Add your voice
before the record closes.
The Board of Zoning Appeals decides on the record in front of it. An organized campaign has spent weeks filling that record with opposition. If you think this project deserves approval — or just a fair hearing — a short letter in your own words is the single most useful thing you can do.
1. Send a letter by Friday, August 14
Email: ACFWBZAZHO@allencounty.in.gov
Subject line: Support for UVAR-2026-0029 — Sunbirds RV Resort
Deadline: Friday, August 14, 2026
Confirm before you send. Submission addresses and deadlines occasionally change. Allen County Department of Planning Services can confirm the current process for case UVAR-2026-0029: dps@allencounty.us or 260-449-7607.
What to include
- The case number and your name. Write “UVAR-2026-0029, Sunbirds RV Resort” at the top, and sign with your full name and address. Anonymous letters carry no weight.
- Your connection to the area. Whether you live nearby, farm nearby, run a business in southwest Allen County, or camp seasonally yourself — say so in one line. It tells the Board why your view matters.
- Your own words, your own reasons. Form letters get counted once and discarded. Two honest sentences from you beat five paragraphs of someone else’s copy.
- Be respectful. These are volunteer board members and county staff doing a public job. Courtesy is persuasive; contempt isn’t.
2. Speak to what the Board is actually allowed to consider
This is the part most letters get wrong — on both sides. A Board of Zoning Appeals is not taking a popularity vote. Under Indiana law, a use variance can be approved only if the Board makes written findings on five specific points. Address those, and your letter goes into the reasoning. Ignore them, and it goes into the pile.
| What the law requires the Board to find | What you might speak to |
|---|---|
| The approval will not be injurious to public health, safety, morals, and the general welfare of the community. | Seasonal occupancy, on-site amenities, professional management, and any conditions you’d want attached (water study, traffic study, buffers). |
| The use and value of adjacent area will not be affected in a substantially adverse manner. | Whether you believe a well-run seasonal community harms adjacent property — and whether anyone has produced an actual appraisal study showing it does. |
| The need for the variance arises from a condition peculiar to the property. | The site’s specific characteristics — acreage, location relative to I‑69, and what the land supports. |
| Strict application of the ordinance would constitute an unnecessary hardship. | This one is primarily the applicant’s burden to establish. Most residents will have little to add here — that’s fine. |
| The approval does not interfere substantially with the comprehensive plan. | Whether a seasonal, low-intensity recreational use is genuinely incompatible with the area’s rural character — or compatible with it. |
Statutory criteria: Indiana Code § 36-7-4-918.4. All five must be found; failing any one defeats the request. The same statute also allows the Board to impose reasonable conditions as part of an approval — which is why “approve with conditions” is a real option, not a compromise the Board has to invent.
The strongest thing you can say: that you support approval with conditions — a hydrogeological study, a traffic study, real buffers. It signals you’ve read the concerns rather than dismissed them, and it hands the Board a path that isn’t simply yes-or-no.
A starting point — not a script
Use this to see the shape of a useful letter, then throw it away and write your own. Replace everything in gold.
Allen County Board of Zoning Appeals
Re: Case UVAR-2026-0029 — Sunbirds RV Resort & Village
Dear Members of the Board,
My name is [your name] and I [live on / farm near / own a business in] [street or area] in [township]. I am writing in support of the use variance requested for Sunbirds RV Resort & Village.
[One or two sentences in your own words about why. Something you actually believe — for example: that a seasonal community where the same families return each year is a different thing from an overnight campground; that you have seen how the applicant’s Wabash County community operates; that you would rather see this land in seasonal recreational use than in some other use; that the area could use the summer business.]
I want to be clear that I take the concerns raised by neighbors seriously. I would encourage the Board to approve this petition subject to conditions — including [a hydrogeological study confirming water capacity / a traffic study and any road improvements it recommends / a perimeter buffer wider than what is currently proposed]. Indiana law expressly permits the Board to attach reasonable conditions, and that seems the right way to address legitimate questions without denying the petition outright.
Thank you for your service and for considering my view.
Respectfully,
[your full name]
[your street address]
[phone or email]
3. Show up on August 19
Letters count. People in the room count more.
When
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
1:30 PM
Where
Citizen Square, Room 035
200 E. Berry St.
Fort Wayne, IN 46802
What to expect
A public hearing. The petitioner presents, then the Board takes public comment — supporters and opponents both. You do not have to speak to attend, and simply being present is visible to the Board.
Before you go: confirm the date, time, and room on the Allen County agenda calendar, or call Planning Services at 260-449-7607. Agendas get rearranged and cases get continued. If you plan to speak, ask whether you need to sign in beforehand and how long each speaker gets.
If you speak
- Keep it under two minutes. Boards hear a lot in an afternoon. Brevity reads as confidence.
- Say one thing. Pick your single strongest point rather than covering everything.
- Don’t repeat the previous speaker. “I agree with the last speaker and want to add one thing” is a complete and effective statement.
- Address the Board, not the room. Nothing lands worse than playing to the audience.
County contacts
These are public officials with public roles in this decision. Contact them courteously.
-
Allen County Department of Planning Services
Staff for the case. The right first call for questions about process, the file, or the agenda.
-
Allen County Board of Zoning Appeals
The body deciding UVAR-2026-0029. Correspondence for the Board goes through the case inbox rather than to members individually.
-
Allen County Board of Commissioners
Not the deciding body on a use variance, but the county’s executive branch and worth informing if you have a broader view on rural land use.
Contact details compiled from public county sources. If any of this is out of date, let us know and we’ll fix it.
Ten days.
That’s the whole window. A letter takes fifteen minutes.