Restrictions Lafayette wants on new gas stations get initial OK
Plus, what zoning changes could mean for an empty Big Lots store in Lafayette. West Lafayette neighbors try another approach to fight SK hynix location. And more.
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RESTRICTIONS LAFAYETTE WANTS ON NEW GAS STATIONS GET INITIAL OK
Proposed zoning regulations that would crimp the spread of gas stations in Lafayette got a boost Wednesday with a unanimous recommendation from the Area Plan Commission.
Initiated and largely negotiated by the city of Lafayette, the proposed codes lay out architectural design elements, a mandatory plan to cover the costs of decommissioning if stations close and requirement calling for a 5,500-foot distance – a little more than a mile – between new standalone gas stations and any existing ones.
The proposal also covers decommissioning requirements for new car washes, oil change businesses, fueling centers and truck stops.
The rules would allow gas stations to be part of larger planned developments, provided the fuel pumps wouldn’t be the prime feature.
But given the restrictions, eight planned gas station projects in the works now – including two Wawa convenience stores – could be the last of their kind in the current Lafayette city limits.
“The ordinance in front of you is what the city council asked for you to consider and deliver when we adopted our resolution back in March,” Jacque Chosnek, Lafayette city attorney, told APC members before Wednesday’s vote.
The Lafayette City Council is expected to approve the regulations at its Oct. 6 meeting. Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski asked the APC to come up with new regulations after expressing frustration about a recent proliferation of gas stations in the city.
Each city, the county and town boards in Dayton, Battle Ground and Clarks Hill will get to accept or reject the gas station zoning codes over the next 90 days.
West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter earlier in September told BiL the city was interested in considering the proposal.
Tippecanoe County Commissioner Tom Murtaugh said he thought the county would reject the codes recommended by the APC. But he said commissioners could ask for a narrower proposal that includes the decommissioning requirements.
According to the current proposals, decommissioning plans would be required for all new gas stations, service stations, fueling centers, truck stops, oil change businesses and car washes, with the intent to return a property to a condition “suitable for redevelopment consistent with the zoning district.” Updated cost estimates for decommissioning would have to be submitted to the city every five years. The local decommissioning plan required by the ordinance would be separate from those required by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for removal of underground storage tanks, fuel lines or other equipment regulated by state or federal agencies.
The proposal passed Wednesday with little conversation by the APC.
Among the other provisions in the proposal heading to the cities, county and towns:
Gas station development would no longer be allowed in central business – essentially in downtown Lafayette – or neighborhood business/urban zones, limiting them to neighborhood business, general business and highway business zoning.
Fueling canopies, now allowed 10 feet from a right of way or property line, would have to be 30 feet back. The fuel pumps would have to be located on the side of the primary structure rather than in front.
Gas stations would be prohibited within 5,500 feet of a lot with an existing gas station, “measured as the shortest distance between the two properties.”
Gas stations would be prohibited within 500 feet of a residentially zoned or residentially used lot.
The proposed ordinance would allow room for variances that would allow gas stations or for stations to be accessory uses for larger developments.
New guidelines for building materials, roof and canopy design and other features would be instituted. Outdoor storage, including those used for items for sale or general storage, would have to be screened in a way so they aren’t visible from the street.
Current gas stations would be allowed to continue to operate. The APC also attached a recommendation to the proposal to waive the $500 filing fees and help three gas stations – a Marathon at 900 Ferry St., a Shell at 245 S. Fourth St. and a Speedway at 1901 Elmwood Ave. – which would become nonconforming uses with zoning that no longer allowed those uses.
For more about how the gas station zoning proposal came about, here’s a BiL account from earlier in the month: “Lafayette looks to halt spread of gas stations with new zoning, design, distance standards. A Q&A.”
In other APC action Wednesday:
State Street high-rise on hold: A vote on a rezoning plan for the Chauncey Annex, a proposed 15-story mixed use project that would go at the northeast corner of State Street and Chauncey Avenue, was postponed until the APC’s Oct. 15 meeting. Amanda Esposito, APC assistant director, said the pause came as planners negotiated some aspects of a project with developers LV Collective, an Austin, Texas-based firm also involved in the Rambler project, a $250 million redevelopment in the Levee area. Chauncey Annex would include 290 units with 816 beds, 5,500 square feet of first-floor retail space and 138 spaces in a parking garage in a space bound by State Street, Chauncey Avenue, South Street and an existing alley, according to plans filed with the Area Plan Commission. Here’s more from a BiL edition from June when developers filed the plans.
