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Owner seeks to reclassify residential parcel to agriculture and add agricultural‑protection designation
Summary
A Syracuse landowner asked the council to rezone a property from Residential A to Agriculture A1 and to include it in an agricultural protection area. Councilors discussed retaining an eastern strip for a future road corridor and avoiding eminent domain; both applications will be considered together at a future business meeting.
Syracuse City Council members reviewed a companion pair of planning commission recommendations asking to rezone a parcel at 2550 West 700 South from Residential A1 to Agriculture A1 and to include the same land in an agricultural protection area.
Staff said the property owner, identified in the packet as Jacob Reyes, applied to preserve the site as farmland. “This is very unusual. We almost never get somebody that wants to go from residential to agriculture,” a council presenter said. The parcel is part of a more extensive agricultural protection area the city is proposing.
Council discussion focused on a long‑planned master‑plan road corridor that crosses part of the larger agricultural area. One councilor expressed concern that placing the land in an agricultural protection area could complicate or delay constructing a future road that is on the city’s long‑range plan; staff replied that the applicant has agreed to language that would carve out an eastern strip to preserve the right‑of‑way and avoid a need for eminent domain. “Jake has agreed to work with us…we’ve been exchanging some language…the proposal that you get when you get to your business meeting will address that concern and exclude something along that eastern boundary,” a staff member said.
Council members noted the agricultural zoning change would create some existing nonconforming parcels (for example, a parcel smaller than the minimum lot size) and that agricultural protection provides land‑use assurances to farming operations — including certain protections for normale agricultural work — that the owner values. Staff said the planning commission recommended both the rezoning and the agricultural protection designation and that the council will hold separate votes for each item at the business meeting.
Councilors asked staff to include the draft language that excludes the future road corridor from the protection area in the business packet so members and the public can review the proposed carve‑out prior to a vote.
