Change comes to Wayne Township

Noblesville Daily Times ^ | 20 August 2005 | Rebecca L Sandlin

[Lorianne]

In the spice of life that makes up Wayne Township, Mitch Hazelbaker's family has been among the salt of the earth.

He and his wife Shaleen live on part of the 120-acre homestead that has been in the Hazelbaker family since 1836.

"My grandfather started farming it with his dad when he came here," he said.

During the Depression in the 1930s, when times were hard, both Walter and his wife Velma Hazelbaker worked at Guide Lamp in Anderson to make ends meet.

"It was real hard conditions," Mitch said. "He'd work during the day in that paint environment, then come home at night and work his farm with horses. It was about to kill him."

Finally, Walter came home one night and told Velma he was quitting the factory to farm full time.

"He always bragged about how he took care of her and the family by farming," Hazelbaker said.

But times have changed since Walter hitched up the horses to work the land. Hazelbaker and his neighbors are watching more and more Wayne Township farm land turn into housing additions.

‘New Urbanism'

Because land developers want the properties they buy to be annexed into the city of Noblesville and connected to the city sanitary sewer and other services, city planners have developed a proposed land use plan for the township that has sparked an intense controversy.

More than 200 township residents came to two meetings held in Wayne Township this summer to view the master plan and register comments. At several points during the meetings, tempers flared and voices rose in protest over the plan's concept, based on what has been termed "New Urbanism."

In the city's master plan, neighborhood "hamlets" of about 1,000 households would contain a centralized hub that features a community facility such as a park or school.

The hamlets would be located within a self-contained "village," surrounding a town center that would serve several villages. Town centers would contain small shops, markets and other stores and businesses easily accessible by pedestrian walkways and bike trails.

The plan would be imposed if a developer asks the city to be annexed into Noblesville.

Hazelbaker, a full-time firefighter, realizes how hard it is these days for farmers to make a living, especially on small-acreage farms.

"To make it these days in farming you have to have an awful lot of land and have to have an awful lot of equipment," he said. "And you don't know what the economy is going to do."

Hazelbaker's father Sonny divided the part of the family farm he received in an inheritance into thirds and sold two lots with specific requirements for the types of homes to be built on them.

"I don't have a thing against my neighbor selling his ground. It's the American way. It's what got us here today," he said.

But Mitch makes the point that there are already zoning requirements in the township put in place by county officials elected by township residents.

"We know these people. Ever since I've been a kid I can just about tell you every neighbor around here for miles. And so, when we have a problem we can go to them," he said. "They have the same values that we do and have respect for the land."

One of Hazelbaker's biggest concerns is what he calls the overburdening to the township's school system. Currently, he pays more than $1,575 of his annual tax bill for schools. He said his grandfather was concerned that his taxes were going up when Hamilton Southeastern schools were built and he feels it will go nowhere but up with the influx of more housing developments.

"This has all been built on (farmers') backs," he added. "My concern is that you're getting the cart before the horse."

Hazelbaker said there are concerns that emergency medical service will be compromised with an increase in population.

"For a cardiac emergency, you need (advanced life support) intervention within seven minutes to give you the best survival rate," he said. "Currently there's a medic in Wayne Township. They're 24/7. We can make it to Deer Creek way under seven minutes. Now Noblesville has come out here. Their closest medic is usually on an engine … but if there's a fire or something else, where is your next medic going to come from?"

Shaleen Hazelbaker, a former firefighter, agreed.

"How many people will it take — how many people have to die — how many people won't have the better outcome?" she asked. "You have to have the manpower here before you get all the people out here."

Mitch Hazelbaker thinks the best solution for the township's future is to stick to the master plan already laid out by Hamilton County.

"When we went to the meeting, we saw that (Noblesville) Mayor Ditslear wanted something special for Wayne Township," Hazelbaker said. "Most of us in Wayne Township think it's special the way it is. We'd like to see that way of life continue out here."

‘Change is coming'

Joe Boden, 76, has also spent his entire life on the land in Wayne Township, farming 250 acres at 166th Street and Boden Road.

But recently he sold all but two lots of that land to Beazer Homes, which has named the future development Bridge Hall.

"We kept out two lots, one for my son and one for us," he said. The Noblesville Plan Commission recently approved a zoning change on the lots, which Boden is also asking to be annexed into the city. Bridge Hall has already been annexed.

Boden didn't go to the Wayne Township master plan meeting, partly because he wanted to avoid the shouting match he envisioned would take place.

"(Progress is) coming, so you might as well do the best you can," he said.

Boden thinks the proposed master plan is a good idea, but he doesn't think it will be practical.

