And there are farms out there. That's what you're buying into when you purchase rural property. But when you buy next to 100 acres of wheat or corn, and it is then changed from its primary use from one type of agriculture to another without any consideration for those who live there, It is a problem. And so when you say 100 foot setback, that doesn't cover the damage that is gonna be done to our property values and to our enjoyment of life. You think that because we live in the country, we should just have to put up with it. Because we've made the decision to live in the country. No, we made a decision to live the way it was when we purchased. It is the responsibility of the county commissioners to keep our property values high and to make sure that our quality of life is maintained. We can't do it ourselves. So your job as county commissioners is to defend us. to protect us and our property values and our way of life. And saying, well, you live in the country, you just have to live with it, is not your job. To the contrary, your job is to protect us and represent us. So 100 feet is not far enough. It's not even a start of far enough. And when you say 100 feet is OK, or you say, well, They're gonna take five acres to set up their operation, so they're gonna need at least a minimum of 10 acres. That's not what this says. It doesn't say a minimum of 10 acres. It says that they can have 299 head of cattle, but it doesn't give an acreage. Is that on one acre or is it on 50 acres? This is so vague as to be useless. So if you want to set setbacks, set them back meaningfully so that people aren't losing the enjoyment and the value of their property. And set a restriction that will keep people from cramming these animals into tiny spaces and thus devaluing our property and our homes. That's your job. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Susan Catterall. I live at 5400 South, 350 East Hamilton, Indiana. I'm a Steuben County resident. I work with an environmental group that handles the tri-state area. In the past several months, I've been called to DeKalb County to file, and I have filed complaints, two with the state chemist's office and one with the Indiana Department of Environment Management. The one with item was so bad that they said they would be out the next day to investigate it. This was one of... farms probably on your sheet I would imagine and I just want to say that this doesn't go far enough and that this has to be reined in and we're trying to do that in Steuben County right now because we have a real problem a real problem I test water that's what I do and I'm telling you the numbers are bad when I tested down here This last month, after a big rain coming out of a barn, the ammonia level was 10.5. It's not supposed to be any higher than 0.21. At 0.21, Ivan says, you've got a big problem. It was 10.5. The phosphorus level was 2.5. It's not supposed to be any higher than 0.05. even contacted the DeKalb County Health Department and they said they would go and look because they can also file a complaint with IDEM so when you're looking at these ordinance you need to think about the pollution too not just the animal numbers but it's a manure issue we have a manure issue Steuben County it's horrible before commissioners could sign this manure ordinance that we just passed They put up four barns as fast as they could put them up because we didn't grandfather in anything. Everything that's already up doesn't count. They put up four massive barns just so they could beat this ordinance because they know what's coming. So I'm just telling you that this is something you need to address and it needs to be addressed now because the numbers that we're getting for our water testing, they're horrible numbers. They're bad, horrible numbers. And all this water eventually goes where I'm at testing. It's going into the St. Joe River. It's going to Fort Wayne. It's going to the Maumee River. And it's going to Lake Erie. And we all know what the problem with Lake Erie is. So I'm just saying that you're on the right track with this. And like in Steuben County, we're starting small. But this is something that we want to build on. We don't want this to be the end of our ordinances. This is something we want to build on because I'm telling you, this is a big problem, a really big problem.

Hi, I'm Bob Sullivan, 6618 County Road 75. Much like you've heard from the other people, I have concerns over the change that's occurring in the county. I think the increased setbacks is a great start. You can pass the rule tomorrow, make it go, increase the setbacks, but it's not enough. Next week, let's start talking about bigger setbacks. Let's start doing that. Immediately going to 100 foot, 300 foot setbacks is a start, better than 30 foot, but it's not enough. And the exact same concerns as everyone else. One other concern as I read in the proposal, there's a 300 foot from residential. Is that only from R1 type of designation, not a property with a residence? It'd be nice if there could be consideration of increased setbacks if there is an adjoining property with residents instead of being an R1 or residential zone. Thanks.

