Okay, we'll call to order the meeting of the Ellsville Plan Commission for September 3rd, 2026. Steve,
would you lead us in our Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
Roll call, please. David Drake. Here. Dan Swafford. Steve Hale. Here. Zach Merkle. Here. Pamela Samples.
Ryan Skaggs. Pat Resnick. Here. Okay, the first item on our agenda is approval of the minutes from our
meeting on July 9th, 2026. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.
Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, motion carries. We have no old business. We have one item of new business,
primary plat approval for four lots consisting of 3.99 acres in the Blackwell subdivision at 3750 and
3820 West State Road Fit 46. Petitioner is Kenny Blackwell of Blackwell Contractors. Case number PC26-25.
Subject parcels are located at 3750 and 3820 West State Road 46. The lots are zoned commercial 2, which
is general business.
Subdivision is accessed from West State Road 46. Individual lots will be accessed by a private drive.
The lots will meet all size and dimensional requirements of the unified development ordinance. Technical
review committee met on August 19th, 2026, and all items have been addressed. I would note, however,
that after petitioners engineer made revisions to incorporate the technical review comments,
The fire department advised that the drive serving lots one and two are required to be located 50 feet
from the center line of the main drive. Due to the timing of the review, there was not sufficient time
to incorporate this revision into the plans prior to the plan commission meeting.
Staff will request conditional approval if the plans be revised to demonstrate compliance with the fire
department's 50 foot access requirements for lots one and two. Petitioners engineer agrees with this
conditional approval. The plan commission action on the primary plat can be in the form of approval,
approval with conditions, denial or to continue the hearing. The plan commission has the final say in
these matters.
It is the staff opinion that the proposed primary plat will meet all required zoning and subdivision
regulations. Therefore, staff recommends that the plan commission approve the primary plat for the Blackwell
subdivision with the condition that the distance from the middle of the main drive to the individual
drives be changed to 50 feet. Petitioners, representatives are here if you have any questions.
And I'll go through the plans. This is the site plan. This is the grading plan. I put this on here so
that when petitioner's engineer comes up to speak, she can explain to you how the drainage will work
on those parcels. And this is the primary plat. And I think, yep, that's it. So if you need me to go back to
One of those, let me know. So the way we do this is we all have our discussion, then we open it up to
public comment for three minutes each. Why does it have a, why does it say 40 foot buffer on the east
side of lot four, but not on the rest of the lots? There's a 40 foot strip on all of them, I thought.
Okay. Maybe there wasn't originally, that's under the technical review meeting notes. Yeah, the one
with the retention pond on it, I requested a 40 foot strip be put on that. But there was already a 40
foot strip on the other ones? Okay. So there's a 40 foot buffer between the houses and the commercial
lots. Exactly. Will that be landscaped at all?
I didn't, I couldn't really tell from them. They'll have a mixture of, they're gonna put some along
46 frontage, has well be requested that, and there'll be some shrubs, but I think for the 40 foot buffers,
trees at this point, that the engineer can explain that in case I'm wrong. Okay. When she comes up, not yet.
Does anybody have any questions for today's street level for the grade? Yes, part of it. Yes. Where
it goes up to behind lot one. Okay. Is the house gonna stay there? No, the house is gonna be removed.
Well, I'm here to tell you that that place is going to be a traffic hazard. It's one right now.
I've sat up there across the street from the apartments to right in and right out, and they just turn
left and away they go, okay? My question is how far from the stoplight will the drive be? We can ask
the engineer to answer that when she comes up. I'd have to look it up and she can answer it quickly.
But NDOT has given their approval
for how it has been designed. Now, put that in your packet. Well, I just think there's gotta be something
done there versus just striping on the streets. I mean, there's gotta be something, you know, I look
at Wester Street over there by Arby's, where they had the yellow piping, that's what you were to use,
to show the different ways of going in and turning left, turn right. Is there something we can do here
to do the same thing? I mean, I'm gonna tell you, people, you don't understand. You sit there and watch
them. And them people, they don't care. Nope, they don't. I've watched them. We're at 35 miles an hour.
And Zach probably can be the best one to say anything. I don't know who goes 35 besides me. Because
I'm an old man, I guess. I go 35. These people aren't going 35. And what's going to, how, is the entrance
going to be across from the other entrance where Arby's is at?
Are you ready for the engineer to come up and answer all his questions? If you had anything for me,
I can answer it. Just to clarify, this is primary plat approval. Are those issues such as the in and
out gonna be addressed at the development plan stage? Well, at this time- Or do we have to do that now?
So what they're going to be doing up on primary plat approvals applying for a grading permit. So they
can get their infrastructure and the roads built in. I don't know if the petitioner and she can probably
answer it is ready to finalize how the drive will begin with all the black top or if it's just being
cut in at this point. But those issues are ones that we address
development plan approval or not? Okay. This is just dividing the property up into four lots, basically.
