Calf barn nixed by split vote

A variance request filed by an Amish man planning to build a calf barn failed by default Thursday night as the Jay County Board of Zoning Appeals could neither officially approve nor deny it.
Andrew Girod requested a variance to build a 40-by-140 foot barn that would hold 280 head of calves 8 feet from the adjoining property to the north. The required setback from property lines is 100 feet.
Girod said he spoke with the owner of the adjacent land, Gerald Tonner, about the new barn.
“He said he doesn’t have any problem with it,” Girod said.
Girod explained that he would have to place the barn so close to the property line because of a pond on his property at 8761 North 300 West, Bryant. If he moved the barn away from the north line, it would conflict with setbacks with the neighbor to the east.
“The property is very narrow,” Girod said.
The board heard comment from Knox Township resident Paula Confer, who asked the appeals board to respect the county’s zoning law.
“We don’t have a lot of rules about confined feeding, but the ones we do have need to be obeyed,” she said. “If there’s any other way to build that barn to meet the setback … I think it would be good to do that.”
Board members asked Jay/Portland Building and Zoning administrative assistant Patti McLaughlin if any adjacent property owners had responded to the variance request via mail or phone call, to which she said she hadn’t heard anything one way or the other.
The board then dicussed the request, judging it on whether denying the request would cause undue hardship to the applicant and if granting the request would preserve the “spirit of the (zoning) ordinance.”
Board member Steve Fennig spoke first in favor of the request.
“If the neighbor had a problem with it, I think (Tonner) would have expressed that,” he said. “I think the variance would observe the spirit of the ordinance. … It is to protect a neighbor who doesn’t want a barn there.”
Fennig had taken a similar stance in the previous BZA meeting, voting against a motion to deny a variance, stating that since the affected neighbor didn’t have an issue with the request, that it should be granted.
Board members Carl Walker and Steve Ritchie, however, balked at the notion that the barn would only be 8 feet from the property line, stating that if it was 92 feet away, they would feel better about supporting it.
“Eight feet is awful close to the boundary,” Ritchie said.
Fennig made a motion to approve the request, which was ready to die for lack of a second before Walker seconded it just so the board could vote.
The motion to approve was defeated 1-2, with both Ritchie and Walker voting against it.
Ritchie then made a motion to deny the request, seconded by Walker, and the vote was 2-1, with Fennig voting against.
Because motions from the BZA must pass by a majority of the total membership — five people — for action to be taken, Ritchie’s motion failed.
Board members Eric Pursiful and Scott Hilfiker were absent, meaning any motion Thursday night would require a unanimously vote of the three present members to pass.
Since the variance request didn’t receive enough votes to officially be approved or denied, the request failed by default.
Girod asked the board members after the meeting was closed how he might gain approval to place the barn on that property.
“If it could be moved or land purchased to make it closer (to 100 feet),” Ritchie suggested, asking if it would be possible to buy additional land from Tonner.
“If I could purchase 50 feet, would it get approved?” Girod asked.
Ritchie answered that, to be safe, he would recommend at least the required 92 feet. “To me it looks impossible to purchase because of finances,” Girod said of an effort to buy additional land.
Walker suggested offering Tonner a land-swap in order to create an appropriate space to place the barn.[[In-content Ad]]