Hi, Jonas Edgar, 6858 County Road 75. Lived in the county for 44 years. Parents lived out there, County Road 75, for probably about 50 years. Right now, there's at least 15 of these operations that aren't on this list out on the east side of the county, and I don't know if they have to be permitted or non-permitted, but I know of at least 15 of them that aren't on here that fall in these categories of the 300 or the 299 or less cattle. I'm in a situation where my neighbors have contacted me. They want to put in these operations. One's on a 5.7 acre lot that's up to my property. The other one's on a nine point some acre lot. And my house is in the center of my property, so if both of them build the operations that they want to build, it's going to affect our quality of life very significantly. I see how it affects my parents out on 75 on the other side of the bridge. There's no manure management out there. It is terrible. And I'm just going down a rabbit hole. I've been uneducated about all this, but... The more and more I learn, the more and more I'm in disbelief. I've talked to a lot of people. I could have probably 500 signatures for a petition within seven days in this county. And I think the setbacks are a good start, but 100 feet, I don't think it's good enough. If we could do the setbacks with solar the way they had them, and that'd be larger than what we have for any of this, I think that'd be a start. Thank you.

Scott Seiler, 5038 County Road 52. Sorry, you guys get to see me again here. I really do appreciate the work by the committee. It is a good start. And honestly, let's just all be honest for one second. We wouldn't need any of these rules or any regulations or any extra enforcement if they would do what they said they would do. We fought the one beside our house and all the things I brought up to the committees and commissioners at that time. fears we had have been all realized. The manure is just shoved outside. It's left outside, been outside all winter. It runs down the drainage right to the creek. The abusers of the system is what it's all about. I appreciate your work. Again, it's a good start, but we've got to get it further away, and we've got to reference it to existing residences that are close to these barns. There is times it stinks so bad we just have to go inside. Now, it's not all the time, but, I mean, it's horrible bad. And I just appreciate your consideration to those that live out here where the people coming in, putting these in, don't really care about being neighborly. That's what it all amounts to. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Dr. Jim Smith, address 15936 Rupert Road, Graybill. While we're comparing sizes of our property, my family has continuously owned property in DeKalb County since 1855. I farm in southeast DeKalb County. We also own property. In addition to that, I'm an international swine consultant. I work in China, United States, helping large swine producers. So I understand where we are with raising large-scale livestock. But there's two questions I have for you. One, has the committee addressed adjacency? Now, we're fearful of CAFOs because they're the boogeyman. But if we have two 20-acre properties that both have 27,000 chickens on it, collectively it's a CAFO. So has the committee addressed the number of animals we have in a section or number of animals on touching properties? The second point that's been brought up very eloquently by other people, as the committee addressed some of the same things we talked about on the solar, of having buffer strips, planting trees, ways that we can make some of these properties a little more pleasing, address some of the wind issues. I know in Iowa, they're doing a lot with windbreaks around CAFOs to help with wind flow. have some of the particulate and air fall out before it goes across the property line. So I was wondering if the committee had looked at buffer strips and trees in addition to the setback.

Hi there, I am Beth Siler, and I'm from 5038 County Road 52, and we were here a couple of years ago, and we had a couple hundred signatures because we wanted just a little bit more scrutiny with these barns when they were coming in. They are commercial operations, and they do work with corporations. They're not just family farms. So my question is, how do we prevent these barns from being subdivided and then multiple farms being put in, you know, these high-intensity agriculture, because it does affect our property values and our quality of life. I do agree that you are a worker to protect us, and we just would like a little more scrutiny, even if the county council can review these, you know, get everyone involved and just have more hands so we don't have the issues that we've had. We can tell you more specifically if you're interested. It's not really.

Hi, I'm Corey Fogle. I live at 53A, counter of 51. I just wanted to propose something to the council just to consider You talked about how enforcing animal numbers is gonna be really, really difficult on the county level, and I 100% agree. And you may have already discussed this, but Would it be easier to enforce for the county if you looked at average structure size per number of animals? Like most of the chicken barns out by us are the same size. So could the county limit structure size so that they couldn't fit more animals in, right? Because they're not gonna cram 50,000 chickens or hogs into a building that is sued for numbers underneath regulatory limits. Just something to think about. You guys may have already discussed that. Thank you.

Anybody else from the audience wish to speak before we close the public comment portion? We'll close.

