- All right, good evening. This is a meeting for the Rich and Elephant Reorganization Committee, and we'll
- start with a word of prayer by Kevin. Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for this weather.
- It's supposed to be raining all day, and it's nice that it's not. We thank you for the opportunity to
- gather like this and do what it is we're trying to do.
- Help us with that, make sure that all the people involved feel like they're being, that they understand
- it and that they're being represented. And try to make this meeting short. In Jesus' name, amen. 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.
- Just one second. All right. Andrew Henry, present. Kevin Ferris. Here. Jerry Sanders. Present.
- Mike Kornman. Present. Scott Reynolds. Here. Don Durnall. Present. William Ellis. Here. All present.
- All right. Minutes have been set out.
- Do we have a motion to accept them? So moved. Second. All right. Any discussion? This is a motion to
- approve the minutes from two nights ago Monday. I'll go ahead and call it then. I vote yes. Kevin? Yes.
- Jerry? Yes. Mike? Yes. Scott? Yes. Dawn? Yes. William? Yes. Motion passes.
- I just want to thank you for, I mean, that was amazing getting those minutes out that quickly. Obviously
- you don't have nothing else to do. I had a lot of espresso yesterday morning. All right, would anybody
- from the public like to make a comment before we get started? Okay, I think the main order of business
- tonight is to look at planning and zoning.
- So I'll just open it up for discussion among the committee. Well, I think one of the questions that's
- been on my mind that might address some other questions that I could ask, so I'll start with the bigger
- one, and I know that there's been some discussion about this already in terms of the parallel tracks
- that we talked about at the last meeting, but I think my concern, especially from
- the perspective of the township is just that obviously if you're in the existing town, the zoning is
- a known quantity because there's already ordinances in place. And so right now if we were to simply
- adopt this plan and then, you know, this was the most that we would know about zoning on day one of
- reorganized town and township.
- be very hard to know in the township what that meant for me or for my neighbors. So I think it'd be
- good if we could figure out the parallel tracks that we talked about a little bit. Obviously, there's
- only so much that we're going to be able to get done in the next week, but it would be good to know
- what we might task, you know, or what might happen between now and November voting day that would allow
- as a township resident to know, me to know what is my zoning and what is my land use regulation gonna
- be on day one of a reorganized town? My understanding is whatever it is today, no. I think
- it'd be appropriate, Denise, would you wanna kind of go through what is planned for the first of the
- year, what we've talked about,
- I think what you talked about in your subcommittee, but about a future UDO and planning and zoning.
- Yeah, so all of the subcommittee members but one were in the township. So it was very important that
- how they come into the town is how they will be. We'll of course honor whatever that is,
- The subcommittee report made provisions if they want to make changes or if they want to come into the
- town. They tried to stick with the town district and the rural district to follow along with the taxing.
- And so we will be, of course, amending our unified development ordinance and our comprehensive plan
- accordingly to include the rural district and town district
- We have no intention of changing any zoning for anybody, whether it's in the town or the township. For
- example, Monroe County uses AGRR, agricultural rural reserve. It'll just simply become agriculture.
- It's basically the same thing, and so that's our intent, and we intend to be ready with
- both of those to move forward around the first of the year. With that, and of course there'll be public
- meetings, public hearings, I'll have to go for the plan commission and the town council. So residents
- will be able to come and have a say and have opportunity to read it before the public hearing. Does
- that answer the question? Yeah, it really helps.
- the intent would be to look at what the Monroe County zoning is for a particular parcel and try to find
- the category that's most similar. Correct. And one of the things we also have to update is our zoning
- map to now include Richland
- And that will also be presented at the public hearings for people to look at. Sometimes it's easier
- to see a map. Right, yeah. No, that's what I was, the first, one of the first things that occurred to
- me was just, you know, if somebody were to come to me and ask, you know, after we approve, you know,
- a plan, how do I know what my situation is gonna be on day one? Having some sort of map for them to
- look at, you know, just to confirm in their own minds what that's going to be
- I think would be very important to establish as much as possible before election day. Because I just,
- otherwise I think there'll just be a lot of questions and people will be feeling like they would be
- asked to sign up for something where they don't really know what they're signing up for. We also have
- budgeted money so we can take a professional approach to this, not unlike when we did our first UDO.
