The Lincoln County Commissioners met in the Lincoln County Boardroom Tuesday, June 6 to discuss agenda items brought before them.
Trevor Pierce joined the meeting to discuss a potential rezoning of a portion of proposed Tract 1A of Holbeck Addition of the property legally described as Tract 1, Holbeck Addition, N1/2 NW1/4, Section 27-T99N-R51W, Perry Township, from the “A-1” Agricultural District to the “RR” Rural Residential District, and amending the Official Zoning Map of Lincoln County. The Planning Commission recommends denial 7-0.
“It’s not like we’re trying to build ten houses out there, we are just trying to get the property split, I do know that there is a building eligibility on it now, and it will basically be another single family housing on the other five acres, if it is accepted,” Pierce said.
Commissioner Joel Arends wanted further clarification of what Pierce intends to do on the property.
“Just to understand what you are doing out there, because I think from the record right now, I really don’t understand what you’re trying to do other than you want to build a house, right?” “Correct,” responded Pierce.
Arends questioned if it was an acreage or if Pierce farms the surrounding property.
“No,” Pierce stated.
“So, if I understand correctly, did you previously buy that parcel of property out there and you essentially just want to put a rural acreage farmstead there,?” Arends asked.
“That’s correct,” Pierce said.
Arends asked for Pierce to better explain the two different parcels he wished to make on the land.
“I want to basically split it down the slough there, and then my intent was that I was going to sell the other half to a good friend of mine, and he was also going to put housing on there as well,” Pierce responded.
David Unzeker joined the meeting to voice his opinion on the matter.
“I’d be the one that is looking to purchase the other five acres, and I think, like he said, we are good friends, and we aren’t really trying to make profit and build a development out there, we were just hoping to both be able to build a little acreage for our families,” he said.
Arends asked Planning Director, Toby Brown what the opposition from surrounding neighbors was.
“I think the concern was that there would be an extra house in that area,” Brown said.
Motion to deny made by Jim Schmidt, second by Michael Poppens. Motion denied.
Chad Hazel joined the meeting to discuss 4-H Building Foundation building modifications and moving forward with a proposal for two new structures at the 4-H grounds.
“In the last month or so, the building Committee and the Fairgrounds Foundation have been assessing the difference between our wants and our needs on what we need to get the achievement days going in Lennox,” Hazel said.
Adjustments to the building sizes have been made to accommodate what they need.
“Instead of the barns being 40’x100’, which would have been a nice growth from what we had, but possibly a little excessive at this point, we backed them back down to 40’x60’ which still gives us plenty of room for all the entries we have now, and will allow us in the future to just add on to them and make them longer as we need to,” he said.
It was also agreed on to make three of the barns open sided instead of fully enclosed, so they’ll have a place for shade for the livestock.
The Foundation and Committee has chosen to work with Cleary, who gave them a quote of $108,000 which they have the funding for.
Auditor, Sheri Lund joined the meeting to present bid requests for farmland leases,
“We had three bids for the Farmland bid request, 23-002,23-003 and 23-006, farmland leases, we are requesting that all bids be awarded to the highest bidder,” Lund said.
The Commission approved to award the bid request number 23-002 to The Block Farm, Brett Block for the amount of $9,042.80, to award the bid request number 23-003 to Allen Rippentrop for the amount of $1,950.00, and to award the bid request number 23-006 to The Block Farm, Brett Block for the amount of $8,225.00. Motion passed unanimously.