Lebanon landowners fight annexation of 1,450 acres for ‘innovation park’
LEBANON, Ind. (WISH) — The Lebanon city government wants to annex more than 1,400 acres, but the people who own the land are upset because no one will tell them why the annexation is happening.
It is tough to see from the ground the amount of land the city of Lebanon wants to annex, so I-Team 8 put its drone in the air for a better look around. The city government is attempting to annex hundreds of acres for a huge development planned by the state.
John Allen and all of his neighbors in the past week got by mail a letter telling them that survey crews would be entering their property. The letter, provided to I-Team 8, says the city government is after 1,450 acres in what the city calls a “voluntary annexation.”
Allen assumes the annexation is associated with the proposed business park coming to the Lebanon area. “We don’t know who to blame for all of this. They tell us it is the state. They tell us it is the city,” he said.
According to the letter, Allen and close to 50 other landowners are on the Lebanon Plan Commission meeting agenda on Tuesday night. Lebanon has started the process to annex the landowners’ property, but the letter doesn’t tell them why. It says landowners will receive information about the proposed or possible uses of the land at the hearing. Allen and dozens of other landowners in the area have received offers to sell their land for the development called “the innovation park.”
The current offer, Allen says, is a slap in the face. “And they are making the offers off of last year’s tax assessment, not this year’s, and it took us years to get where we are,” Allen said.
Allen and others moved to this part of the county to escape the restrictions of a city. Now, the city and the state governments want their land.
Opponents of the innovation park have planned a meeting on Saturday at the Boone County Fairgrounds.
This story has been corrected to indicate the Lebanon Plan Commission would be meeting Tuesday night.