LaPorte County farmers win urban sprawl fight, at least for the moment, preventing development of 166 acres of mostly wooded land

Times of Northwest Indiana LAPORTE — A group of LaPorte County farmers will not be further squeezed by urban sprawl — at least not in the near future.

The LaPorte County Commissioners have unanimously rejected plans for a proposed subdivision on 166 acres of mostly wooded, undeveloped land.

A primary concern was the possibility of adding 1,000 or more residents to the heavily farmed area.

Jim Paarlburg said that’s about twice the population of nearby Rolling Prairie and more than other communities in the county, like Kingsbury and LaCrosse.

“In my view, this is not a subdivision. It’s a city,” he said.

Paarlburg said his industrial farming operation raising crops like tomatoes, onion sets, garlic and seed corn is adjacent to the proposed development.

He said he was concerned a child from the subdivision might wander out into the field and get seriously hurt or killed by a combine or some other piece of farm machinery.

“The dangers are of the highest price,” he said.

Part of the land targeted for the new housing is already zoned residential.

The developer, Sloan Avenue Land Opportunities, requested the zoning on the remainder of the parcel be changed from agriculture to residential.

Todd Leeth, an attorney representing the developer, said there’s room in the proposed subdivision for as many as 308 homes on one-quarter acre lots.

Leeth said the homes, valued at $300,000 to $400,000, would not come as a shock to the surrounding area because it might take 10 years or longer, depending on demand, for all of them to be constructed.

“The service industry, the economy, the government will all have time over that period of time to react to the growing population,” he said.

Last month the commissioners, expressing a need for more new housing, gave preliminary approval to the zoning request after the LaPorte County Planning Commission, on a split vote the previous month, endorsed the project.

At the request of the commissioners, Leeth said he recently met with landowners near the proposed development to address their concerns.

He said one adjustment in the plans was increasing the space between the development and farmland to reduce any risk of chemicals drifting over to the subdivision while being sprayed on crops.

Farmers, already weary over complaints about the smell of manure from city dwellers moving to an agricultural area, didn’t budge in their opposition.

Commissioner Rich Mrozinski said there were still too many unanswered questions for him to put his final stamp of approval on the project.

Mrozinski also said the parcels for each home on the drawings seem not large enough.

“To me, it looks like a trailer park. I don’t like small lots,” he said.

Leeth said the lots are standard size for most subdivisions.

The developers will have to reapply for a zoning change and go through the approvals process again from very beginning if they want to further pursue the project, said Shaw Friedman, the attorney for the commissioners.

Friedman said it would take about one year for another zoning request to come back to the commissioners for reconsideration.