Close public comment portion and continue on With the findings or whatever of the only the only thing that I'd like to add is that we did receive from the Silas an email that went out to I forwarded on to the whole playing Commission This morning, so I think everybody got it And everybody read it I assume I can read it if Jason if you want me to or if You can just all acknowledge that you received it. That way it was sent on.

You don't need to read it. I mean, everybody on the committee got it. Okay. And you can make it part of the record for tonight, maybe?

Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

As for a text amendment or anything, there's not really findings. I mean, I guess there is a jurisdictional finding, but then there's... ORDINANCE REQUIREMENTS TO CONSIDER? ANDREW CAN EXPLAIN THE PROCESS.

I GUESS WOULD IT BE APPROPRIATE TO HAVE ANY OF THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS DISCUSS WHATEVER THE They would want to from the public discussion if they want to yeah at this point Maybe this would be a way to handle that if the public discussion.

Yeah, I heard a couple of themes I guess one of them is enforcement And and I that's really not within the realm of the discussion here although as we mentioned before the plan commission does try to make rules that are enforceable and We did discuss in the committee that some things we had discussed wouldn't be enforceable. It's nothing we could Follow up on or that we could count or whatever so we decided not to put something in it because it just wasn't practical I think the other element and maybe Chris you can help as well is on the manure control and again This is part of an enforcement thing what the justification and the the departments that are going to review the various components of the project. Can you speak to that? That's included as part of the, the animal feeding operations and, and so like the drainage boards, um, responsibility for some of that, at least.

So part of it is the plan commission is for the plan commission's zoning ordinance is for citing of, of structures and uses. Right. Um, so with that, um, we can't, review drainage, what the health department reviews, driveway locations, and the soil water pollution prevention plan. So we rely on those other departments to review those applications and have those technical skills to approve those. It does go to the full drainage board, which is the three commissioners plus two residents of the county for approval for the drainage plans. But again, as we've talked, we did discuss how do we review or how do we enforce complaints that come from people spreading manure or manure being stored for extended periods of time when there's already state enforcement agencies for those issues. And I think the people that are here that can speak to that can speak way more eloquently than I can about that. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. Well, and the expectation is that we're writing this with the expectation that people are going to follow it and that there's a whole other course that takes place and different enforcement Agencies that are responsible to enforce that we're writing this with the expectation that people are going to comply And do everything we can to make sure that that is they are held to compliance.

I think it's these the smaller operations that Don't That item isn't involved in Maybe is what we should be looking at a little closer as far as the building structures where they can Hold their manure hold it in a tank or in a certain area where they're not going to get run off and then I Think maybe we could do something there as far as the actual building, you know part of manure retainment and different things like

Definitely be done, but I'm gonna rely on the committee that was there the four of you guys to step in and discuss that because it was all I mean Some of that was discussed of how do we how do we how do we do that? You know I leave we don't Does the Planning Commission want to get into?

Manure management practices and I think that's what that's a that's a very slippery slope of regulating already permitted uses to the minute detail because then we have to do that on Every use not just AG has to go into all of our industrial uses and I mean, you know We're gonna monitor all that stuff as well We don't have we don't have the power to do what we do now the manpower We definitely can't send Chris into a into a factory and say well, I think no your your particular levels too high or you know That's not know anything that we're here for and so I don't know how we would regulate and Already permitted use clear down to that level. You know, I mean if somebody that has 10 cattle and pollute just as quicker quicker than somebody with 400 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

They put up a small building. It should still have some containment areas for the for the manure so it's not Let out I mean, I don't disagree. I just don't know how we control that that would be that would be in the Land use when they apply for with their building. They should have drawings and and tell you how they're gonna What they're gonna put in for or holding tanks or holding bunkers It's gonna hold that that would be under the development plan and we don't look at that until that development plan comes through, right?

That's not part of the initial process.

No, no, no But that would be part of the permitting. That would be part of it, though, that we would look at later.

The plan commission would have to require that as part of the plans.

Mm-hmm.

Public portion is closed. Yeah, I can see.

We can't. I mean, unless the board wants to reopen the public comment, then that's up to you guys if somebody wants to make that motion.

