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Council approves rezoning of 5.75-acre parcel south of battery plant after residents raise safety and environmental concerns
Summary
The Kokomo Common Council voted to rezone a 5.75-acre parcel south of the battery plant to heavy industrial (HI). Council members said enforcement of site-safety and permitting is outside the rezoning action while residents urged a pause and raised questions about electrical work, toilets and potential chemical releases at nearby facilities.
The Kokomo Common Council voted to pass Ordinance 7176 to change zoning for a 5.75-acre parcel south of the battery plant to HI (high-intensity industrial) after a public comment period in which nearby residents urged a pause and raised safety and environmental concerns.
Councilman Grecu moved for passage of Ordinance 7176 on second reading, describing the request as a change “from PDM 2 plan development to HI high intensity industrial heavy manufacturing” for property adjacent to the existing J1 Industries site. The motion was seconded and passed by voice vote.
The rezoning was the subject of extended public comment. Donna Meyer, a Greentown resident, urged the council to “put the rezoning on pause for 6 months to give the city of Kokomo inspectors some teeth to bring this building to code.” Meyer told the council an electrical short at a nearby site required ambulances and said, “There are 0 working toilets out there... The building has 5 pounds of water pressure, not enough to flush the toilet,” and that temporary-occupancy conditions were not being met.
Anne Eames, a resident who said she had documentation from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, told the council the nearby facility had not been permitted at the time of an audit and raised concerns about volatile organic chemicals and a chemical she identified as N‑methylpyrrolidone (transcribed as n methylpyrrolidine). Eames said the company listed in the permit was “Kermida” (transcript spelling) and that permit documents required additional processing lines for the material handled there.
Council discussion emphasized a limit on the council’s authority. “Our job here tonight is the rezoning of the land, period,” Councilman Greg Davis said. “We just that that's that's what's in our within our purview.” Davis told attendees the council had taken extra steps outside its formal responsibility to speak with building inspection and fire officials and said apparent preliminary wiring work identified earlier had been corrected and was “under constant inspection.”
The council did not vote on any enforcement action tied to the safety or permitting complaints; members repeatedly noted that operational compliance and building-code enforcement fall to inspectors and other agencies, not the zoning vote. Ordinance 7176 passed on second reading by voice vote; no roll-call tally was recorded in the meeting minutes.
The meeting adjourned after other business. The council scheduled its next meeting for Feb. 10 with an informational session at 5:30 p.m.
