A Pickaway County resident spoke out last night against re-zoning for the Anduril Arsenal-1 Hypersonic Missile plant proposed for his community, warning that a munitions facility in central Ohio could be a target in future wars.
Free Press reporters attended the Pickaway County, Madison Township Zoning Commission meeting Thursday, November 20, observing a presentation by proponents of re-zoning requests by Anduril plant representatives and witnessed the adamant remarks from the opposition.
Ohio Nuclear Free Network (ONFN) spokesperson Pat Marida spoke out against the zoning: “I don’t know if the commissioners understand the magnitude of what’s going on here. That this is going to turn this into an industrial zone – noisy, polluted…Anduril came to Pickaway County in 2023 and started wooing elected officials. The public knew nothing of this until February 2025, when Madison Township trustees voted to rezone a site near Rickenbacker -- even though a crowded room of neighbors spoke out against it at the public hearing.”
“Anduril Industries, a prominent defense tech firm, publicly announced, earlier this year, its plan to build Arsenal-1, a five-million-square-foot advanced weapons manufacturing facility in Pickaway County, Ohio, near Rickenbacker International Airport. This initiative, originally and secretly codenamed ‘Project Thor,’ has been promoted by Governor Mike DeWine as the biggest job-creation and payroll project in the state’s history. They’re promising 4,000 direct jobs by 2035, 4,500 more indirectly, a $1 billion boost to Ohio’s GDP, and $2 billion in annual economic output. Anduril claims Arsenal-1 will "rebuild the arsenal" of U.S. military might by ‘hyperscaling’ production of autonomous systems and weaponry, like advanced drones,” explained Jason Salley in the Ohio Atomic Press.
The article, written in July 2025 stated that: “Official documents claimed 403 of 528 acres were zoned for industrial use, but about 120 acres weren’t…That discrepancy—nearly a quarter of the project’s footprint—raises serious questions. Some of these parcels were sold to W-CTR Scarbrough Land Holdings for millions, and other ownership records remain unclear. It’s a situation that appears rushed and poorly documented.”
Project presenters showed maps of the three parcels of land they wanted re-zoned in what was, and is, currently a residential and farming community. Discussion centered around how the re-zoning could affect infrastructure like sewers, water, utilities, traffic. A couple of men in the audience spoke in favor of the re-zoning.
A man speaking against the re-zoning criticized how promises had been made to the community but not upheld, corruption in the process, and how the Teays Valley School District will suffer from lost revenue due to tax abatements given to industries in this case.
Board co-chair of the Buckeye Environmental Network, Kat Finneran, voiced her opposition: “First I’d like to state for the record that this proposed project would turn Madison Township (with a population of about only 1500 people) into an international epicenter and testing grounds for what amounts to a desperate attempt by silicon valley tech elites and venture capitalists to transition the US military towards a premature, economically unstable and largely unaccountable new era of algorithm based warfare that is more privatized and beholden to less government oversight – which I suppose starts here in Madison Township via local officials abandoning due diligence… This site has been consistently misrepresented by local government actors. Further, efforts to slow down and make sure past rezoning attempts had followed bare minimum legal procedure via citizen led ballot referendums, have been punished if not outright beholden to what I don’t mind alleging was anything less than election interference. Hell, your last rezoning attempt is still wrapped up in a lawsuit in your local appellate court for procedural malfeasance.”
Another audience member speaking out against the re-zoning pointed out that there is a mound earthwork on the property and worried that there has not been a proper archaeological study of the proposed land to be re-zoned to find out if there are more earthworks.
The commission ended up voting on each of the three parcels separately. The vote was unanimous to accept the re-zoning proposal for the first two – however the third parcel passed with only a one vote margin, 3-2 vote.
