This and that: Backyard chickens, a $350M West Side development, WL schools look at transfer policy
And then some.
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It’s busy first-Monday-of-the-month on both sides of the river:
BACKYARD CHICKENS AT LAFAYETTE CITY HALL: An updated proposal that would allow Lafayette residents to raise and keep hens in their backyards looks a bit different than it did when first unveiled this spring. A key condition in a revised draft of the ordinance, released last week and going to the Lafayette City Council for a potential first vote Monday night: A one-year sunset on any approved ordinance that would require the city council to agree again in 2026 to keep chickens in the city code.
Expect a crowd of backyard chicken proponents at the meeting tonight, as the city council considers the core provisions for lifting restrictions on livestock in city limits, including a limit of five hens per address for noncommercial use, no roosters, a free permit and banding requirement, maintenance of birds so they don’t become a public nuisance and size requirements for coops and pens.
If approved tonight, the ordinance would require a second and final vote, likely in September, for the backyard chicken rules. The Lafayette City Council meets at 6 p.m. Monday at city hall, 20 N. Sixth St. Here’s the council’s full agenda.
Here’s more about the latest version of the backyard chicken proposal:
$350M PROJECT GOES BEFORE WEST LAFAYETTE CITY COUNCIL: The District at Tapawingo, Lafayette-based Trinitas Ventures’ $350 million development for 11 undeveloped acres between Tapawingo Drive and River Road, is up for rezoning approval at Monday’s West Lafayette City Council meeting.
The designs filed with the Area Plan Commission include 960 units with 1,800 beds and 16,000-square-feet of commercial space in a series of five- and six-story mixed-use buildings roughly behind River Market Apartments, a Speedway and the Hampton Inn, and north of the Tapawingo Drive/River Road/Williams Street roundabout. Mark Becher, vice president of mixed-used development for Trinitas, told the redevelopment commission this summer that the company was aiming for an April 2026 groundbreaking on the first phase, with things opening in 2028. Becher has said that the first phase would include 500 of those 960 units, with the other 460 coming later. He described the project as a connection between the city’s Riverfront District and Chauncey Hill.
The city’s redevelopment commission already has been working with Trinitas on a plan to build streets through the development, envisioning them as part of a grid pattern laid out in the West Lafayette downtown traffic plan released in 2024. The idea is to have Trinitas build what will become extensions of Wood, Roebuck and other city streets and be reimbursed by the city, via tax revenues from the completed District at Tapawingo.
The West Lafayette City Council will meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday at city hall, 222 N. Chauncey Ave. Here’s a link to the full West Lafayette City Council agenda.
And here’s a look at the District at Tapawingo project, from a BiL Q&A with Becher earlier this year:
WEST SIDE SCHOOLS CONTEMPLATE REVISED TRANSFER POLICY: A new state law has the West Lafayette school board at a crossroads about how it handles transfer students looking to get into the district’s highly ranked classrooms – including a possible choice to open available enrollment space on a lottery basis to students who live outside the district boundaries in the future. At play is a provision in Senate Bill 366, signed into law in May, that strips a school district’s ability to pass along the costs of a property tax referendum to families who live and pay taxes somewhere else. Specifically, for West Lafayette, the district has a standing agreement with neighboring Tippecanoe School Corp. to accept students who qualify under state law to transfer. Approximately 160 students who live in TSC will be in West Lafayette schools in the coming academic year, school officials said during a school board meeting earlier this summer.
The school board will meet at 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 4, in a work session to discuss the district’s options. The meeting will be at West Side’s Central Office, 3061 Benton St., behind West Lafayette Elementary. Here’s the agenda.
Here's an account of that school board conversation on potential transfer student rules from June:
The school board’s monthly meeting, moved up a week to get ahead of the first day of the new school year, follows at 6 p.m., with discussions scheduled about a junior/senior high school locker room project and a raft of policy updates, including about updating the procedure for dealing with requests to remove materials from the district’s school libraries. Here’s that agenda.
THIS AND THAT/OTHER READS …
CNN reported on the case of Yeonsoo Go, a South Korean pharmacy student at Purdue and the daughter of an Episcopal priest in New York, who was detained last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after attending a hearing to extend her student visa. Go, 20, was arrested and placed in federal detention nearby, before eventually being moved to a facility in Louisiana. Protests in New York followed this weekend. Here’s more, via CNN reporting: “A Korean university student and daughter of a priest was detained by ICE. Faith leaders are now standing behind her.”
Tippecanoe County commissioners on Monday morning approved rezoning 2 acres at 3422 South River Road, near Fort Ouiatenon, in a request expected to clear the way for a cell phone tower. Questions came up about whether construction would preclude parking in the area for the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon each fall, with Brian Ramirez, representative for Cellact Towers, assuring that it wouldn’t. Commissioners approved the request on a 3-0 vote.
The West Lafayette police and fire departments will host National Night Out from 4-8 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5, at the new Cason Family Park, 2500 Cumberland Ave. The evening will feature meet-and-greets with police officers and firefighters, free ice cream, games, food trucks and fishing in Cason Family Park’s pond. Overflow parking will be available at Connection Point Church, just across Cumberland Avenue. Here are more details.
More than 100 Based in Lafayette subscribers kicked in $5,465 to the CASAs for Kids Fund, via team Bangert Brothers, at this weekend’s 24-hour Subaru CASA Cycling Challenge at SIA’s two-mile test track. Donations through the team reached $7,225, which was tops among teams and part of a record $157,000 for the decade-plus event. (Our mileage was definitely not tops, but we knew that going in.) Thanks for stepping up, BiL community.
ICYMI …
A few stories from last week, in case you missed them:
GREATER LAFAYETTE COMMERCE LOOKS LOCAL FOR NEW CEO: BiL had an extended conversation last week with Mikel Berger, a West Lafayette-based entrepreneur named the incoming president and CEO of Greater Lafayette Commerce, a key component in the local business-facing community. GLC leaders called him an out-of-the-box thinker – and choice, really – for the economic development role. Part our conversation centered on how Berger hopes to capitalize on everything Greater Lafayette has to offer, as someone who landed at Purdue as a freshman decades ago who found what he needed to thrive: “Anytime I looked, I don't know, seriously or even just kind of haphazardly at somewhere else, I couldn't see more opportunity for myself and my businesses than right here. Especially when you're younger, you're like, Oh, the grass is greener other places. But when I did a hard look at it, this is a special place. To own and operate a business in Greater Lafayette, it's big enough. We have kind of everything you need. But it's not so big that you can't access it. It’s especially a great place to start things and grow things. … . For me, that's the thread of my career is being a business owner helping other business owners. That's what I want to do in this new role.”
Catch up with the Q&A with Berger here:
A FOURTH HOSPITAL PLAN EMERGES IN WEST LAFAYETTE: West Lafayette still doesn’t have a full-scale ER or hospital. But a fourth plan popped up last week, this one a $200 million concept from Fort Wayne-based Parkview Health aimed for the Purdue Research Park across Yeager Road from the $3.87 billion SK hynix semiconductor site. Here’s more:
AND FINALLY … LAST CALL ON THIS 20% OFF DEAL
Today is the last call for a summer pop-up sale for full-access Based in Lafayette subscriptions. Knock 20% off your first year of the local reporting project. Get it while the getting’s good, right here:
Thanks again for support from Joyful Journey, celebrating its 10-year anniversary by presenting the annual Joyful Journey Classic Aug. 24 at Loeb Stadium. Learn more at jjclassic.org.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Congratulations on the big fundraising milestone! 🚴