WL City Council survey: Still unsure on SK hynix rezoning

3 of 9 West Lafayette City Council members say they’ll vote no, with others leaning that way, on a rezoning plan for SK hynix’s preferred spot to put a $3.87B chip packaging facility

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WEST LAFAYETTE CITY COUNCIL SURVEY: STILL UNSURE ON SK HYNIX REZONING

A survey of West Lafayette City Council members suggests that rezoning for the preferred site of SK hynix’s $3.87 billion advanced chip packaging facility could be on the ropes, after neighbors – including some of Purdue’s top researchers in the semiconductor field – cast doubts on how safe the plant would be anywhere near residential neighborhoods.

On Wednesday, the Area Plan Commission voted 9-5 to recommend denial of a Purdue Research Foundation request to rezone 121 acres north of Kalberer Road, between Yeager Road and County Road 50 West/Salisbury Street, from residential to heavy industrial use.

SK hynix indicated this month, through PRF, that it was interested in the West Lafayette site as an option for its 430,000-square-foot facility, expected to open in late 2028 and eventually employ 800 to 1,000 people.

Though essentially just across Yeager Road from the South Korean company’s initial site, the rezoning request and the protest from neighbors who live within view has changed the conversation about what has been touted as one of Indiana’s largest economic development projects and a huge win for Purdue’s role in research and West Lafayette economic development.

Kaushik Roy, a University Farm resident a few blocks from the proposed site, was among those who spoke against the rezoning for the project. Roy also is Edward G. Tiedemann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue and head of the Institute of Chips and AI, a Purdue-led initiative launched in November 2024 in Mountain View, California, to back innovative chip technology and accelerate and improve chip design processes. Roy told APC members that West Lafayette was risking what he said family members told him “was the greatest place in the world.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” Roy told APC members, after other neighbors and fellow Purdue researchers detailed health and environmental risks of chemicals used in the advanced chip packaging process.

SK hynix, the university and Purdue Research Foundation have not responded since Wednesday night’s vote to address questions about where the facility will go or whether comments made to the APC were on target.

The SK hynix facility could still go on industrially-zoned ground in the Purdue Research Park on the west side of Yeager Road, about a half-mile north of Kalberer Road – a prospect PRF officials said earlier this month was a possibility if the zoning change failed.

The final say in the rezoning request belongs to the nine-member West Lafayette City Council, which is expected to vote on the matter at its monthly meeting April 7.

Two city council members – Larry Leverenz and Kathy Parker – are on the Area Plan Commission and voted against recommending the industrial zoning for the 121 acres.

• Parker last week said she landed on the side of residents, after meeting with them earlier this month and hearing from them again at the APC meeting. “I was excited like everyone that SK hynix was coming,” Parker said after Wednesday’s meeting. “But that’s my district, and people really have legitimate concerns about it going right there.”

• Leverenz said that there were “enough concerns for the citizens that we have to listen. … We just have to play it on the safe side.”

Here’s how things shook out in a Based in Lafayette survey of the other council members: