EDITORIAL: Progress in LaPorte County

The News-Dispatch

Maybe it's nothing more than the "not in my back yard" syndrome, but the growing protest in La Porte County over proposed development is alarming.

It doesn't seem to matter if it's a condominium project in Michigan City, a commercial development in downtown La Porte or a transportation hub near Union Mills, there seems to be opposition to almost anything new.

Change is always difficult, but the attitude that seems to be imbedded in La Porte County that any change is bad is becoming a roadblock for progress.

One of the members of the anti-intermodal group Stop Intermodals - Save Our County summed up that attitude perfectly: "I'm not in favor of it because the emphasis is on jobs. In La Porte County, we need more than jobs. We need a safe, quiet place to live more than we need jobs. La Porte County has always been a nice place to live. People have gone other places to work."

And that is the reason La Porte County finds itself in the position it is in today. New, high-paying jobs aren't being created for our young people to encourage them to stay in La Porte County. And because many La Porte County residents go elsewhere to work, the county doesn't get the benefit of the taxes those businesses pay to support the vital services we all need.

The fact is change is coming to La Porte County. Our location in Northwest Indiana makes the area a prime target for developers.

Because of that inevitability, La Porte County officials are trying to plan for the future. At a meeting Thursday night at Purdue University-North Central, details of a 75-page development plan for the county from Duncan Associates of Muncie, Ind., were discussed. It is the first step on a new master plan for the county.

The proposal is a common sense approach to development, including the idea that residential development should be near communities with water and sewer, and not out in the county where those developments would need septic systems. Large development in the county, like the proposed intermodal, would be able to install their own sewer system, something that nearby homes could tie into so they wouldn't have to remain on a septic system.

Right now, much of the talk about development is just that. Much planning needs to take place before work starts on any development, but development proposals should not be dismissed merely because things will be different than they are now.