Paul E. Evans didn’t mince words.
On June 18, one week before the Rapid City Planning Commission was scheduled to consider five simultaneous rezoning requests covering 127.95 acres of undeveloped land north of Mall Drive, Evans — president of McMahon Investment Inc. — filed a formal written protest with the City’s Department of Community Development.
It read, in part, in all capitals:
“McMahon Investment Inc. DOES NOT WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS AT ALL OR ELEVATE RAPID CITY. IF ANY OF MY PROPERTY IS INVOLVED IN THIS, PLEASE REMOVE MY PROPERTY FROM THIS IMMEDIATELY.”
The Planning Commission heard the rezoning requests anyway. All five passed.
Five Re-zones. One Morning.
Wednesday’s Planning Commission meeting opened at 8:00 a.m. On the agenda was five simultaneous rezoning requests filed by Avid4 Engineering, Inc. on behalf of Elevate Rapid City.
The five files — 26RZ014 through 26RZ018 — covered parcels in Section 24, T2N, R7E: north of Mall Drive, east of Haines Avenue, west of the future extension of Maple Avenue.
All 127.95 acres currently undeveloped. The developer’s pitch was simple: Rapid City has a “critical gap” in pad-ready light industrial land, and this massive reclassification is the only way to keep the city competitive.
Two of the five files involved residential land. File 26RZ016 (Medium Density Residential to Light Industrial, 77.72 acres) aWhen Elevate Rapid City asked the Planning Commission to rezone 127.95 acres north of Mall Drive, one landowner said no — in all capitals. The commission moved forward anyway. A Sentinel investigation traces the land, the LLC, and the TIF that was approved ten days before anyone voted.nd File 26RZ018 (Medium Density Residential to Office Commercial) together account for the full residential conversion within the package. Combined, 77.72 acres of land designated for housing will no longer be zoned for housing.
In their own reports, planning staff cited the city’s 2025 Comprehensive Plan goal to “Increase Housing Affordability, Accessibility, and Availability.”
The commission then voted to erase nearly 80 acres of residential zoning — sitting adjacent to a future school — to build industrial lots.
The Holding Cell
Fisher offered something useful during her presentation at timestamp 1:25:36.
Explaining why portions of the parcels carried General Agricultural zoning designations, she said: General Ag acts as a holding cell. Minimum of 40 acres, they zone it general ag — it helps with taxation.
A holding cell. Fisher’s words.
General Agricultural zoning — the lowest-intensity designation in Title 17 — is being used, by the city’s own description, as a tax management tool for large undeveloped parcels. It is not agriculture. It is a placeholder, useful to the landowner, convertible on demand.
The Pennington County Equalization Office confirms the mechanism in practice. Tax ID 39296 — 77.72 acres, owner MDD LLC — carries a 2026 assessed value of $20,600, classified entirely as pasture. Tax ID 69248 — 50.23 acres, also MDD LLC — assessed at $6,200, also classified as pasture. Neither parcel has a property address. Neither has a building. Total improvements on both: $0.
Ten Days Prior to this Vote
The rezoning requests were heard June 25.
Ten days earlier — June 15 — the City Council approved Resolution Case 26TI006: Amendment #1 to the Project Plan for the Rapid City Catalyst District Tax Increment Financing District #101, incorporating the proposed business park project that would result from this rezoning.
The financial groundwork was already laid before the Planning Commission voted on what the land would be.
The staff report for File 26RZ016 confirms the sequence explicitly, under Rezoning Criteria 1: “On June 15, 2026 the City Council approved an Amendment to the Catalyst District Tax Increment Financing District’s Project Plan to incorporate the proposed project that would result from this Rezoning. This represents a changing condition of the city generally.”
Public money, committed before the land use designations were settled. Infrastructure subsidies locked in before the public process concluded.
The Funding Source and Fiscal Impact table in the same staff report — the section where public cost is supposed to be disclosed — was left blank.
Who Owns The Land?
The official record lists the property owner on the largest residential parcel as MDD LLC. Elevate Rapid City is the applicant. The distinction matters: a private LLC owns the land. The nonprofit is driving the rezoning. The city approved it.
