Doriot: Rural Areas Need to Embrace Change
Published: Friday, November 10, 2023
Faced with declining population, many rural counties in Indiana are struggling to retain current residents and employers—and to bring in new ones.
As the Indiana Land Use Task Force tries to tackle this problem, one of the panel's co-chairs said Hoosiers will need to embrace change.
Blake Doriot, a state senator representing Elkhart County, says rural communities will have to reinvent themselves to survive. As co-chair of the task force, he has heard testimony from experts saying that people want to live in areas that have good healthcare, good schools and, yes, quality daycare.
Doriot's 12th District is doing "pretty good," he said, mostly due to the presence of the recreational vehicle industry that underpins the local economy and draws workers to the area. Most residents in Doriot's district live within a short drive of a hospital. But he said there are places in southern Indiana where an expectant mother must drive 50 or 60 miles just to give birth.
"We have to change a little bit," Doriot said. "If you want your little town to thrive, or you want abandoned houses around you in Gary, or wherever, to be rebuilt, you've got to change."
Doriot, a Republican from Goshen, and Kendell Culp, a Republican from Rensselaer, are co-chairs of the Indiana Land Use Task Force. The panel is charged with studying growth trends, barriers to community growth, economic and demographic factors that spur development, food insecurity, and how communities can position themselves to attract economic development.
In short, the task force is charged with finding ways to help communities grow. While the task force has at least two farmers on the panel, Culp and David Hardin of Hendricks County, Doriot said farmland preservation is not the main objective of the task force.
"We're going to talk some about farmland, but my point of view on farmland is that a guy has certain rights for the ground that he has paid for and owned and that his family has passed down," Doriot said. "To say that you can't do something, that's a hard situation."
That philosophy is consistent with Doriot's votes when he was a member of the Elkhart County plan commission for 24 years. He was a staunch supporter of landowner rights and voted against a proposal to restrict residential development in agricultural zones.
"A lot of people look at Elkhart County as almost like a train wreck, because we've got all this industry and we have all these people and we've got chicken barns and dairy farms—and big numbers," Doriot said. "But actually, we're co-existing very well."
Doriot said occasionally there are complaints about loud noises, like grain dryers, or smells from freshly applied animal manure, but, for the most part, Elkhart County residents have come to accept this as part of life.
As the former county surveyor described, "That's who we are."
Now as a state senator, he finds himself shepherding a process to help Indiana's 6.5 million residents discover their own respective identities. But first, he said those communities need enabling legislation so they can make changes. This week, he and Culp were expected to meet privately to discuss possible legislation that can be introduced in the next session of the General Assembly.
"We are planning on coming up with something," Doriot said. "It's not going to be a solution, but it's going to be something to move this forward."
Doriot said one possibility would be to offer a tax credit to employers who provide onsite daycare services for their workers. He said at least two other states have a program in which state government pays a third, the employer pays a third and the individual pays the other third.
The task force has met twice and will convene once more, on Nov. 14, before it must submit a final report by year's end. Then it's up to state lawmakers to digest the report and consider a legislative response.
At the task force's previous meeting on Oct. 2, Doriot invited the public to offer solutions. The panel has received written comments from those who were asked to testify. However, as of last Thursday, the committee hasn't heard anything from the general public.
"We're out of time," he said, adding that he and Culp will "hammer this stuff out" during their meeting this week. The Nov. 14 meeting will address food deserts in Indiana.
Solar farms are one "hot-button issue" related to land use, Doriot said. However, he doesn't expect the task force to directly address that in its final report.
He said he doesn't think solar energy will be a major factor in the U.S. energy system after 10 years. He expects hydrogen to become a major energy source.
"We have to be careful as we expand solar," he said, adding that communities need to have decommissioning agreements with developers.
One of the speakers testifying at the October task force meeting, Cris Coffin of the American Farmland Trust, pointed out that Indiana lost 265,500 acres of cropland, pastureland and woodland to other uses from 2001 and 2016. That doesn't include the large swaths of farmland consumed by solar farms.
Looking ahead, Coffin said, without any intervention, the state would lose another 450,000 to 600,000 acres of farmland by 2040. With some intervention, the amount of loss would be close to 260,000 acres.
When asked if there will be any upcoming legislation to help farmers who want to voluntarily preserve their farmland, Doriot said there might be "some things."
Regarding land use, Doriot wants state government to help but not dictate.
"I just think we're at the start of this, and what I don't want is to build to a point where the state says, 'You shall.'"
Doriot said he is hoping to give stressed counties —those with diminishing population—some help as they try to get back on their feet and grow again. Some problems are so big that he's not sure how the state can help. In Gary, for example, the community is a shadow of its former self after U.S. Steel left town. A recent tax sale there saw 12,000 properties come up for auction.
Then there are counties in southern Indiana that are struggling with a lack of healthcare options, lack of industry, and how to reclaim land that once supported coal mines.
Doriot said the land use task force is charged with helping urban communities as well as suburban and rural communities. That makes the task force's job very difficult, but he added that "government is not the answer to everything."
"We're not sure what we can pull out of this," he said. "I want to see small towns survive and I want to see blighted areas start to come back. Now, how do I do that? I have no idea."
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