THORNTOWN — Residents armed with sticky notes, pens and ideas gathered for a Boone County Comprehensive Plan workshop to help map the county’s future and shape growth for the next 20 years.
"I am part of a multi-generational family that lives on farm land and we care a great deal about what happens to our county,” Josh Miller, who lives in Boone County north of Lebanon, said.
Miller was one of dozens who attended the community workshop. One of his biggest concerns is that the county is growing too fast.
"It's unsustainable and we are doing it without a solid plan,” Miller said.
Miller also said he is concerned about light pollution because he lives in the country to see the stars at night. While several attendees raised worries about solar-panel farms and wind farms across the county, Miller said he disagrees with many of his neighbors and wants to see green energy reach the community.
“I am very much a dissenting voice,” Miller said. “There is a lot of people who don’t feel that way, but I think we are going to need cheap renewable sources of energy, and I don’t see why we can’t take our farmers who know how to work the land and figure out a way to make solar panels or wind work with the farmers. There has got to be a way we can grow crops and energy. It’s not binary.”
The last comprehensive plan was created in 2009. According to Census data from 2020, the county has seen a 54% growth in population. For example, in 2000, Whitestown had a population of 530; now 2,867 people live there. The total population of Boone County is 70,812. These changes underscore why a new comprehensive plan is being drafted.
"When it's finished, it's a guide for primarily public officials to help them in their decision-making process,” Debra Luzier, interim planning director for the Boone County Area Plan Commission, said. “So if property is being contemplated for development, we can look at this comprehensive plan to decide where should this growth be guided."
Preserving farmland has been a recurring theme public officials have heard since the 1990s, Luzier said, but how preservation is defined has evolved.
“In the 90’s when I worked for the county preserve farmland meant there is to be no development in the agricultural areas,” Luzier said. “Nowadays it’s kind of morphed into we expect low-density residential development, homes far apart, no business in those areas, and to keep things more rural.”
The workshop also raised other topics: ensuring enough housing for new residents who will move to Boone County once the LEAP district begins employing people on site; infrastructure changes, including more roundabouts to improve intersection safety; the future of gravel roads amid investment in the LEAP district; and clustering industrial districts away from housing developments. Officials said all input will be considered as they complete the final plan.
"Whether it's the farm land preservation guiding growth to where it's most appropriate, or where should businesses be located, hopefully getting some consensus into some of those processes,” Luzier said.
Officials hope to have a draft of goals and objectives by the end of the year. The process also includes the Thorofare plan and the safety improvements plan, and is expected to take a little over a year to clear the necessary hurdles.
This was the first of two meetings; the next will be held on September 23 at 6 p.m. at the Boone County 4‑H Fairgrounds. For more information, click here.
