A new Comprehensive Plan to guide future business and residential development throughout Shelby County remains a work in progress.

Now, following months of effort, the Shelby County Plan Commission wants to wrap it up.

Chairman Doug Warnecke suggested at the Plan Commission's meeting Tuesday evening that the commission meet outside of its regular monthly schedule to finish the comp plan.

“So, I don't know what everybody else thinks, I know everybody's time is valuable, I just think we need a separate comp plan, so we're going to give the best product possible to the commissioners. And I've not been real thrilled with our team. I'd like to have them, or somebody from that organization, at that meeting,” he said.

Warnecke was speaking about the county's consultant, HWC Engineering of Indianapolis, which drafted the new Comp Plan.

In response, Desiree Calderella, executive director of the Shelby County Plan Commission, said she had been in contact with the firm and they were working on addressing questions and comments, and getting a “clean copy” of the new Comp Plan ready for the commission members.

Warnecke noted that one of the goals outlined in the Comp Plan is to promote growth in certain areas; he used Fairland as an example of what he called a “rural town center.”

Commission member Kevin Carson, who's very active in the Shelby County Co-op, a farming cooperative, said cropland needs to be preserved.

Earlier in the meeting Carson called for a moratorium on large-scale solar power installations, and he again cited the recently-approved Ranger Power solar farm as an example of what not to do.

“We don't want to use up farmland which, I'm going to go back to the solar panels. The solar farm did. They used up a bunch of farmland that could've; how many houses, you're worried about zoning the ground, how many houses could you put on 1,700 acres?” Carson said.

The County Plan Commission is set to discuss a possible moratorium on new large-scale solar farms at its April 23 meeting.

No date was set for the special meeting on the Comp Plan. The members did talk about possibly holding it April 30, the fifth Tuesday of the month, to avoid schedule conflicts, but that's not confirmed.

In other matters, the Shelby County Plan Commission approved a rezoning request and a plat for a simple subdivision on 16.4 acres at County Road 8424 N 850 W.

Property owner Deelite Johnson intends to sell the rezoned parcel to a company for use as an office and garage for repairing dump trucks.

The platted portion is to be used for future residential development.