- went through planning and zoning. The first time we went through it, there was a collection of what,
- 15 or 20 people? 16 people and a consultant and it was about a year long process. Yeah, so it is a process
- and it's a planned process. As far as I understand, in this parallel track approach, we can have
- We can be working on a new UDO in advance of the reorganization vote, but we can't put that UDO in place
- for any part of the township. So on day one, that new reorganized committee is responsible to move forward
- from there and clarify what's happening. Correct. It would be up to the newly reorganized town council
- to approve the new zoning ordinance. Right. So we can see a draft here, but it can't be locked in until
- after day one.
- Is that a concern? That's correct. If we do a graphic or something, it would show, this is
- what an expectation is. We'd have to put something that so people know it's not final, and they still
- will get public input into it. Right, we'd put something like, sorry. Oh, that's okay. It's for illustrative
- purposes, and it could change or not change. You know, there could be changes. But when we have it ready
- for that, it'll probably be what it will be.
- When does the process start after the election and assuming it goes forward? We hope to start before
- that. We're going to start as soon as possible. Because last time it took almost a year, but I think
- the reason it took that long is because the town hadn't updated its UDO in a while. So since you just
- updated it, it'll be two years ago, either this August or September, and the comp plan
- was redone how many years ago, five? 23. Okay, so. I just wanted everybody to hear that. Yes, so it
- shouldn't take that long to toggle with it a little bit. Our intent is to have it ready, go through
- the planning commission, you know, it's probably gonna take longer than one meeting, that'll be, there'll
- be public meetings before that, and then a public hearing at the planning commission.
- and then however many meetings that takes, then they will make a recommendation to town council and
- then it'll move on to town council and it may take a few meetings to get through the town council. It
- isn't really the heart of what we're doing here. The fact that the township and the town will
- have representation because it seems to be there's gonna be
- a lot of decisions that are going to be made in all the areas that we've talked about Monday night and
- tonight. That the key is, and what hopefully our citizens will understand is, as these decisions, if
- we want to talk about planning and zoning, that will be coming to us in the future, the key is that
- they'll be well represented in those future decisions.
- legs of this whole project. And when we appeal to people, I know there is a neighborhood that thinks,
- well, we're established. We're finding a county. Why would we want to change? And for them, my only
- answer would be, will you be represented for everything that's going to change around you? And so whether
- we do reorganize or we just
- take a little longer process where we just keep annexing and growing. It's good to have a voice for
- how we want things to be 10 and 20 years from now. Because that's when it's going to be important. What
- happens next year is nothing big is going to happen next year, although as we know from three or four
- years ago, you never know what somebody's thinking and what somebody might be planning.
- And I watched the news before I came here, and there's a town somewhere where they're, I'll say it,
- they're promoting a data center, and a lot of the residents don't want it, and I'm sure there's some
- people that are not representative. They can't be represented because they're not in the correct position,
- whether they're in the township or the town. Anyway, things change quickly,
- And so even if you're okay with the way things are now, what about 10 years from now? I think that the
- question of representation is actually an interesting one because I think that we would need to think
- about how do we make sure that even if it can't be formal voting representation in this process of UDO
- redesign or expansion between now and November,
- how do we establish some sort of advisory positions or just voices at the table ensuring that township
- residents would be heard in that process? Because otherwise it would just be the town and current town
- board members who would be doing that work and then we would want to make sure that there was some township
- representation. Is that going further than what?
- This board's supposed to be thinking about it. I don't think that we need to put into this particular
- plan the details about how the steering committee for the comp plan and the UDO will be organized. I
- think that is outside the purview of the document. I certainly think it's worth having a conversation
- about it because we're making a representation in public that those conversations will take place.
- But in terms of putting that language in here, I think the plan commission subcommittee did a nice job
- of putting in their report that they recommend updating the UDO and the comp plan as soon as reasonably
- as possible. And Scott, as a member, which would be from the town, on the county council the first year
- this is going to happen, I can tell you I would support having the majority of the people on the UDO
- since the actual square miles of land
- is in the old township area of having more, their representation more than the existing town, because
- the town UDO is pretty much done. We did that two years ago. So what the question is, is we're expanding
- it to the township, the old township area. So I, I mean, I can't speak for the other four members of
- the board, but I can tell you I would support having more township representation on there than old town.