I mean, the Planning Commission can add anything they want to this. They could come down and say that retention needs to be in the front versus the back. You need to have manure holding areas that are concrete and this and that. Committee, I mean, speak up, please.

What does the development plan currently require at a minimum, besides building layout and the access and what else? Is that it?

Yeah, the basics and showing where the, you know, they have to meet all these other standards, right? So, like, they'd have to have a drainage plan, a slip plan, so water pollution prevention plan if they're over an acre, which most are. So they would have to have that information. But if you want to get into, if if you would want to take Jerry's recommendation, it would need to be added to this so we can make sure we're checking that box.

I have a question about what the county soil and water does. Like Susan mentioned, water testing and finding really high levels of contaminants that get into the waterways. Is there any testing done

I'd be the health department.

That's health department.

I believe so Cal County so and water conservation district basically helps to manage programs to help With soil health with water health with conservation across the area. They don't go out and do They have some programs where they do go out and monitor, but it's not Like the health department where if there's an issue on water quality itself that would fall under the health department's jurisdiction

So if somebody finds somebody doing testing around any of these operations, if they found high levels, would they turn it over to the health department?

I would think health department and maybe IDEN would be my first two thoughts. I haven't really had to deal with any of those. And the health department might have numbers of who to report it to at the state level, too.

Mm-hmm. I know there have been a couple of concerns expressed about barn size and equally lot size and such as well. But there are industry standards, there are Humane Society standards on square footage per animal out there. There are many university studies on it that looking at these barn sizes, they just don't put up on a whim. They look at those square footages. They utilize development individuals, engineers to help develop these barns to meet those humane square footage. So it's not just cramming as many animals into a small space as possible. Those are the industry standards for square footage for those animals. So that's why we get some of these barn sizes that we do.

With that being said, and going back on to what Jerry had to say, if we know how many animals are roughly going to be in a square foot area, then we have a manure containment section based off of those industry standards. that we could force them to have if they have a barn that's so big that the containment center has to be so big?

You could. I mean, there are calculations to approximately figure out how much manure each animal is going to produce a day, a year, however heavy. So there are calculations to figure out how much manure there would be. It would just be understanding how often those pits were cleaned out who was taking them, and how much it would have to be stored in there at a time.

I understand that, but at least it does something instead of just having to put it onto wherever where they're going to have rainfall comes and just washes it out. I mean, it's at least a step in the direction of trying to contain some of the pollution or the manure going into our water source. Something we could do right Chris.

I mean what item does over the number Yes, so I think we should you're proposing that we would do something similar to scale down Take their numbers and scale it down per that grouping of animal sizes Yeah, just be like say we have a barn for I don't know this is horses for example of What the numbers are and where went say 30 horses in a barn?

We know how many how big that's roughly gonna be or how big that's gonna be and how many manure a day and Don't know I'm not a farmer But you can calculate how much manure a day is gonna be coming from those 30 possibly those third horses to know On the storage of what could be stored there for I don't know how many days it needs to be stored there Jason do you know what items requirement how many days of storage you forced 180 days 180 days.

That's what I thought You'd have enough for 180 days with no runoff You have to have it

I live just east of Lobs, which they have thousands of hogs. And, you know, he's, Idem works with him. And I very seldom, the only time I ever smell anything is when he cleans and pumps into the lagoons. But other than that, I don't, very seldom ever smell anything. And he's, you know, like I said, he's working with IDEM. So if we could have some kind of a structure for farmers that are under that where IDEM's not involved, we could, I think we could take care of a lot of smell complaints.

If we required some sort of manure management program submitted just like the other programs, do we have the expertise to even be able to evaluate That was my question.

Who's qualified to do it? We'd have to hire a third party to come in and review those, right? We have a Purdue extension person.

I don't get paid enough. Okay.

I mean, there's just not the... Maybe Purdue experts. With the increasing number of barns, we would have to have somebody full-time. And that's... I don't know how feasible that is. But I don't... Definitely doesn't need to fall under Chris's office.

I think we're talking about two different things here. I think Jerry and I are talking about just having a containment section, not quite a manure management plan. But you can have that like the idemic. You have to have this be so big that you can at least store it. I understand, but there's going to be more.