A trampoline park in old Big Lots?: The owners of Lafayette Station, a 250,000-square-foot shopping center along Teal Road between 22nd and 26th streets, received a unanimous recommendation to consolidate the entire property under a general business zoning designation. Lafayette Station, first opened with a Woolco store in 1970, includes such businesses as Rural King, the former Marsh super market and a recently closed Big Lots discount store. According to the request, the owners, Lafayette Station LLC, are looking to put a trampoline park in the former Big Lots building – something that would have been complicated by the neighborhood business zoning it has. The Lafayette City Council is expected to vote on the request at it 6 p.m. Oct. 6 meeting at city hall, 20 N. Sixth St.
Zoning to allow a Culver’s OK’d: Land at 3720 Burr Swezey Drive – along Veterans Memorial Parkway, just west of U.S. 52 – would switch from heavy industrial uses to general business to accommodate a Culver’s restaurant, according to a request recommended by the APC. The land is near Heartland Automotive and Nanshan manufacturing facilities. The Lafayette City Council will vote on the request Oct. 6.
WL NEIGHBORS TAKE PROTEST OVER SK HYNIX SITE TO THE STREETS
Speaking of rezoning cases, neighbors spread out along Salisbury Street Wednesday afternoon to continue their protest against the planned location of a $3.87 billion SK hynix chip packaging plant along Kalberer Road in the northern section of West Lafayette.
They held signs that counted down the distance – example: “1,000 feet from toxic industry” – from the entrance of Cumberland Park to the northwest corner of Salisbury Street and Kalberer Road. There, Ellen and Seth Kresovsky, Arbor Chase residents, held a tarp painted with: “Toxic site. SK hynix doesn’t have to be here.”
The idea was to continue to press West Lafayette City Council members to reconsider its 6-3 vote in May to rezone 121 acres at the Purdue Research Park, between Yeager Road and Salisbury Street/County Road 50 West from residential to industrial uses. Neighbors have created a website – stopheavyindustry.com – and used city council public comment time to amplify points in a public letter that contends “the outcome of a calculated complicity between PRF, influential Purdue faculty members and administrators, and some members of the city government who misled the public through a disinformation campaign, blindsided everyone through a hastily put together proposal on the day of the vote, and undermined legitimate concerns about health, safety and the environment.”
“We are trying to bring awareness that we can reverse the rezone,” Ellen Kresovsky said Wednesday during a two-hour protest that coincided with West Lafayette’s Farmers Market at Cumberland Park. “A lot of neighbors think that’s not possible. But it is. The lawsuits are still very much active. … And the city council has the ability to vote on this again.”
City council members haven’t shown much inclination to revisit its decision in May, which came after the Area Plan Commission recommended against industrial zoning for the site, a series of public meetings and a council meeting that included seven hours of comments and debate.
SK hynix is planning a 340,000-square-foot R&D and manufacturing facility where it will assemble high-bandwidth memory chips for use in a growing AI market. SK hynix officials have said they expect the facility to be up and running in 2028 and eventually employ 800 to 1,000 people.
SK hynix officials told BiL in the past week that work continues to get local, state and federal approvals to start moving dirt on the site.
Two lawsuits filed by three residents aim at the zoning decision, looking to halt development. The lawsuits challenge the city of West Lafayette, Purdue Research Foundation, SK hynix and the Area Plan Commission on whether rezoning approved by the city council in early May was properly done. The complaints accuse the city council of overstepping its authority by ignoring warnings from local experts about health, environmental and other concerns in its vote.
Tippecanoe Circuit Judge Sean Persin set a Sept. 23 hearing to consider motions to dismiss all or portions of lawsuits that were filed in June and have since been combined. No trial date has been set.
MORE, AFTER CHARLIE KIRK’S MURDER …
Jimmy Kimmel yanked off late-night show: The New York Times reporters John Koblin, Michael M. Grynbaum and Brooks Barnes had this passage breaking down what late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said about the fallout from conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder and the pressure applied to ABC and affiliates to get him off the air – a move that came Wednesday:
“The comments at the center of this week’s firestorm came during Mr. Kimmel’s opening monologue on Monday night. ‘We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,’ the host said.
“Conservative activists castigated those comments, saying they mischaracterized the political beliefs of Tyler Robinson, the accused shooter. …
“(Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan) Carr, in an interview on a right-wing podcast on Wednesday, said that Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were part of a ‘concerted effort to lie to the American people, and that the F.C.C. was ‘going to have remedies that we can look at.’
“‘Frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,’ Mr. Carr told the podcast’s host, Benny Johnson. ‘These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the F.C.C. ahead.’”
For the rest: “ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel Off Air for Charlie Kirk Comments After F.C.C. Pressure.”
The Associated Press’ David Bauder had this account, too: “ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show indefinitely over his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s death.”
The Guardian had this in a report sizing up Kimmel’s suspension: “Politicians, media figures and free speech organizations expressed anger and alarm at the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, warning that critics of Donald Trump were being systematically silenced.” For the rest: “‘Censoring you in real time’: suspension of Jimmy Kimmel show sparks shock and fears for free speech.”
