to order the meeting of the Elstville Plan Commission for October 1st, 2026. Ryan, would you list your
present legacies? 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.
Okay Renee roll call please. David Drake here. Zach Michael here. Dan Swafford. Pamela Samples. Pat
Weslowski here. Steve Hale here. Brian Skaggs here.
Okay, does the first item on our agenda is a monthly conflict of interest statement. Does anyone have
a conflict of interest that they need to report on any items on our agenda for this evening?
Seeing none, old business. Excuse me, can you do the minutes? I don't know why I always skip over that.
We need approval of the minutes for our meeting on September 3rd, 2026. Second.
Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none,
motion carries. Old business. It's really old business now because it was old business a minute ago
too. Primary plan approval of four lots, 3.9 acres in the Blackwell subdivision, 3750 West State Road
46 and 3820 West State Road 46. The petitioner is Kenny Blackwell of Blackwell Contractors.
Case number PC 26-25. Good evening. First on the agenda is petitioner Kenny Blackwell. Blackwell Contractors
Incorporated is requesting primary plan approval of a four lot commercial subdivision totaling 3.99
acres. Subject parcels are located at 3750 West State Road 46 and 3820 West State Road 46. The lots
are zoned commercial to general business
Subdivision is access from West State Road 46 individual lots will be accessed from a private drive.
The lots will meet all size and dimensional requirements of the Unified Development Ordinance. All lots
will be on Eastern Richland Sewer Corporation for sewer and will be serviced by Eltsville Utilities
for Water. Technical Review Committee met on August 19th, 2026 and all items have been addressed.
The staff report mentions a conditional approval I had requested at the September meeting. Since the
September meeting, however, the engineer has amended the plans to reflect the fire department requirement
of 50 feet from the center line of the drive to the entrances for lots one and two. I left the staff
report the same as it was for the September meeting. So members who were not present at that meeting
could read what came before the plan commission.
NDOT has given preliminary approval for the ingress egress of the drive into the commercial lots. Since
the subdivision is for commercial lots, NDOT will not allow a second entrance because people could travel
from other subdivisions using that entrance as their means of ingress and egress. Your plan commission
action on the primary plaque can be in the form of approval
approval with conditions, denial, or to continue the hearing. The Planning Commission has the final
say in these matters. Staff recommendation is it is a staff opinion that the proposed primary plat will
meet all required zoning and subdivision regulations. Therefore, staff recommends that the Planning
Commission approve the primary plat for the Blackwell subdivision and I'll show you on the slides.
That's the site plan and petitioners representatives are present if you have any questions. This is
the grading plan. And that's the primary plan. And that's all I have. So we have a lot of discussion
about this at our last meeting. Does anyone have any questions for Denise? Of course, I have Denise.
Because I hear you say there's gonna be two entrances or two exits. No, there will not. They didn't
want the second exit. Because people from subdivisions could pass through. Okay. Does the petitioner
want to say anything else?
Do you need me to change anything? Katie Stein, Smith Design Group, engineer for Kenny Blackwell, Blackwell
Contractors. The only other additional information I want to add that Denise touched on, we did meet
the wrong criteria of the fire truck turnaround distances on the driveways. And then the other addition
that we made was regarding the common area lot, which is going to be used for drainage.
There is a 40 foot required buffer yard between that property and the property to the east. And since
that lot will not be sold, that will be owned by the owner's association of the subdivision. We included
the required plantings for that parcel only to appease that portion of the UDO. Other than that, I'm
happy to answer any questions anybody may have.
All right, I don't see any. Thank you. I will point out that part of the discussion last time was that
for a preliminary plat, if we vote for denial, we need to specify what part of our regulations or state
law the petition does not meet. Otherwise, we have to approve it. I do have one other question. I saw
the DNR up there today. Why would they be in?
looking around in there. In their subdivision? Yeah. Oh, who knows? Pardon me? Who knows? Oh, just nosy.
They don't contact us before they come to town. OK, we're ready for a motion. I'll make a motion to
approve PC 2625, the Blackwell subdivision. Second.
Okay, we have a motion and a second. Roll call, please. Steve Hale? Yes. Pat Weslowski? Yes. David Drake?
Yes. Zach Michael? Yes. Ryan Skaggs? Yes. Thank you. Okay, motion carries. Next item of business is
primary plot approval of the Dan Rary minor subdivision, 30.12 acres.
5326 West Woodyard Road. The petitioner is Dan Rary, case number PC26-26. Thank you. Petitioner Dan
Rary is requesting primary plan approval for a minor subdivision consisting of four lots totaling 30.12
acres. Subject parcels located at 5326 West Woodyard Road.
