After SK hynix vote, political rumblings in West Lafayette neighborhoods

Neighbors who fought location for $3.87B chip facility vow next campaign will aim at council, mayor who backed rezoning. Plus, WL Council after hours: liquor licenses, farmers market DORA, more

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AFTER SK HYNIX VOTE, POLITICAL RUMBLINGS IN WEST LAFAYETTE NEIGHBORHOODS

As people filed out of West Lafayette City Hall after a 6-3 rezoning vote that clears the way of South Korean semiconductor giant SK hynix to build a 430,000-square-foot advanced chip packaging plant on its preferred spot in the Purdue Research Park, there were still plenty of gears turning on a situation with so many moving parts. Here were just a few.

FIRST UP, ICYMI … THE VOTE: Here’s a look at the vote and the seven-hour marathon that led up to it, stretching into early Tuesday morning.

RELATED REZONING PASSES ALONG KALBERER ROAD, TOO: Nearly lost in the shuffle of Purdue Research Foundation’s request to rezone 121 acres for industrial uses for SK hynix was a companion piece, just to the south of where the semiconductor facility will now go.

The council voted 8-1 early Tuesday morning to rezone 13.1 acres along Kalberer Road, on either side of West Lafayette Fire Station No. 3 and stretching from Salisbury Street to Yeager Road, from a single-family zoning to neighborhood business.

No specific plans for that land were submitted with the rezoning request. But in recent weeks, NK Kim, senior vice president to SK hynix West Lafayette, has said the company wanted to be near a commercial zone being considered for child care, medical facilities and other businesses. City officials have looked to that area for a potential early education site. And federal CHIPS Act funding – SK hynix is in for $450 million in that, along with up to $500 million in related federal loans – comes with some requirements for semiconductor companies to address child care issues in the communities where they’re going.

The lone vote against the rezoning came from David Sanders, who also was among three votes against the residential-to-industrial rezoning for the chip packaging fab. Sanders compared the softer zoning near the manufacturing site and the promise of child care space to a bribe – “of course, I am using the word metaphorically” – and to a last-minute compromise offered by PRF to downzone roughly 90 acres of Purdue Research Park land to keep from doubling industrially zoned spots in that area.

“(That’s) not how government should operate,” Sanders said after the vote.

POLITICAL FALLOUT STILL TO COME? The morning after the SK hynix rezoning vote, Peter Bunder, for former West Lafayette City Council president, posed this bit of spin hanging out there: “Oh, this was political mistake. Site A could only annoy county residents and dead people.”

(Sidenote: Bunder, who served four terms on the council before stepping away after the 2023 election, lucked out a bit Monday, scoring a reserved seat in a standing-room-only council chambers, just long enough for he and Linda Martin to be honored for 10 years of service on the West Lafayette Historic Preservation Commission. He headed out before the rezoning fireworks started. Just a reminder that there’s a bit of Pawnee – or in this case, Eagleton? – at every city council meeting.)

Site A, in this case, was 90 acres in the Purdue Research Park initially set aside SK hynix’s plans. The closest houses and existing neighborhoods — and cemetery — to that tract are in Tippecanoe County. Site B, as it came to be known, is closer to a series of neighborhoods – Arbor Chase, University Farm, Amberleigh Village and others – that have West Side voters.

That was central to the what-next conversations still bubbling hot Tuesday after the 6-3 city council vote.

“Everyone has a shared feeling of grief, of disappointment, of profound sadness and anger,” said Macarena Guerrero, a University Farm resident who was among those who mounted a campaign to push back the proposed SK hynix location.

“We elected these officials, and we clearly made poor choices in the past,” Guerrero said. “And we won't be making the same poor choices moving forward. … It is clear that leadership of the city is not the leadership of the community.”

Guerrero said names were already coming forward for West Lafayette’s next municipal elections, slated for 2027.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

“It’s not something we’re having to go out and find people,” Sarah Paulson, who also spoke against the rezoning, said. “It’s something that people are already volunteering and signing themselves up for.”

“This was a successful campaign,” Guerrero said. “It was definitely not the outcome that we wanted. But we mobilized resources. We mobilized people. … We will make sure that there's no seat uncontested. City clerk, city council, mayor, treasurer, secretary, janitorial positions – we’re going after all of it.”

Which city council members in on this week’s vote will be on the 2027 ballot isn’t clear. In 2023, Mayor Erin Easter and three council members – Michelle Dennis (District 2), Colin Lee (District 3) and Larry Leverenz (District 4) – ran unopposed in the general election. The nine city council members are Democrats.

Guerrero said it was too early to name names on potential challengers. But she said the frustration fed from a sense that petitions with more than 2,600 signatures and testimony from dozens of neighbors who had expertise in engineering, environmental and health areas didn’t carry the council, when weighed against experts they contended came with a stamp of approval from PRF.

Neighbors also continued to stew that SK hynix didn’t provide answers about chemicals and environmental assessments yet to be done and that the scope of the project and where it would go weren’t broadcast wider and clearer in the year after it was initially rolled out in April 2024.

“Everything that happened last night should have happened a year ago – all of that data, we should have known,” Shireen Hafeez said Tuesday. The West Lafayette resident was among those who spoke out against the rezoning in March at the Area Plan Commission and again Monday at the city council.

“I think that all of this was contrived, and we as citizens just were asleep at the wheel,” Hafeez said. “This was an incredible awakening. … To go against hundreds and hundreds of citizens in this small community with a giant middle finger. This was a lesson learned.”

No matter what, construction on the SK hynix facility, expected to open for production in 2028, might be the biggest campaign sign possible in the 2027 city elections, regardless of which side a candidate is on.

WAITING FOR THE NEXT INCREDIBLE COMMUNITY MOMENT TO COME AROUND? COME ON, MAN, DON’T HOLD BACK. IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE BASED IN LAFAYETTE REPORTING PROJECT. BUT NOW, HEADING INTO THE PROJECT’S FOURTH ANNIVERSARY, YOU CAN GET IT AT A BARGAIN RATE, TOO.

ALSO VIA WEST LAFAYETTE CITY COUNCIL, AFTER HOURS

RIVERFRONT LIQUOR LICENSE EXPANSION: Despite a few lingering questions from city council members late Tuesday, more West Lafayette bars and restaurants soon will be in a position to get “riverfront” liquor licenses in a broad district closest to the Wabash River.