And Lili Loofbourow, television critic for The Washington Post, offered this on ABC pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air: “Broadcast television, as it has existed for decades, is coming to an end. The crisis is as obvious as it is grave, and it has implications far beyond late-night: Billionaires are accelerating their efforts to consolidate control over media platforms and the president is eager to help them do so, provided they shut down his critics. If they don’t, he threatens to use the levers of government — particularly those designed to remain independent — to financially punish them. None of this is secret; the brazenness is, at least partly, the point.” Here’s more: “Kimmel’s suspension confirms what many suspected after Colbert’s cancellation. Media companies must punish Trump critics if they want their mega-mergers approved.”
Fallout around Indiana …:
The Indianapolis Star reporter Cate Charron had this about Ball State’s director of health promotion and advocacy, who was fired Wednesday for a Facebook post that caught the attention of Attorney General Todd Rokita and national right-wing personalities: “Ball State fires staff member after comments about Charlie Kirk's assassination.”
Cate Charron also had this in the Star: “Gov. Mike Braun has threatened to suspend or revoke the licenses of teachers who made "terrible comments" on social media in the aftermath of conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination.” For more: “Gov. Mike Braun threatens teachers' licenses for Charlie Kirk comments.” And here’s Braun’s statement posted on social media, saying Secretary of Education Katie Jenner’s office will “review reported statements of K-12 teachers and administrators who have made statements to celebrate or incite political violence.”
At Purdue’s chapter of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA: Reports say membership requests are up at campus affiliates of Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Charlie Kirk, since his shooting death in Utah last week. Tuesday night, hundreds of people gathered on the West Lafayette campus for a vigil organized by Purdue’s chapter of Turning Point USA. The question for the students there: How much interest membership has Turning Point at Purdue received in the past week? And how does that compare to the spring, when Kirk was on campus for the event outside Krach?
Radman Zarbock, vice president of Purdue’s chapter, released a statement from the student organization: “In the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, we at TPUSA Purdue have been contacted by – without exaggeration – hundreds of individuals who want to get involved in Turning Point USA to carry on Charlie's legacy and continue the fight for the values of goodness, truth, and beauty – the values that Charlie gave his life for. This influx of interest eclipses the increase in involvement we experienced during his tour visit in the spring by over an order of magnitude. Most of the individuals who got involved in the spring were previously inactive members or friends of members, but the crowd of individuals seeking to join our movement now are mostly new faces.”
OTHER READS …
Pete Buttigieg, former South Bend mayor and U.S. transportation secretary, joined a protest Thursday at the Indiana Statehouse against a White House push to redistrict in the state ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Via a story by Indianapolis Star reporter Kayla Dwyer, Buttigieg told a rally of some 400 people: "It is time for all of us to encourage our Republican friends in this Statehouse to show some backbone before it's too late. … We can still do the right thing. And if they do, we should give them some credit for it. I mean, it's a low bar. Refraining from cheating is a low bar. But you got to start somewhere." For more: “Pete Buttigieg returns to Indiana to give fiery anti-redistricting speech: 'Cheaters never win.’”
Indiana Capital Chronicle reporter Casey Smith had this: “The State Budget Committee on Wednesday approved a request from the Indiana Department of Correction for $15.79 million in state funding to prepare Miami Correctional Facility for use in a new federal immigration detention agreement. The money will fund a wide range of infrastructure upgrades and equipment purchases, according to budget committee documents obtained by the Indiana Capital Chronicle.” For more: “Budget panel approves $15.79M for immigration detention upgrades at Miami Correctional Facility. New details on state contract with ICE show state to make millions.”
As Tippecanoe County stands with a one-year moratorium on large-scale solar projects as it reconsiders local zoning regulations on utility-sized plans – such as the proposed 1,700-acre Rainbow Trout Solar Project rejected in August by the Area Board of Zoning Appeals – Indiana Energy and Natural Resources Secretary Suzanne Jaworowski this week questioned a growing patchwork of local restrictions that could tie up energy production in the state. From a report by Leslie Bonilla Muñiz in the Indiana Capital Chronicle: “‘These local moratoriums are setting our energy policy,’ Jaworowski said. ‘And not only that, it’s creating a reputation … where industry doesn’t want to come.’” For more: “Indiana energy secretary blasts local moratoriums, calls energy development ‘patriotic’ task. The state is working on a map of counties willing to host energy and industrial installations.”
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Okay, time to go back to the Epstein issue. Birthday book, check: exists and is worse than we thought. Next question: Did Epstein get his money from Russia? Do not get distracted, even if they sink all the boats in Venezuela.
Good to see that on the gas stations issue. Though I now wonder what will be the next development fad that needs to be addressed. Perhaps we can get ahead of that one before it gets out of hand...