I am opposed to anymore packing plants in Sioux Falls and think a better approach would be chiding Smithfield to leave downtown Sioux Falls for good. But I also don’t believe in fairytales.
Since the beginning of this process I have been adamant that there is little the city council and mayor can do to stop this, and the Chamber pretty much simplified the reasons why;
The people of Sioux Falls approved our city’s current zoning ordinances by 65% in April of 2014.
This was AFTER the city council had already approved it and the citizens referred it to a vote. I voted against Shape Places because it removed many crucial conditional use directives the council used to be able to apply to projects. I believe that if Shape Places was never implemented, we may not have seen a council approval of a new packing plant because there would have been public meetings to address the conditional uses.
You get what you ask for.
Unlike Noem, I applaud the initiative process in this matter (even though this should have been a Charter Amendment that would have forced a special election within in 90 days of certification of signatures). It would have given WF little time to react with a grandfather trick.
I expect, even with the passage of this measure, that there will be some court challenges.