Plus the development plan approval, we can also request that NDOT come out and take a look at it to
see if it adheres to how they wanted to drive before it's finalized.
So would the petitioner like to come up? I'm not sure which one is the petitioner. So this is Katie
Stein, petitioner's engineer. It's in a gradient so you can
Okay. Okay. So you can just start out with whatever you want to tell us. Okay. Yes. Good evening. Yes.
Thank you. Katie Stein with Smith Design Group. I'm the engineer for Kenny Blackwell, or Blackwell
Contractors. So thank you, Denise, described this project very pretty clearly. It's pretty
fairly straightforward. So this is only for the primary plan, the subdivision. This is not the development
plans. This is not the commercial site plan. So the plan is
do the masquerading that is shown on here that is the drive entrance up to where it stops to the lot
on the very north side. This includes the detention stormwater drainage infrastructure. This extends
sanitary sewer and water services to the site as well.
Anything regarding the driveway, NDOT, or within NDOT's right of way, that's all under the direction
of NDOT. We had contacted NDOT early on and said, hey, this is what we want to do. What do we need to
do? Can we have a driveway here? And there were no issues with them.
regarding the drive location. So this is right across the street from the drive location to the development.
I can't recall the name of it, Richland Square directly to the south. It lines up with that driveway.
So we have incorporated the improvements along State Road 46 per NDOTS requirements. So that is all
that this is being requested at this time is the subdivision
of this parcel, these two parcels into the four lots. And then the drainage. Drainage, yes. So there
is going to be a common area lot lot four that will
be able to detain and meet the stormwater requirements, with the exception of lot one, which is the
one closest to the car wash, the southwestern lot. When that comes before this board for development
plan approval, they will have to have their own detention system, water quality system at that time.
Just elevation-wise, it does not work to provide detention for that lot with the common area detention pond.
And for anyone who doesn't know, when she says NDOT, she means the Indiana Department of Transportation.
They control State Road 46. We do not. Correct. Yes. And everything that we have done for that entrance,
for that drive, has been dictated to us from them. If they want a traffic study done, they would have
told us. They would have asked us for that information. And if they had wanted different driveway
configuration, they would have told us at that time.
when we requested the information from them. Okay, do you remember what Pat's question was? I've already
forgotten. It was about the lines, how the lines will be to mark the lanes for turning out. And also
he said on Third Street, there were. Yeah, Third Street, there's yellow plastic. Dillonators.
whatever was on call. That was not mentioned at this time. We're requested from NDOT. Yeah. And then
I don't recall, I don't know the distance from the traffic signal to this driveway off the top of my
head either. So I apologize for not knowing that. What is the, what's like the overall vision for it?
Is it two businesses or?
commercial or what? It's all zone commercial, so it could be. There's been some interest with this,
but nothing set in stone as to what is going to be developed here. Yeah, I guess I was maybe thinking
farther ahead, but does Mr. Blackwell own that lot north of the car washes? The one up at the top? I
believe so, yes. Yes, and Ellis Ridge. It might benefit everyone if there was some way to incorporate
that drive to
go west and catch into that existing road? I don't know that NDOT would approve a drive connection.
I think the reason that they were okay with this driveway here is because it did not connect to any
other developments. And I would add the subdivisions being requested at this time because I think some
of the opportunities for those lots want to have the grading in place.
Because theoretically, if you connect it over to Ellis Ridge where it has the right and right out, now
you have a full access drive here. Everybody's going to come through there and now start turning left.
Not to say that they don't in Ellis Ridge, but that could potentially be even more hazard, I guess,
so to speak. And just to be clear, NDOT is the one that controls whether or not they extend that right
turn lane like exists for Kemp Road.
that's not right exactly any influence over that because I think that would help a little bit if they
extended that down to where you guys I don't that may come up when we like my microphone just like right
there didn't actually in my back I think I'm back yeah yeah
That may be something that they determined when we go through the driveway permitting process that they
want that. It seemed, what's the word I'm looking for? Because Camp Road is a road, so I think because
of that, they requested that right turn lane where this is just a drive, so they, at this time, they
have not requested that. Does it not have a standard for what Zach's talking about, a right turn,
left to right turn in, right turn out? A 30 feet, 50 foot or whatever? Yes, they do depending on, I
believe it is depending on the speed limit of the road. And then I believe it would have to be warranted
by the number of cars they would anticipate the traffic going in and out of this. But I'm not 100% on
that. That is in-dots determination. I can remember before Kemp Road and the
PUD for the apartments and then there's houses back behind the apartments. There were meetings with
NDOT engineers with what was best to do and handle that and the traffic for Kemp Road and this is what
they came up with was what's existing. So. I don't think we ever asked that question either at that
time. I don't.