- Isn't it more correct to say the new UDO is we are redoing the UDO with the thought that we are now
- the whole township as opposed to moving it over and then updating just including the township. We actually
- are gonna redo the UDO. There's things we will change and obviously we've got a template
- But now we're a township-sized town, and so the UDO has to reflect. As Darla said, the last time it
- took a year, because we were almost starting from scratch putting everything together, this would be
- updating and tweaking the parts we've already done. But the big parts would be harmonizing with the
- county and making sure that the township, which would be the old township residents, probably the last
- time we would ever do this this transitional year would be represented more fully to address those concerns.
- So can I add something? So I just wanted to tell you the subcommittee when we were talking about the
- rural district in the report said the subcommittee recognizes the importance of preserving agricultural
- uses and rural character within the rural district and the subcommittee recommended areas
- agricultural zoning protections be maintained, the right to farm principles be incorporated into development
- standards where appropriate, and zoning districts within the rural district reflect existing development
- patterns and infrastructure availability. So I don't know if that helped answer your question. Yeah,
- I mean, I think that's, to me anyway, and I think to some of my neighbors that I've talked to, you know,
- I think that that's all very important. I think that, you know, one of the things, and I don't mean to
- reopen things from a year ago. But I mean, one of the things that it looked like from the township side
- was that that was protected agricultural zoning out near Flatwoods Park. So once it was annexed though,
- I mean, admittedly it was at the request of the landowner at the time, the rezoning just happened very
- quickly to
- make that to light industrial use. And so I would just want to make sure that that's not what we mean
- by agricultural zoning protections be maintained, right? Like that we would, that that would have a
- lot more teeth to it than simply, well, as long as it is, you zone agricultural, they'll be maintained,
- but we'll be able to flip that switch, you know, very easily, because then it kind of undermines the
- idea of those protections being there.
- Because I do think that this is an important issue, because a lot of people, as you pointed out, the
- township is huge. And a lot of people that chose to live in the township chose to live there because
- they want to live in the country and not next to light industrial. And so I think that we're going to
- have to be able to be very clear on this, if we are in agreement,
- that as this becomes something that's considered by the voters, that when they ask, we can say in good
- conscience, good faith, that what we mean by that, that preservation. What do you think? Just out of
- curiosity. Well, see, this is, and this is, you know, so moving down a little bit in the report to the
- reclassification from rural district to town district, when I read the report, my understanding
- that I took away was that it was the rural district concept that was going to provide the teeth to that
- preservation, right, that was going to ensure that those agricultural uses and others will be maintained.
- But then when we talk about in the report the reclassification from rural district to town district,
- it says, you know, reclassification may be triggered by one or more of the following. And there are
- many, many, many things. You know, availability of utilities, extension of services,
- annexation, petition, adoption of rezoning, and then even periodic review conducted by the town council
- and the plan commission. And so that makes it sound as though it would be very easy to move things from
- rural to town because if one of the triggers is just utilities are available or periodic review, periodic
- review means we just looked at it and decided it was gonna be town now.
- I think anybody from the township who's concerned about this, who reads this, might feel like they're
- not really protected. Yeah, and I've heard that concern voiced a lot in the last few weeks.
- A matter of fact, probably more than anything else other than representation. For me, it all comes back
- to when we say we, if we're talking about
- the town or some government entity or something like that saying that we want to rezone, that's one
- thing. That's what I'm totally against. But if it's somebody else, which could be your neighbor, saying
- I would like to do this now, I've got the opportunity to do it, let's say sell to a developer and he
- wants to develop it and turn it into residential.
