The Brown County Regional Sewer District is hoping to get nearly 4 acres of property owned by Brown County Parks and Recreation property to build a wastewater treatment plant that will serve the Bean Blossom area.
At the May parks and rec board meeting, board members approved selling the property to the sewer district for $1 and letting the Brown County Commissioners handle the remaining paperwork and further approvals.
But in an email to The Democrat on July 3, parks and rec Director Mark Shields said that one of the board members has expressed an interest in rescinding the decision that was made in May. That could happen at the July meeting.
The topic was supposed to be discussed at the parks board’s June meeting, but by the time the agenda topic came up, some board members had to leave and a quorum was no longer present, he said.
The property in question is along the State Road 135 North corridor. If you were driving to Nashville on 135 North from Bean Blossom, the land would be on the left, near where the tree line starts south of the Bean Blossom Animal Clinic. The address is 4687 State Road 135 North.
“There’s a dead-end pull-off, and that would be the access. According to the map they have, they would come off of that pull-off and then go back up into the woods with this site,” Shields said.
That property is under the same deed restrictions that govern the Bean Blossom Overlook properties, which also are owned by parks and rec.
The deed states that the grantee — which was parks and rec — “shall follow selective forest management procedures by not clear-cutting the land so that the scenic beauty of the property shall be preserved; and further, that any lands in this deed within 300 feet of the centerline of State Road 135 shall not have any timber removed nor manmade developments placed upon said lands.”
The acreage in question was part of the nearly 160 acres on both sides of State Road 135 North that was deeded to parks and rec from the Indiana Department of Transportation in the 1980s.
Shields said if the regional sewer district were to get the land, they would most likely be the ones to get exceptions to that deed granted in order to place a treatment plant there.
At the July 9 sewer board meeting, John Kennard said the structures at the plant would be built where the deed allowed them. Kennard is on the parks board and works for the health department.
In the past, the parks and rec department has looked at this property for potential hiking and mountain bike trails, since those are allowed under the deed restrictions. Shields said those plans were never concrete.
The letter sent to the parks board from sewer project engineer Gary Ladd does not offer a price for the land, but says that the property owner is “entitled to just compensation for this purchase,” which would be done through an appraisal and review process.
The letter also states that the property owner could donate the property if they responded to the letter within 10 days indicating they wanted to do that. The letter was dated May 9. “We have not contacted them,” Shields said July 3.
Board member Linda Hobbs said she would like to see the parks department be able to help residents in Bean Blossom by providing them with this infrastructure, according to meeting minutes. She then motioned to continue discussions with the commissioners regarding turning the property over to the sewer board, but that motion did not pass.
Kennard suggested giving the land to the sewer district as a “good faith will from the department,” then turning over remaining decisions to the commissioners.
At the July 3 commissioners meeting, resident Tim Clark asked why a portion of the property was already marked as a treatment plant on the county’s GIS map, which is accessible on the county’s website.
Biddle said the commissioners did not know why. She said the entire property was “very complex.”
At the July 9 sewer board meeting, resident Sherrie Mitchell asked why the possible purchase of this property wasn’t mentioned at a sewer board meeting before now.
Sewer board member Clint Studabaker said that the board only mentioned it “when it became a clear effort being made” instead of a “what-do-you-think kind of conversation.”
Residents in past sewer board meetings had asked when and if they would know about a possible site for the treatment plant before it’s a “done deal.” Studabaker said at the May meeting that they’d let the public know at the point that it was a “negotiated agreement” where the owner had agreed to make the property available; if they did it sooner, they could risk losing whatever land they were looking at.
Land needs to receive a special exception from the county’s zoning code to house a wastewater treatment plant.
A public hearing on the 135 North parcel will take place before the Brown County Board of Zoning Appeals at 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 24 at the County Office Building in Nashville.
