The SYSCO property near Hamlet is set to go up for auction tomorrow, but the town’s ability to control what goes there may be limited. The discussion came up during a recent town council meeting, after local landowner Lee Nagai apparently asked county officials what steps would be required to build a hog farm there.
Town Attorney Martin Bedrock noted that the property is within two miles of the town limits, and while towns have the option to regulate land use there, Hamlet has never chosen to do that. “Cities and towns within the county could have adopted a two-mile jurisdiction,” Bedrock explained. “Knox has a two-mile jurisdiction, so they govern planning and zoning within the two-mile jurisdiction. Hamlet never chose to adopt that authority.”
But Bedrock cautioned that adopting a two-mile zoning jurisdiction isn’t necessarily a simple solution, either, since it can lead to questions about who enforces what. Annexing the property into the Town of Hamlet would also be difficult, since it would require the permission of the surrounding landowners. As it stands, any land use decisions there would be up to the Starke County Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals, although town officials would be able to go to the county meetings to voice their concerns.
Nagai stressed that he has no firm plans for the property, other than that he intends to bid on it tomorrow and maybe use it for farmland. “Well, the hog farm, don’t bet on that,” he told the town council. “And don’t bet on us getting the bid. We figured on a number because we’ll put $1,000 an acre of improvements in it. Whatever that total is, you’ve got to subtract that off of it because it’s going to take that to turn it into a decent farm.”
Council President Dave Kesvormas felt that farming the land would be a bit of a waste, due to the infrastructure investments that have been made there in the past decade. Nagai said he’d be willing to work with the town and the county to develop the eastern portion for industry, but much of the site is in a floodplain. If he were to purchase the property and if he were to ultimately decide to build a hog farm, Nagai said it would probably be placed on the far west end of the property away from the town.
