A third attempt by the owner of the land northwest of Bowman and West Newell Road to change the zoning and put in a gas station and convenience store has been voted down, on a 6-1 vote, by the Danville Area Planning and Zoning Commission. The petition called for 50 acres on the northwest corner, owned by Paul Offutt, to be changed zoning wise from AG to B-2 Highway Business Zoning. Back in 2002 and 2007, the commission recommended the gas station plan to the Danville City Council, but it was voted down. This time, it still goes before the City Council, but without a recommendation.
Although this property is not within Danville city limits, it is within the one-and-a-half mile buffer outside city limits, that by state law, cities can still establish the zoning. The main concern of the commission and some residents that live near the property was that rezoning the entire 50 acres would be too much. The actual gas station-convenience store would sit on seven acres, and Offutt could now petition for that to be rezoned, and hope for sewer extensions and eventual annexation into Danville just like the 50 acre petition called for. But as Darryl Jacobs, who represented Offutt at the meeting pointed out, Offutt could also ask the city to exclude this area from their “beyond city limits zoning authority,” and approach the county.
AUDIO: If they would just say, ‘okay, we’re going to exclude this from our mile-and-a-quarter reach out there,’ we can just go ahead then with the county and build the facility. Then we’d have no use of sewers, we’d just use a septic tank system, and have the drainage fields here on the farm. And so the tax money then, instead of going to the city of Danville, 100 percent of that’s going to go to then, Newell Township.
One of the neighbors who spoke at the meeting, Dale Dice, said there is definite worry about a lifestyle change if the whole 50 acres were to be rezoned.
AUDIO: The whole purpose of being out there is to have the space and the freedom, not having a lot of people and buildings. We like the privacy. So by developing, I think, like an industrial area around me, how is that going to affect my property? Am I going to be able to sell my house for a reasonable price? Right now, I could sell it at a premium price because people want to move out of the city into more of the country area.
The Danville City Council will now view this on November 2nd.
