CROWN POINT | A request that 40 acres of former farm land near Interstate 65 be rezoned for business won early approval Monday from the Plan Commission.
Business zoning for the acreage, west of the interstate between 109th and 113th avenues on the city's east side, would make it suitable for development by hotels, restaurants and other retail and office space, Jim Wieser, representing owner Mark Kendra, said.
Development of that type would best suit the acreage between the Crown East light industrial development to the west and land zoned for residential development to the south and southeast, Wieser said.
"It would make for an easier transition," Wieser said.
Planning board member Bill Feder held out for the acreage to be zoned instead for light industrial use.
"The city already has an abundance of (business zoned land) ready to be developed," Feder said. "And we are short of industrial property."
Wieser said the slowly recovering economy "is not coming back in light industrial, but in (business) type development."
No definite plans for developing the property are in place, Wieser said.
The Plan Commission voted 5 to 1 to recommend to the City Council that the land be rezoned for business. Feder cast the only no vote.
The request for rezoning the property had been deferred in two previous Plan Commission meetings.
Two other tracts of land at the I-65 and 109th Avenue intersection have been rezoned for business over the past year, including 130 acres on the west side of the intersection and 40 acres on the east side.
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