Pennington County Equalization Office records show that the 2026 property tax bills for both parcels — Tax ID 39296 and Tax ID 69248 — are mailed directly to 24020 Hardesty Rd, Rapid City, SD 57702.
A Google search of that address returns Hills Construction — a Rapid City contractor — listed at 24020 Hardesty Rd. A South Dakota Secretary of State filing, Document B0071-3682, dated August 28, 2018, also lists 24020 Hardesty Road as the registered address.
The mechanism used to move the land into the holding company is documented in Pennington County’s own sales records.
The sales information for Tax ID 39296 — the 77.72-acre parcel — shows it was transferred via Warranty Deed on March 23, 2018. The sale amount was $0. The county’s validity classification: “Related individuals or corporations.”
MDD LLC was formally organized on March 9, 2018, according to its Certificate of Organization filed with the South Dakota Secretary of State, signed by Secretary of State Shantel Krebs. Business ID# DL145107.
Two weeks after MDD LLC was organized, 77.72 acres of land changed hands for nothing between related parties.
There is also a name buried in the legal description of Tax ID 69248 that warrants attention.
The parcel is described as: “W1/2SE1/4 LESS McMahon Industrial Park #2, LESS EAST HAINES SUBD, LESS LOT A, B, & C OF SW1/4SE1/4, LESS ROW.”
McMahon Industrial Park. The same surname as Paul E. Evans, president of McMahon Investment Inc., who one week before the vote filed a formal written protest demanding his property be removed from this rezoning immediately.
The McMahon Protest
Deep in the public files for the rezoning requests sat a formal notice of protest dated June 18, 2026.
Paul E. Evans, President of McMahon Investment Inc., had submitted a blunt, unequivocal demand to the City’s Department of Community Development regarding Files 26RZ016, 26RZ017, and 26RZ018 — three of the five rezoning requests on Wednesday’s agenda.
By proceeding with the vote, the Planning Commission effectively bundled contested private property into a developer-led master plan without the owner’s consent — keeping the Catalyst TIF acreage intact while forcing a property owner into a corner he explicitly said he did not want to be in.
The commission did not pause. They did not send the items back for review. They moved forward.
Conditional Uses of Land
At timestamp 1:28:40, Commissioner Eirik Heikes asked Fisher for the breakdown — the delineation — between light industrial and industrial zoning. “Can you give us some examples?”
Fisher had already walked through what Light Industrial allows: bank, retail, offices, contractors yard, manufacturing, processing — all within an enclosed building.
Then came the conditional uses.
At timestamp 1:29:58, Fisher listed the uses that require additional approval under Light Industrial zoning: brewery, childcare center, church.
And correctional facility.
Rapid City has had an ongoing and unresolved conversation about where to site a new correctional facility. Multiple locations have been floated. No final decision has been made.
The mention of correction facility as a compatible conditional use on 127.95 acres of land in the Black Hills Business Park corridor — offered without elaboration, alongside brewery and church — was not followed up by commissioners.
These Are Not SmokeStacks
At timestamp 1:30:30, Garth Wadsworth of Elevate Rapid City addressed the commission.
He said: “These are not smokestacks. No commissioner had asked about smokestacks. No agenda item referenced smokestacks. The word smokestacks does not appear in any of the five rezoning files.
The Rapid City Sentinel has spent months covering GCC Dacotah — a foreign-owned cement operation sitting on 563 acres in a 25-year zoning void, seeking formal designation under a newly created Mining and Earth Resources Extraction district. The air quality implications of that operation, and the city’s handling of them, have been a thread throughout that coverage.
What Happens Next
All five rezoning requests passed Wednesday morning. City Council First Reading is July 6, 2026. Second Reading July 20, 2026.
As the 127.95-acre sweep advances to City Council, the public is left with a troubling precedent.
If a massive, TIF-funded economic development project can proceed by overriding the explicit written objection of a property owner, the process is no longer collaborative. It is compulsory.
Paul Evans filed his protest on June 18. He asked, in writing, in all capitals, that his property be removed from this immediately.
The commission still moved forward.
Rapid City Planning Commission 6/25/2026
The planning commission starts at 1:02:00
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