It was several, not several, two or three meetings. I don't know if you were in those meetings at the
time. I was not in those meetings. But they were all on Zoom, online, and it was looking at this plan
and looking at that plan, and that's what they found the issue to us. Well, you know, not to interrupt
you, but that camp road that comes out that, I suppose, is turned right, okay, it's not from me to you. I mean,
It don't even look like it's a right-hand turnout. I mean, there's cars that just turn left and they
don't, they just basically go out a little bit of ways and turn left. I mean, that's my concern about
this corner, is that when we're gonna do it, let's do it right. I mean, if it takes a little bit longer
or if it takes something different, then let's put our heads together and figure out what we can do.
Because if it's gonna be like Camp Roll, you're gonna have a mess. Or we're gonna have a mess, Portale.
Okay, but keep in mind that the only thing we're doing tonight is dividing it into four lots. We're
not doing any of the development plan approvals or anything like that tonight.
Okay, anybody have any more questions for the petitioner or Denise? Okay, seeing none, thank you. Is
there someone from the public who wants to speak? Come on up. Sign your name on that sign-in sheet in
there and then tell us who you are. I'm Patty Jones Salter. And I live at 4285 North Centennial.
and which is the second house off of forty six and uh... but blackwell subdivision and i have some serious
concerns i feel like i have some buyers remorse right now i'd just uh... it will be a year saturday
since i bought here my husband passed and i and needed to move closer to my daughter and uh...
Soon as I got here I find out that the houses are being torn down behind me that couldn't actually see
me and Then I heard about the annexation and Then Judy Sharp raised me 50,000 over 50,000 this year
for my assessment. So Like I said, I have some buyer's remorse there but
I do have some concerns about what is going on behind me, and now this may not be applicable right now.
Just let me know. The first is, needs some mandatory privacy fencing. My bedroom, my sliding glass door
is right in the back of my house where it would, but the property.
I'm asking, I was going to say a six to eight foot fence, but the properties, both of them go down in
a gully, so that wouldn't work, to provide some privacy. Also, and you were talking about a buffer easement,
now I don't know
I was against having any commercial waste dumpsters, loading docks and parking lots budding my property.
And also lighting. My neighbor, it doesn't affect me, but my neighbor who couldn't be here, she just
had surgery yesterday, but she was saying that
The lights even from the car wash affects her. They don't affect me, but they do her. And she is the
first house off of 46. So wanted to make sure that any future commercial establishments have downward
lighting, downward and shielded lighting.
to prevent it from bleeding into our homes there. And I know if it's apartments going up, there's going
to be windows probably that's going to be looking right in my home. So I am concerned about what is
happening there. But I have no concerns at all about somebody
developing their property, and I respect that, but I do have those concerns, and I just wanted the Planning
Commission to take that into consideration. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And once again, those are things
that we talk about at the development plan stage. However, we do have lightning standards that they're
required to maintain. It's supposed to stay away from the residential property. If the car wash is
causing problems with your area. They can have our inspector look at it and make sure that they're meeting
the requirements. The thing about a car wash, so our lighting standards mainly talk about like the pole
lights that light up the parking lot. It's kind of different with the car wash because it's all, the
car wash itself is all lit up. So I don't really know how that applies in the standards, but they can have,
our inspector look at it and make sure that they're meeting the requirements. And then about dumpsters,
privacy fences, those kinds of things are all things we talk about at the development plan stage. However,
you might want to get with the young lady there and express your concerns to her about whether they
can put a bunch of shrubs in there or whatever before they come back to us with their development plan.
Okay. Thank you.
Anybody else? Seeing none, as soon as I can find my piece of paper where I made notes at, I will make
a motion that we approve case PC26-25 with the condition that the plans be revised
following the plan to demonstrate compliance with the fire department's 50 foot access requirements
for lots one and two. Okay, we have a motion. The second roll call please. David Drake. Yes. Steve Hale.
Yes. Zach Michael. Yes. Pat Wesolowski. No. Motion passed.
Oh, we do? Oh. So, it's a no action vote, so it rolls over to the next plan commission. I just thought
it was of the majority, so. It's a majority. My bad. It's okay, it's a majority of the board, not a
majority of the quorum.
So in order for there to be a final decision from a planning commission or BZA, it has to be a majority
of the board membership. So you have no final decision basically. So it just rolls over to the next
meeting. Okay. Next item on our agenda is planning department update. Next meeting's October.
First, there will be new business and this will carry over if they're ready. And that's about it. Privits
of the floor. Anybody want to say anything that wasn't on our agenda? Plan, commission, comments? None,
and we are adjourned.