Over 1,000 Lyon county residents concerned about rezoning plans
Hundreds of people in Lyon County are concerned about a rezoning plan being considered by the county commissioners that could potentially cause them to lose their farms.
LYON CO., Kan. (KSNT) - Hundreds of people in Lyon County are concerned about a rezoning plan being considered by the county commissioners that could potentially cause them to lose their farms.
Angel Cushing owns a small goat farm of less than 40 acres in northern Lyon County. The new plan would require her to prove the agricultural purpose of her land because it is less than 40 acres. When she discovered this four years ago she started fighting, and hasn't stopped since.
"It forces a land owner to spend an awful lot of money in permits and appeals and is incredibly burdensome if it doesn't put them out of farming completely," Cushing said.
Both Lyon County and the city of Emporia chose Oregon-based company Urban Collaborative to create the new zoning plan being considered, paying them around $280,000, according to County Commissioner Scott Briggs.
The project manager, Zoe Anton, also serves as the vice president of Craft Crickets, a company that farms and sells crickets as a food source.
The company's website states that they believe cricket farming is a smarter and more environmentally-friendly form of agriculture compared to farming beef, pork and chicken.
This leaves community members worried the plan may be pulling away from the needs of their local, rural farmers.
When asked about this by KSNT News, Anton declined to comment, instead referring us to local leadership.
Briggs said he does not believe the plan is biased, noting the Kansas Livestock Association was involved in the development of the zoning plan to ensure it was not.
"It's totally absurd we would even look at something like that," Briggs said. "She never once mentioned crickets, she never once. This is a livestock community."
To go against the zoning plan, Cushing created a petition, signed by 1,083 community members. However, county officials failed to recognize this petition, stating it was not an official petition.
"When they took those petitioned signatures and discounted them as irrelevant, they refused to listen to the voice of the people," said Peggy Mast, a former state representative and current Lyon County land owner. "That's totally against the constitution as far as I'm concerned."
This leaves the citizens feeling their voices aren't being heard.
"The people have been speaking and ignored, or made fun of, or told that 90% of us who signed that petition didn't understand it," said Sarah Henry, a Lyon County resident.
However, Briggs said their message was heard, loud and clear.
"I don't really care if it was a valid petition or not a valid petition, there's 1,000 people," Briggs said. "I've reached out to a lot of them and ask them 'What are you seeing in this zoning petition that I don't?' and most of them were under the influence of 'Well, I heard this and I heard that,' and once I walked them through it they said 'Oh, we're okay with it.'"
Over the next month Briggs said he hopes to be able to keep conversations going with the people who are concerned and straighten out any questions before the final vote happening on Jan. 21.