The Columbus Plan Commission voted 9-0 to forward a favorable recommendation to the city council on a rezoning request by Cummins Inc. to rezone property to match the designation of another adjoining property also owned by the company.
Commissioner Keerthi Alapati recused herself because she’s a Cummins employee. The Columbus City Council makes all final decisions regarding zoning.
Cummins asked to rezone 10.5 acres on the east side of International Drive, about 800 feet north of the State Road 58 (450 South) intersection, from Industrial: Heavy with commitments (I3c) to Industrial: Light (I1).
Directly east of the site is the Cummins Olympia Building, zoned as I1 — Cummins intends to combine the two properties “for future development,” Cummins’ Donnie Henderson told the commission.
The favorable recommendation include five previous commitments applicable to both properties from when the subject property was last rezoned in 2016. Some of these are that road improvements be made on County Road 300W when development occurs, there be only one access point to County Road 300W from the subject property and that landscape buffering be provided for a residential area to the west.
Commissioner Zack Ellison observed that County Road 300W seems to come up quite a bit during plan commission business and asked City Engineer Andrew Beckort if the city has any plans for improvements to it.
“It’s been on our radar,” Beckort said. “We have federal projects booked all the way up to almost 2030 right now. So as far as using federal dollars, it’d be awhile — there is an opportunity for redevelopment to take on that project or if some other funding source came up.”
Councilman Tom Dell, D-at-large, said virtually that the request by Cummins made sense so the company can expand their business within one zoning requirement and reiterated that the redevelopment department is looing at ways to improve County Road 300W.
