HANCOCK COUNTY — A company that develops, warehouses and distributes a variety of products is expanding and needs access to another road, but nearby residents this week said they are worried about the additional traffic and oppose the idea.
Brybelly, whose headquarters is at 7284 W. County Road 200N, is doubling its 200,000-square foot facility westward toward Buck Creek Road. The company wants a driveway for semitrailer trucks and another for automobiles onto Buck Creek Road, but a zoning commitment on the property prohibits such access.
The Hancock County Area Plan Commission voted 5-2 earlier this week in favor of sending the county commissioners a positive recommendation to remove the commitment.
The Peterson Company of Indianapolis is the developer for the project and would overlay and widen Buck Creek Road from 18 to 24 feet between the new driveways and the road’s intersection with W. County Road 200N to the south. Larry Siegler, chief operating officer and managing partner of the Peterson Company, said at Tuesday’s plan commission meeting that the firm will widen the intersection as well.
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“Back a dozen years ago, we didn’t know how this site and this whole project would develop,” Siegler said. “…As the project has developed, however, it’s become apparent that it would be very beneficial for a driveway out to the west to Buck Creek Road.”
Signage and a geometric feature would direct semi truck traffic south on Buck Creek Road toward 200N and away from the residences north of Brybelly, Siegler also said.
“There’s no reason for any trucks to go north out of our industrial park,” he said.
Jeff Smith, co-founder of Brybelly, said the company is in its 15th year and started out in a garage selling poker chips before evolving into developing, warehousing and distributing thousands of different products. From when the company moved to Hancock County in 2016 through 2018, sales grew 73 percent and inventory grew 100 percent, Smith said. He added Brybelly has more than 35 brands and is the 200th largest seller on Amazon.
Allowing access onto Buck Creek Road would not only help Brybelly, Siegler said, but also undeveloped property to the north that’s zoned for light industrial purposes as well.
“If it’s not us, it’s going to be somebody else a month from now, a year from now, two years from now asking for the same thing,” Siegler said.
Several neighbors of the company were dismayed.
Larry Frymier told plan commission members that he’s lived on Buck Creek Road for more than 20 years. He said his grandchildren and great-grandchildren walk and cycle the road often.
“We just feel like we’re being infringed on,” Frymier said.
Buck Creek Road residents would be adversely impacted regardless of what direction semi trucks travel, he continued.
“We’re not going to be able to handle the trucks going up and down that road even if they are turning south,” he said. “And when’s the next step, when they’re going to turn north instead of south?”
Scott Wilgocki lives and works from home near Brybelly and said he sees families walking and cycling on Buck Creek Road often. While trucks will be directed south, the same can’t be said for Brybelly employees leaving work in their automobiles, he said.
“It’s going to be faster for them to cut through our neighborhood to get into town than it is to go around,” Wilgocki said. “We’re going to have all that much more traffic and all that much more danger.”
Melissa Bucksot moved to Buck Creek Road last year, where she lives with her husband and stepdaughters. She said she often walks the road as well. Bucksot is 18 weeks pregnant and was looking forward to taking her newborn for walks on the road.
“I think even if you widen the road to 50 feet, it would not be safe for me to walk with my baby in my stroller,” she said.
Leland Sellers, who has lived on Buck Creek Road for more than a decade, said he doesn’t think The Peterson Company and Brybelly’s plans are strong enough to ensure trucks will turn south off the property.
“Unless they place a guard out there, you’re going to get semis coming north,” he said. “I don’t care what they say, it will happen and it’s just not safe.”
Plan commission members sought a compromise by attaching a commitment to their approval of Brybelly’s request that would require a trail to accompany the widened road. Siegler agreed.
“I think a trail would be beneficial,” said Bill Bolander, a plan commission member who voted in favor of the request.
Bolander was joined by Lacey Willard, Tom Nigh, Dan Craig and Dan Cameron in approving the request. Byron Holden and Wendell Hester voted against. Michael Long recused himself from the issue, explaining the petitioner is a client of his employer.
Holden told the Daily Reporter he voted no because he thinks the proposed roadwork would result in a lack of consistency. The Peterson Company would only be overlaying and widening Buck Creek Road between 200N and Brybelly’s proposed driveways, which are partway up the company’s property line. The road north of the driveways would remain a normal county road.
Holden referred to how the property north of Brybelly, which is currently a farm field but is zoned for light industrial uses, would likely need semi truck access to Buck Creek Road and therefore a wider road as well if and when a company develops there. It would ultimately result in a stretch of Buck Creek Road that’s 18 feet wide in some areas and 24 feet wide in others.
“There’s no uniformity,” Holden said.
Mike Dale, executive director of the Hancock County Planning and Building Departments, said it remains to be determined when the county commissioners will consider Brybelly’s request. The commissioners meet at 8 a.m. on the first, third and fifth Tuesdays of each month at 111 S. American Legion Place, Greenfield. Dale encouraged those interested in attending the meeting to call his office at 317-477-1134 to find out when the commissioners will consider the request.
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Founded in 2004, Brybelly specializes in an online marketing concept called “drop shipping.” Companies can markets products online without investing their capital in inventory. Instead, Brybelly maintains inventories and ships directly to consumers using the customer’s own custom packing list. “Your customers will never know that you didn’t ship the items directly to them,” Brybelly says on its web site.
The company’s first product line was poker chips. It has since expanded to hundreds of products, from pet supplies to hair extensions.
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