Pictured, from left, are Kosciusko County APC Member Doug Ruch, Kosciusko County Surveyor Jim Moyer and Kosciusko County APC President Lee Harman. InkFreeNews photo by Liz Adkins.

By Liz Adkins
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — The Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission approved rezoning requests for two Syracuse properties during a Wednesday, Jan. 8, meeting.

A request from Evan and Janet Kreps to rezone approximately 7.4 acres from an Agricultural to an Agricultural II district was given a favorable recommendation by the APC. The property is on the east side of CR 450E, south of CR 1100N, Syracuse. Jason Knepp is the proposed purchaser of five acres that are part of the northern tract of the property. Knepp told the APC he plans to build a new home and remove a majority of the trees from the land. Most of the trees are damaged from a previous storm.

Local attorney Steve Snyder, representing both the Kreps and Knepp, said the Kreps want to sell the northern part to Knepp while keeping their own residence on the southern part.

Snyder noted the lot was extremely small by agricultural standards and that hay production has been the extent of its previous use. Knepp has been in contact with Dennis Darr about Darr farming four acres of hay on the property.

Brad Showalter also attended the meeting to request the rezoning of six acres from an Agricultural to an Agricultural II district. The property is on the west side of CR 550E, north of CR 800N, Syracuse. Showalter said he is a farmer in the Elkhart County area and that the land belonged to his wife’s deceased grandfather, Larry Mock.

“We are attempting to buy the original farmstead,” said Showalter. “The existing house (at the property) was taken down this past summer. It was in disrepair.”

Showalter said he and his wife are looking to build a new house south of where the former house was located at. He told the APC he did not want to build the house on the existing lot since it was small. Showalter said Max and Garry Tom farm the property.

Laura Mock, Larry’s daughter, also noted one of the existing buildings on the acreage qualifies as a historic building.

Showalter’s request was given a favorable recommendation by the APC.

The Kreps’ and Showalter’s requests will now be presented before the Kosciusko County Commissioners at their Jan. 28 meeting for final approval.

In other business, the APC continued discussions on data farms. At their December 2024 meeting, APC Director Matt Sandy noted a growth in data farms within northern Indiana. In October 2024, the APC approved rezoning for ground near a Kosciusko County REMC substation northwest of Pierceton for the construction of a computer data center.

Sandy recommended the APC place data farms within the section of the county’s zoning ordinance as it relates to permitted uses within heavy industrial, or “I-3,” districts.

Current permitted uses within I-3 zones include heavy fabricating, manufacturing, extraction and micro to large solar energy systems. Exceptional uses include planned unit developments, salvage yards, agriculture and commercial solar energy system farms.

Harman presented a what-if scenario of 500 acres of farmland being rezoned to allow for a data farm.

“At that point, they would have to come before the plan commission with a rezoning request,” said Sandy. “We’re going to look at it (and say), ‘Is this ground appropriate for I-3 zoning?’ And then, the recommendation would either be yay or nay, or none, toward the county commissioners.”

APC Vice-President Kevin McSherry suggested the possibility of the APC visiting a data farm in-person to study it and further delve into the positives and negatives within those farms.

“Part of the reason why we think it should be (permitted use) is in nature, most if not all of the operation is contained internally within the structure,” said Assistant Planner Andy Heltzel. “So compared to some of the other permitted uses, we feel this is a lot less intensive to surrounding neighbors as far as noise, sight, things like that.”

Ryan Martin with Louis Dreyfus Company attended the meeting to provide comments in opposition of data farms.

“This is a very big issue,” said Martin. “Water is the biggest issue in these data centers by far. Second is the farmland that is lost to these data centers. The one that’s up in St. Joseph County took 640 acres. The one that’s going in Allen County is 800 acres. The long and short of it is that’s never coming back as agricultural areas.”

Martin noted St. Joseph County is undertaking water ordinances because he said no thought was given on how much water would be utilized by the data center.

“You don’t want that in this county where all we do is trumpet about our lakes,” said Martin. “Water is a big, big, big deal here. I urge you to continue this conversation. Go look. Ask the questions. It’s all an issue.”

The APC approved advertising an amendment to the zoning ordinance in February about placing data farms as an exception use within an I-3 district.

The APC also approved having Harman and McSherry continue serving as the commission’s president and vice-president, respectively. Kosciusko County Surveyor Jim Moyer will serve as the APC secretary.

Kosciusko County APC’s next meeting is at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 5.