"You're going to have to have a developer or contractor that has a large acreage of land to put the whole thing in," he said. "In other words, it's supposed to be villages and hamlets. Can you get a contractor to do that? I think the idea is fine, but realistically, I don't know if it can be done or not."

Riding in his SUV on a tour of the neighborhood brought back memories of a time before the land developers started to move in.

"I used to farm all this. Had the cattle and everything," Boden said. "I have 25 cows now and they're going to be gone this winter. And that's it."

He pointed to one housing addition where his cattle once grazed, and to Deer Path, where he grew row crops — corn, soybeans and wheat. Some of the land he owned and other pieces he rented and farmed.

"You can see houses over here … houses there … a golf course there," he said. "This (house) here is $4 million. That's a lot of house there."

Boden was able to make a decent living from farming, but he said the sale of his farm has provided a retirement nest-egg for him and his wife, Corinne. Even though it's no longer his, the land will still take care of the Bodens for generations to come, he said.

"As a farmer, you hate to see it come. But at 76 years old, it's more money than you ever dreamed of," he said. "It's coming and you're not going to stop it … this is Wayne Township. They can say what they want to, but there it is."

Connection to the land

Jane Sullivan hasn't lived on her property at 196th Street and Creek Road as long as some of the other families in Wayne Township, but she feels a special connection to the land just the same.

Sullivan has grown medicinal herbs on her land and has had Native Americans come perform ceremonies.

"I'm an environmentalist, I'm a naturalist and we have spent 22 years getting our property where we have it," she explained. "So this land, for me, is more than just a house on a piece of land. So I'm going to be someone who takes it very deeply when people talk about my land."

Sullivan feels the master plan proposed by the Noblesville Plan Department doesn't take into account what she called a "direct relationship with the land, like the farmers used to."

"We moved out here because we wanted to get away from the city," she said. "When we moved in here there were chicken coops out here and the grass was taller than we were."

What motivated Sullivan to speak out at the public forum on the master plan was that neighbors were telling her there was nothing that could be done about the decisions made by the city.

"I believe that as long as we're drawing breath, there is something we can do," she said. "We may lose the war, but we also might win the battle."

Sullivan is concerned about the city taking residents' property by eminent domain in the event that a developer should annex adjacent property into the city.

"If people can come in and tell us, ‘We're going to take it,' and then they say, "We're not really going to take it; we're going to offer you fair market price,' they can't always offer you full-market price because some of us have a spiritual connection to the land," she said. "How can they offer money for something that sacred to me, that's like a church? … Are they going to give me a price for the amount of time and communion I've had with God on my property?"

Sullivan added she had just driven in the last nail on a new addition to their home and landscaped the area that includes two ponds when she got the news about the proposed master plan.

"We're not the kind of people that stand in the way of growth in the sense of if you have to do it," she said, "But we're not sure that that's necessarily what's going on, or if it's just about more developments and more money to be made. I just think it's time to say no to it."

Sullivan said instead, more money should be spent in rehabilitating property and homes in downtown Noblesville.

Neither does she understand nor trust everything she hears coming from city officials. She said government officials have told her things before and then different things actually happen.

"What we saw, that map, looks well planned. Who's making that plan? It's not a developer, so that's what they're going to present to a developer as what they would like to see happen out here? That's what I'm understanding."

Still, looking over the Wayne Township plans that call for walking and bike trails, Sullivan said she would enjoy having someplace to walk. With new subdivisions coming in, she said walking on township roads is becoming less safe.

"I'm very supportive of a neighborhood that's going to support walking and hiking and keeping nature going," she said. "My concern is I hear this so much, and what I see created is similar to a Disneyland type of appearance. It's not really natural."

One connection Sullivan does not feel is to Noblesville. She said residents in Wayne Township don't vote for the mayor or other city officials and have been given little voice in its future.

But her main fear is over losing her freedom.

"It just gets a little scary to me, that we've got our kids fighting over in Iraq for freedom of the people, and we feel like we're losing it here in our own nation and our own country," she said. "I will support whatever it takes to maintain our freedom."

[andie74]

This kind of thing is happening everywhere, and Southern Indiana will be affected more and more with the proposed I-69 extension. Family farms are becoming tract homes...so sad.

I'm from that area, and everytime I go there, I see another strip mall and another housing project.

[little jeremiah]

FYI and if you have anything to say about this, ping me.

Farmland is valuable. It can grow food. Not all dirt can grow food. When every scrap of food is grown in CA and FL, if anything happens, people who don't live near it will be in deep doodoo.

When I was a kid, family farms were everywhere - growing potatoes, peaches, strawberries, apples, vegetables of all kinds. Small dairies, too. Now? It's all gone.