TERRE HAUTE — The Vigo County Area Plan Commission meeting was a hotbed of impassioned debate Wednesday night as two controversies were argued at the Vigo County Annex.
The commissioners’ meeting room was packed with standing room only as a large crowd came to be heard concerning a Dollar General in North Terre Haute and a firing range in southern Vigo County.
In the end, the plan commissioners sided with the neighbors in both cases, giving unfavorable recommendations to a rezoning request from both businesses – Dollar General and the firing range.
The Vigo County Commissioners will have the final say in both cases.
In the first vote, the 14-member commission voted to give an unfavorable recommendation to a request to rezone about 30 acres of land in Pierson Township from agricultural to “open space” use, which would have allowed for an outdoor commercial firing range operated by Range Time.
The vote came after more than an hour of sometimes passionate debate from both sides. Several residents living near the firing range, which has been operating for more than a year, said the gunfire from the range badly disturbs their lives.
“I do not feel safe to be in my own yard,” said Susan Brown, a neighbor to the range, whose managers said operates from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. “My [young] children have heard more gun fire in their short lives than I have in my entire lifetime,” she said.
Many residents said shooting from the range takes place constantly both “day and night”; however, Cory Jackson and Erika Maxwell, speaking for Range Time, said that is incorrect.
“There is no way we are going past 5 p.m,” Maxwell said, speaking directly to the large crowd in the annex meeting room. “I am not sure why we are getting the blame for all the gun shots in the country.”
After the long debate on the firing range, the plan commissioners, who oversee land use in the county, voted 9-2 against a motion for a favorable recommendation. They then voted by a voice vote to pass an unfavorable recommendation on to the Vigo County Commissioners.
One of the county commissioners, Brad Anderson, also sits on the Area Plan Commission. He was among those opposing a favorable recommendation. The two votes for a favorable recommendation came from commissioners Chuck Ennis and Wayne Langman. Those voting against were Bob All, Anderson, John Collett, Troy Fears, Jeff Ford, John Hanley, Brian Kerns, Rick Lasure and Steve Marrs. Commission president Fred Wilson did not vote, and commissioners Norm Froderman and Brent Spier were absent.
The Area Planning Department professional staff had given the rezoning request a favorable recommendation. Executive Director Darren Maher said if a range cannot go in this area, where can one go?
Many residents, however, strongly disagreed.
“It’s really scary,” said another neighbor. “You can’t even rest in your house.”
After that vote, the plan commission jumped from the frying pan into the fire as it heard an equally impassioned debate over a request to rezone residential property in North Terre Haute for a Dollar General Store.
Representatives of Dollar General said the area of North Clinton Street just south of Hasselburger Avenue would not be harmed by the new business. In fact, the neighborhood would be enhanced, said one.
However, many residents of the area turned out to oppose the store. They carried the day when the plan commission voted unanimously to send an unfavorable recommendation to the Vigo County Commissioners. In 2012, they gave a similarly unfavorable recommendation for another proposed Dollar General a little farther north on North Clinton Street.
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