By VICKI URBANIK

The Liberty Landowners Association has filed a lawsuit challenging the Porter County Commissioners’ decision to rezone land at Ind. 49 and U.S. 6 for the new Porter hospital.

The LLA contends in its lawsuit, filed today by North Judson attorney Martin Lucas, that the rezoning violates the county’s development ordinance because the zoning that was approved -- Institutional -- is not a compatible zone with adjacent property.

The LLA is seeking a declaratory judgment finding the rezoning invalid. The commissioners approved the rezoning, from Residential-1 to Institutional, on first reading on Jan. 22, then finalized the ordinance for the rezoning on Feb. 5.

The LLA argues that under the county’s Unified Development Ordinance, R-1 is not a compatible adjacent zoning district with Institutional. The land adjacent to the hospital site is zoned R-1.

The suit says that the purpose of R-1 zoning is for low density single-family homes, including medium to large sized homes on large lots. The rezoning for the hospital is incompatible with the goals and intentions of the R-1 zoning, the suit states, “because it will entail substantial traffic at all hours, will entail construction of large buildings, sprawling parking lots and ancillary facilities, and will tend to draw pressure for further commercial development of the neighboring lands.”

The UDO states that “appropriate adjacent districts” for an Institutional zone are the zoning districts for greenways, parks, agriculture, mobile home parks, offices and technology, commercial and industrial.

At the January public hearing on the hospital rezoning, LLA director Alan Hewitt raised the compatibility argument and said he believes that rezoning the 104 acres would violate the county’s ordinance.

In response, hospital attorney William Ferngren said the adjoining zones in the UDO represent only a guide and that the county commissioners have full legal authority to rezone property as they see fit.

County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger took a similar position this morning. She said it is very difficult to overturn a legislative decision to rezone property if there is some rational basis for the rezoning. The burden for the plaintiffs is that they will have to show that the commissioners acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner, she said.

Rinkenberger did not yet know about the challenge this morning and had not seen the suit. “Obviously, we’ll rigorously defend it,” she said.

The new hospital is being planned by Community Health Systems, which bought the county-owned hospital system last year. As a condition of the sale, CHS must build a new hospital with all private rooms within four years. Hospital officials said they selected the Ind. 49-U.S. 6 site based on their demographic studies of the best hospital locations.

The zoning compatibility issue involving the UDO was raised again in an entirely separate case, but also one for a rezoning along U.S. 6, at a public hearing Wednesday. Before they unanimously voted to give an unfavorable recommendation to the commercial rezoning sought by Allen Square, Inc., several plan commission members said they either opposed the rezoning or wanted to reduce the amount of land to be rezoned, since the adjoining residential land is not compatible with the commercial zoning (see related story).

Also in its lawsuit, the LLA contends that the vote by North Porter County Commissioner John Evans in support of the hospital rezoning was invalid due to a conflict of interest, on the grounds that Evans’ wife is employed by the hospital.

Posted 3/13/2008