Lots are zoned agricultural, minor subdivisions are permitted in the AG zoning district. Subdivision
will be accessed from West Woodyard Road. The lots will meet all size and dimensional requirements of
the Unified Development Ordinance. All lots will be on town of Ellsville Sewer and Water and will be
serviced by Ellsville Utilities.
The lots will have their own driveway and property owners will be responsible for putting the driveways
in according to UDO standards. Pursuant to the UDO, I want to remind you that minor subdivisions for
lots are fewer. They do not have any public right of ways, public improvements or utility main extensions
proposed are required. Sidewalks and trails are optional.
Plan Commission action, Plan Commission action on the primary plaque 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. Staff recommendation, it is a staff opinion that the proposed primary plat will meet
all required zoning and minor subdivision regulations.
Therefore, staff recommends that the planning commission approve the primary plat for the Dan Rary minor
subdivision petitioners here if you have any questions and I'll let you take a look at the plats. I
widened them a little so they aren't to scale. There you go. That's it.
Okay, does anybody have any questions for Denise? Seeing none, would the petitioner like to say anything
additionally? Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Rary? Any public comment? I think I forgot to
ask that last time, but there wasn't any public anyway, except for you're not really public. You don't count.
Well, in that case, we're ready for a motion. I'll make a motion that we approve PC 26-26, the Dan Rary
Minor Subdivision. Second. We have a motion and a second. Roll call, please. Steve Hale. Yes. Pat Wislosky.
Yes. Zach Michael. Yes. David Drake. Yes. Ryan Skaggs. Yes.
Thank you. Okay, Planning Department update. Next meeting is November 5th. At this time, I don't have
any new business, but you're going to have a project that Darla will talk to you about. So as you are
all aware,
likely the legislature passed this past legislative session House Enrolled Act 1001 and the goal of
that was legislation is to make available more affordable housing for Hoosiers and to that
end the legislature has requested that local governmental units prepare reports that are going to be
filed with the Indiana Housing Authority and
the legislature, presumably so that the legislature can determine where else it wants to go or what
else it wants to do in order to make housing more affordable. What you have in front of you are the
applicable statutes and you will see in 5-20-1-28.5 and 29, there are some reporting requirements that
the town has to meet by the end of the year.
and this is mostly going to be for Denise, at least these first two statutes, but what the Housing Authority
wants to know is how is Ellitsville doing with regard to building housing? So the Housing Authority
wants to know how many residential units were submitted, how many were approved, how many were denied,
how many houses were removed or demolished or
the use changed from residential to something else. That's in code section 28.5. In section 29, the
housing authority wants to know the average median home sales price, rent prices, number of residential
dwelling units constructed and occupied, and so on and so forth. And that information has to be compiled
and submitted by a portal that's maintained by the housing authority by January 1st.
So again, those two statutes are going to be mostly Denise and her staff. However, if you look at 36-7-4.3-3,
that's the statute that requires a unit to conduct a public hearing to review its unified development
ordinance and zoning regulations and land development rules with the goal of increasing housing development.
and there's factors that the legislature wants the town to consider as it reviews its UDO. So I'm not
going to read it all into the record because there are several, but number one is providing for higher
density development of duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, constructing other housing types, including
accessory dwelling units, adaptive reuse of commercial buildings for residential use, increasing the
allowable floor area,
in multifamily housing areas, waiving or eliminating regulations for garage size and placement,
roof pitch, minimum lot size, setbacks, off-street parking, and things of that nature. That has to be
completed by January 1st, and a report has to be submitted to the Housing Authority, and they also,
they, the Housing Authority, wants to see the minutes from the public hearing.
If you conduct a public hearing and determine that the UDO does not need to be changed, that's fine.
If you believe that the UDO needs to be changed, then we will have to work on that. The deadline is
January 1st. However, when I looked at the portal today, I noticed the portal is open until the end
of January. So I don't know what that means. We talked about this at the municipal lawyer seminar.
There's some hope that the legislature will extend the deadline or give municipalities a little more
information about what to consider. So in any event, this will be on your agenda for November. And this
is your homework? Do we have a list of rents throughout the town?
No, we don't have a rental ordinance. I mean, would you have to contact every single rental place to
ask them what their rent is? There are some things that aren't clear. It is a lot of work. What are
they going to do, come down and arrest us if we don't? Just you. Well, good luck with that.
You still have to file the report with the housing authority and say we considered this and we believe
the UDO doesn't need to be changed. And thankfully you just revised your UDO two years ago. So the town
shouldn't be, I mean, these things would have been considered generally when you,
had your public hearings on the UDO before. So, I mean, hopefully this won't be quite as big a project
as it seems, but I know, I'm sorry. So the UDO is online if you want to do a quick review or look at
anything, but it'll be treated like the public hearing at the next meeting. Okay, privilege of the floor.
Land commission comments? Nope, we're adjourned.