Bristol residents express displeasure over potential annexation

BRISTOL, Ind. -- Homeowners in Bristol showing up to Thursday's town council meeting and showing their anger and displeasure about the potential annexation of 500 acres of farmland, and what it could become.

"We're not taking care of Bristol! We're taking care of business!"

"It's getting frustrating to live here and watch it slowly deplete from what the town used to be."

Multiple people hammered home the point that they feel misrepresented when it comes to this issue, and making their voices heard loud and clear in front of the council.

"I like looking out over the Bristol hills behind my property, it's beautiful. My wife and I love to sit back there and drink coffee in the cool evenings, we love watching the kids play in the yard, and I don't want a big data center polluting our water, I don't want to look at a data center," said Zack Grass, Bristol resident.

The town says it currently has 440 acres that have been properly zoned for data center construction, but 250 of those acres are zoned strictly for a data center.

Thursday night's vote was to discuss if an additional 500 acres close to the previously mentioned 440 acres will be annexed.

An important thing to note - Thursday's vote was to further the discussions to a second reading on March 19th. The vote that took place Thursday was not a final decision.

This is an annexation request and if it's not approved, there will be a rezoning request regardless.

"The annexation would bring additional property into the town, we are funded by our assessed value, so by annexing additional property, our assessed value would increase, which would give us additional revenue for the town," said Jeff Beachy, council president.

The council voted 3 to 1 to move this discussion on to the March 19th meeting for further discussion.