It depends on how long that sit there. The manure sits there, how long it's taken or how often it's taken away. So you do have to have a, that would, I mean, I think it would lead to a manure management plan.

I'd hate to dictate any minimums because if they're changing it out or taking it away more frequently Then you're gonna have an excessive size and we're just not don't have the expertise.

It's an operational plan and a structure combined Yeah, you're saying that but see like this the spring, you know, you got an operation there and you get 11 inches of rain in three weeks and Kind of holds some of the manure you're hauling out there and you might want that extra storage And too so you know you get that's another issue. I mean this has been extreme wet spring, but you know I

Yeah, well, if we required a plan, it would include the calculations for how many animals and what the size needed to be and whether it was covered and operationally how often that that would get removed. But we'd have to have an expertise to be able to evaluate whether that's going to be sufficient.

Yeah, the accuracy of that plan has to be reviewed by somebody and make sure it's accurate.

Well, that's something that is not for tonight. We're going to have to look at it. But, you know, we should move on to what we were supposed to be here on that meeting for tonight. Because unless we want to put a manure plant in it, but we don't have the information right now, we're going to have to do the research for this. And I think we should follow up on it. But that wasn't our goal for tonight, too.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'm looking at, like, the drainage board. approves the drainage But are there rules and guidelines that they have to use?

There's guidelines that they follow state guidelines that the that the drainage board has to follow that the surveyor has to use to calculate The runoff and all that and the drainage board reviews and approves that that's more like rain runoff not manure off Yeah, that's what I'm asking is there anything that

It regulates that that gets approved.

Regulates what? The urine and the manure runoff. The drainage board is strictly the rain from the sky, the roofs, how that gets approved.

So then who looks at what Jerry said, or I'm sorry, what Bill said about 11 inches of rain in how many weeks and then the runoff from that. What regulations are there about that?

At a county level? Yeah. There are none. There are none. I mean, the health department, well, that's an issue for the county commissioners to decide if there needs to be another department added to regulate and enforce that.

I was just going to say what this is doing, it is improving what we've done, what we had in place, but it sounds like there's more work to be done. in making sure that we don't have contaminated water in our streams and rivers.

I think the committee can speak to what we all discussed during those committee meetings to see if they want to table this and move it, have more of those discussions. I will say that You know, one thing the committee is going to be working on full steam ahead now is the data center ordinance that's on moratorium until October. So I wouldn't foresee this coming back in the next, before October, with how we're going to be full steam ahead on that and then just day-to-day stuff. I mean, Helen, when I talked to you and was going to propose we bring this in June, you were like, no, bring it now. So this is why we're here now.

I mean, I don't think anybody in the audience is against this. I think people are wanting more from, get more to it. So I don't see a problem with going ahead with this and then coming back and revisiting. At least this is something starting the process of it. Because if we don't approve it today and we table it until October, November, more of these can come in and get permitted in without at least having these. That's the minimum setbacks that we have now. We can always come back and change it later, correct?

We're amending what we have now so we can add add conditions add amendments, you know as we go Then get our committee together and see what else we can move forward to yeah, I mean what I I'll say this The one gentleman did bring a point that I never thought of and

How many too many on 100 acres? If you do this in 10 acres and this 10 acres and this in 10 acres.

I've never even thought of that Well, and I've gone back and forth on that And I'm sure the people that are right next to it are very anti, but would you rather have? centralized animals The control were scattered everywhere animals to control There's two sides of that coin Yeah, that makes sense to put animals a lot of animals in a little area Especially if the manure is going off-site because none of these are we're not dealing with manure on site of any of these It's all going off-site but would we rather have you know a You know congregated area of impact or impact everywhere I see what you're saying about multi multi units, you know close together and And that depends on the zoning too. I mean if it's you know, if somebody takes a track in a one and cuts it up They can't Oh We didn't we don't even have a proposed acreage well, I'm just saying that's what was put out as minimum of 10 acres and Well that way yeah that was based on calculations on setback sizes and I think you guys looked at the

Number of feet involved and how that would work out on acreage and right if you had to take a truck and turn it around right wasn't that part of the discussion how much acreage would be needed to actually take a semi truck in and out and Yeah we did touch on the density question a little bit in the committee and Decided sort of part of Jason's point is we really weren't in a position to move language forward but

