The Marshall County Drainage Board acted on three variance requests during their meeting Monday morning, June 17th.
The first request was from Chad Walleske at 13061 5A Road. County Surveyor Craig Cultice told members the ditch was cleaned in the late spring of 2018 and Mr. Walleske told him of his intentions to plat pine trees on the ditch bank for a privacy screening and wind break. The surveyor warned him of the 75 foot setback requirement and Walleske said it was his property and he would do as he wanted.
Now a year later, the trees have been planted 5 feet from the top of the ditch and Walleske was notified of the violation. His options were to remove the trees or seek a variance.
Walleske presented pictures of the neighboring properties and the setback violations including, sheds, a fence and even penned animals. The board wasn’t concerned of the other violations but did grant Walleske a variance of 40 feet and he agreed to move them within 30 days.
The second request came from the Marshall County Economic Development Corporation for the Manufacturing Center on Dewey street in Argos. Jerry Chavez, Executive Director of MCEDC said the current building is 50,000 square feet with the ability to expand to 300,000 square feet. To do an expansion a variance would be needed from the tile.
Initially Chavez was seeking a variance on both sides of the tile and on two contiguous pieces of property owned by the Town of Argos. With some discussion the County Drainage Board unanimously approved a variance from the standard 75’ to 30’ on the north side of the tile including the two town properties.
The final variance request came from Bomarko at 1955 North Oak Drive. Bomarko is expanding their business operations with the addition of a new building to house a new press. The variance needed is for the expansion of the current detention pond. The expanded dry basin would sit 35 feet from the top of the Schuh Ditch in a farm field.
Board member Randy Glingle asked why the detention pond could be moved further into the field to meet the standard and Mr. Gamble from Bomarko said their plan was to connect to the current pond which actually sits even closer to the ditch bank. He noted they have moved the propose pond back from the bank.
The drainage board approved this variance too.
