Photo provided The Toyota Material Handling entrance is shown.
The Columbus City Council voted 9-0 to approve the first reading of two ordinances that annex and rezone property where a leading local employer plans to build a 260,000-square-foot manufacturing facility.
Toyota Material Handling is asking the city to annex 70.53 acres and rezone 65 acres directly north of its current facility.
The property is on the east side of Interstate 65 and County Road 225W, between Deaver Road and County Road 300s.
The rezoning requests calls for changing the 65 acres from a classification of Agricultural: Preferred to Industrial: General.
Ordinances must be passed on two readings to be fully approved.
The Columbus Plan Commission forwarded favorable recommendations on both the annexation and rezoning by a 10-0 vote at its Feb. 14 meeting.
A large amount of the discussion during the city council meeting on Tuesday night centered around specifics regarding a proposed berm that would help block the facility from adjoining properties.
The plan commission’s favorable recommendation included the following commitments:
- The subject property’s 225 West frontage should include a minimum pavement width of 24 feet, including a re-alignment of 225 West north of its intersection with Deaver Road. This will also include the dedication of all necessary right-of-way to the city to accommodate the realigned road.
- The intersection of Deaver Road and 175W should be improved within existing right-of-way to facilitate semi-truck turning movements.
- A 30-foot and one-half right-of-way should be dedicated along the subject property’s 300S frontage.
- A buffer should be provided along the property lines of the adjacent residential lots (at 2770 W. Deaver Road and 2815-2931 West County Road 300S) and along the property’s 300 South frontage. The buffer shall include the minimum required setback and shall be a minimum of 60 feet in width. It shall include a berm that is a minimum of 8 feet in height with a 3 to 1 slope; a staggered row of evergreen trees that are a minimum of 5 feet in height at planting and are spaced 10 feet on center shall be planted on top of the berm. No lighting, fencing, or other aspects of development shall encroach into the required buffer area.
- The development of the property shall include a 10-foot wide asphalt shared-use path along its 300S, 225W, and Deaver Road frontages.
A presentation that Planning Director Jeff Bergman gave included various sight lines from adjacent properties to the proposed facility site, something that Council President Frank Miller said helped visualize the area. Miller said his focus would be on what is planted on the berm, and ensuring that a decade from now, once the plants fully mature, that they can successfully serve as a bit of a “screen” to the facility.
“I mean, we would need almost a 60-foot tall berm to really hide the entire building, so really it comes down for me to the plantings, the planting needs to be robust enough,” he said.
Mark Brennan, who lives on a property along the south fence line of the proposed project, expressed concern about potential light and noise pollution. Brennan said he sent pictures to city council members that illustrate the view from his property to the distance of the proposed site. Brennan’s mailbox is about 650 feet from the proposed sight, he said.
“I took some pictures in the field that Toyota owns now, 650 feet from their existing (6 foot berm) and you can see 90% of the building at night. I didn’t take any pictures at night, I wish I had, but it’s lit up like a Christmas tree,” Brennan said. … Maybe I’ll have to put blackout shades in the house or something to be able to sleep at night.”
Brennan had requested a 20 foot berm, that lighting fixtures from the facility be no more than 12 feet in height, and a chemical test on three wells on his property.
“Our well may be contaminated already, but we’d like to know if anything Toyota does in the future would cause our well to become contaminated,” he said.
Based upon what Toyota manufactures, several council members were skeptical of the need to require such tests.
The potential devaluation of his property is also something Brennan said he was concerned about.
“It’s not going to go up, I’m pretty sure, but we’d like to have it mitigated so where it doesn’t go down,” he said.
He left off by thanking the council members who have been responsive to his concerns.
“I was really surprised, because there was only one city council member that didn’t respond at all to several emails,” Brennan said. “After that one- they didn’t have time to meet with us— and everybody else made time to meet with us (and were) very accommodating, so I want to thank them for that.”
Greater Columbus Economic Development Corporation President Jason Hester, speaking in support of Toyota, said in part because of Toyota’s history in Columbus, the rezoning and annexation requests are not “speculative.”
“They’re doing this because they have an opportunity to invest $96 million to create a new factory for electric forklift production,” Hester said. “… And the company has also been generous in agreeing to the extra buffering and verbal requirements above and beyond what would be required.”
Senior VP of Operations, Engineering & Strategic Planning for Toyota Tony Miller added to Hester’s comments.
“There’s a concrete plan for this and we are not in the real estate business where we have no intention of getting this rezoned and annexed and then trying to sell the land, that’s not Toyota’s business, we make forklifts,” Miller said.
Councilman Kent Anderson addressed Brennan, saying, “I know it’s not a happy moment to see change on that, you know what was a beautiful farm field is now a factory field more in the future.” Anderson went on to say how he believed Toyota has helped a lot of people in the county out of poverty and suggested that Brennan could take steps on his own property to help minimize the impact of his concerns.
“I think what we’re asking with Toyota is very fair in exchange for what they’re going to bring us and I think it’s going to be imperative on, you know, everybody to be good neighbors,” he said.
The city council will next meet at 6 p.m. April 2 at Columbus City Hall.