Some of the things that other communities are doing, not necessarily nearby or in Indiana, but looking at, say, a square mile, have a density calculation, so many animal units per square mile. Is it 1,000? Is it 2,500? Whatever. And I don't even know that we'd have to map it all out to see what the density is of what we have, but that's sort of the question. And I think if we were to do something like that, it would have to be in that kind of manner. And to Jason's point, which

Is the the devil's in the details what another thing to and I'm still on you know if you centralize it But instead I have one here and one here and one here and centralize it Then you have item in it because they have the more numbers they have a regulations where if we have these all sprouted out We don't have no regulations in there and that you know I But if they like we were discussing instead of having four place or chicken farms have it all one under one roof Then you got your regulations Well, I know That's why I'm trying to say, you know, we're getting these Gonna hit ourselves, but how many can we put in a mile? down there, 10 acres, you know, you got quite a bit of acres. If you put them every 10 acres, that's quite a bit.

How about if we just do a moratorium on it until we get it cited on?

Think that would work? That's another, you know, that was discussed in committee, and putting a moratorium on a permitted use is, an already permitted use is a, It's a pretty dangerous precedent to set, we thought, at committee. It's been a permitted use forever.

I think this is good. This is an improvement. I think any of the other things we discussed would take a lot more assessment and research to determine whether it's even feasible to

Implement anything additional, but I think that's an improvement, and I think it would be good to move forward with it You could make it even make an official vote and make an official motion to request the committee review manure plans or something Size of building or some size of building plan or something on manure if you want to do I think the size of acreage That too Jason you said that this you know this what the committee came up with was a

But you considered better than what we have. What do we have?

10-foot or 30-foot setbacks from property lines?

Because when the CFO thing came up five or six years ago or whenever it was, it was all item. In other words, this is who we were depending on, and it was pretty much an agreed that that's not somebody you want to depend on.

We're not talking. We're not talking CFO. We're talking from CFO cut off down. I understand those were CFO cut off up Larger we're talking about from that cut off lower.

I understand that But what did we have? before this or below the item standard Nothing but shorter setbacks Okay

Same as the same as if you know somebody wants to build a factory next to your house or you know whatever permitted use in that zoning Can be like Chris said either 10 foot or 30 foot from the property line That's that's what we have currently That's part of the reason we had the I asked for to have a committee to read look at these because these smaller Animal feeding operations are coming more popular Before it was just big ones and now they're kind of scooting by and going these little ones That's why we got to do something

So part of the reason we're even doing the committee and why we're looking at this right now, so I Was just recently made aware of a bill that passed that got signed into law in the beginning of March that changes Kind of the structure of IDEM a little bit the Who's in charge and rolls back to some different things and I've tried looking at the language just real quickly But there's a lot to read I think we need to see how that's going to play out too. If we go back to this in the future, then there will be time to see are there any changes in what IDEM is doing for counties. Because the person who told me about it said it's a bad rollback. I don't know if that's true or not.

On the subject of the government, the governor wants both the chem department and IDEM to roll back to save money. Part of it less regulation. That's part of it. That's what I'm concerned about That's part of his bill because they've had a lot of discussions I've had some discussions. That's one of the things they're trying to do is less control Not trying to push it on us to do it or they might be but that's one of the things so, okay Well, are we gonna wrap this up? We need

We need to go through the jurisdictional finding and then the matters to consider that Mr. Cruz is going to lead us through. Yes.

All right. Well, I'll start here with the jurisdictional findings. And the first one I'll ask Meredith about is the petitioners complied. Well, first, I'll say for everybody in the public that these are findings in UDO and statutory matters that are not final until there's a vote. These are just discussions. So the first one is that the petitioners complied with the rules and regulations of the Planning Commission in filing appropriate forms and reports legal notice published in the star on May 8th 2026 and publishers affidavit given to staff. Yes, all right So I'll go ahead and just start with these there are five here on the sheet of UDO and statutory matters to consider and The process for this is I will go ahead and read the question than anyone that wants to can have comments on it You know there's short yes or no answer on it But if you can if you're able to give a comment to it that would be also helpful as we go along here Number one is the change in text proposed here in harmony with the current comprehensive plan.

Yes or no Yes, I think it it It's gonna improve the harmony it makes the restrictions a little better a little easier that we can control some more the closest to the neighbors Yeah, I would also say yes because it's an already permitted use and we're just kind of tweaking the characters of that use All right, we've got number two is this change in text and

proposed consistent with the current conditions and the character of current structures and uses in each zoning district.

Yes, as Jason indicated, we're still using the same, we're actually creating a little more clarity and definition in what's allowed in each zoning district and

As evidenced by some of the newer developments that they are mostly or all within meeting what the current standards are what the proposed standards are It's it is consistent because we're talking about AG uses in AG zoning districts All right number three does the change in the text help with the most desirable use for which the land in each zoning district is adapted and

I'll say yes, relying heavily on help, the word help, with the most desirable conditions.

Okay. All right. Number four, will the change in the text promote the conservation of property values throughout the jurisdiction?

I think this is an improvement from the current standard with respect to conservation of property values.

moving in the right direction. Number five, will the change in text promote responsible growth and development? Yes, because they're going to set setbacks for responsible growth.

I think it'll help guide, maybe not guide, but it'll help eliminate some potential places where these buildings should not go based on distance available. So I think it promotes responsible growth by kind of putting a little Guardrails in where some of these buildings can and can't go All right back to you. Mr. President Okay for any text amendment such as this one we're looking for a motion for a favorable recommendation a motion for an unfavorable recommendation or a motion for no recommendation to the planning or to the county commissioners from the Planning Commission I

Perhaps any conditions someone might want to suggest.

Yeah, we're revisiting things if Yeah, the petition on the table is to clean up the definitions and Impose a 100-foot setback. That's the current current language.

I think if you want if someone wants to propose also Request for the committee to look at other potential regulations I I think it would be better for the record if that was done in a separate motion and separate vote. I would agree.

Yep.

We will open up the floor for any such motion. I'll make that motion and we move on. Your motion is for a favorable recommendation. Yeah, for a favorable recommendation.

I will second that.

Okay, we have a motion and a second for a favorable recommendation for the stated text amendments to the County Commissioners. Do we have a roll call vote please?

Yes. Callan Dooley?

Yes.

Bill VanWyne?

Yes.

Jerry Yoder?

No.

Frank Pauver?

No.

Suzanne Davis? Yes. Angie Holt? Yes. Jason Carnahan? Yes.

What what is the total?

Do we have any any other motions for I to I have to Okay, all right, I'll make the motion for the committee to Research some more into the ideas that were brought up today. I

Second hey Do another roll call vote Yes Bill VanWyne Jerry Yoder yes Frank Pauver. Yes, Suzanne Davis. Yes, Angie Holt. Yes, Jason Carnahan.

Yes Okay So that will be heard at the next commissioners meeting Yes That will be heard the 26th commissioners meeting is there any other new business Do we have any reports from officers committees town liaisons, etc I

Auburn when Commission had two meetings because of art the way our schedule was so in April they had a Petition for doing a new section for the Bridgewater addition and it would be south of Morningstar Road and it would be a 43 lot single-family 43 lots. You have single-family homes on And they will extend Virginia Lane all the way up to Morning Star now. And they talked about putting a stoplight or stop sign in there. But that got approved. And then in May, the only item on the agenda was just to approve for the Fortify Fieldhouse that's on County Road 427, just to do parking lot improvement.

So that was it. Nothing controversial. Waterloo has been working on the improvement location permit application. I don't know if I think they're still working on it I don't know if those have been solidified based on the previous input from some of the other Towns and cities we did have a zoning approval change for Ham farms and benchmark distribution terminal to be able to Extend the rail line to they currently have a heavy industrial property. It's in the ETJ and there were areas zoned agricultural and I guess agricultural that they that they approved to move to heavy industrial to joining properties It's surrounded by agricultural and there is one residence there That's also adjacent to the current heavy open industrial, but that was approved that zoning change

We should have no more Is there any comments on any other matters from any public in the attendance tonight See none we will stand adjourned