- As a landowner living in the township, I'm a big, hey, it's your land, that's what I hate about the
- county, it's your land, you should be able to do what you want to with your land. Now, if you're talking
- about putting a nuclear waste facility next to your property, absolutely, that shouldn't happen. Or
- a meatpacking plant, or something like that that's gonna detrimentally affect not just your property
- values, but your
- your quality of life. Then the town, the government, the new entity, the government should be able to
- step in and say no, for the sake of everybody, no. And the township should have a voice in that, which
- brings up the whole other issue. But if the
- If the landowner, if he wants to switch usage of his land, he doesn't want to farm no more, or he doesn't
- want to do this, this, this, and this, I'm all for him being able to do within his land what he wants
- to. That's not what you're asking though, right? Where is it? If it was in the rural district, I would
- prefer that there be the preservation that Denise mentioned.
- So Scott, in your mind, you've read the list of reclassification triggers. What do you think are appropriate
- reclassification triggers? Because I don't think we can accept at all that there can be no reclassification
- triggers at any point. Sure. I think, I mean, one critical question I think would be, right now, annexation,
- for example, generally requires a certain amount of contiguity. Yeah, right.
- And so I guess the question is, you know, is it intended that the town district be contiguous in the
- same general fashion, or is it possible that we would wind up with pockets of town district, you know,
- scattered throughout? Because I think right now, the way it's discussed, that possibility is there.
- It's there. I agree, it's there. Yeah, it's there.
- Okay, the county you've got the right to go to the can they've got the right to say no, but you've got
- the right to do it the You know they make it so if you want if you've got I don't know how many acres
- Just to make everything easy if you've got 100 acres in the county right now And you want to subdivide
- that you can subdivide that into ten houses as long as you got ten acres per house you know you can
- make that happen the and
- They should have the right to do that if they want to do that. For one thing, have you ever farmed before?
- It's a tough gig. There's a lot of better gigs. It's easier. And people don't want to farm no more,
- especially the generation one or two removed. You don't see a whole lot of grandkids wanting to farm
- land. I think just to, I mean, again, I'm not,
- I'm just drawing out the conversation here just so we've got everything on the table. You know, I think,
- I mean, you're exactly right. I mean, there are subdivision opportunities available at the county level
- right now, which require pretty large lot sizes and, you know, lots of approvals and things like that.
- Presumably, if, you know, I was that person with that 100 acres, though, and I was requested that my
- rural parcel be reclassified as town,
- That would allow a lot higher density than one per 10 acres. So I think that's, I guess, the bigger
- question that I was trying to get at, which is if the rural district has larger lot sizes, similar to
- what Monroe County has now, and I as a landowner with that 100 acres, even though I'm maybe in the southwest
- part of Richland Township right now,
- Can I ask to be reclassified as town and then build a hundred houses, even though I'm not contiguous
- to what most people think of as the center of the urban zone of Alexville? I think the intention is
- yes, you would be able to. Yes, you'd be able to.
- asked to be changed to the county. The landowner could always ask for a rezone. You could always petition.
- Otherwise, we're not much different than what's currently with the county. Yes, I know there's some
- people, and those are legitimate concerns that you brought up, but there's also some people wanting
- more industry, wanting more development.
- And I mean, I do have a hard time telling somebody, you can't sell this property, you have to keep it
- as this, and it just may sit there and be a blighted property if they're not farming it. I mean, so
- I understand, I just don't know an easy solution to it. I think he's asking a 10,000 foot question,
- valid, we're getting into weeds.
- I like his idea of asking a blanket question about some of these things. As I see it, this is kind of
- standard verbiage. The rest of the report, I think, is fabulous, but this is what anybody would do.
- And we can't always dictate what future councils and planning commissions are going to be. His question
- was, January 1, if this goes through, what's this going to look like? So I think that,
- The explanation that Denise gave, I think, satisfies my question about what he asked for the most part.
- I don't live in the town, John lives in the town, lifelong resident of the town. I don't understand
- some of the issues that somebody lives outside of town. So I'm trying my best to sympathize. I've never
- really done that before. So with living outside, I've sympathized before. You're married. You're married,
- you sympathize. There's natural inhibitors to what
- his scenario and how it could or couldn't play out, that doesn't allow for that to happen overnight
- or even maybe even be considered, whether it's roads, sewer, even water for fire protection. And that's
- kind of why the town and the townships laid out the way it is. Now, you brought up where the Kihi and
- the Umberter property is.
- That was planned 40 years ago. So it actually naturally happened because people have been planning on
- it for decades. And the master plan for water, for instance, for the town has a large diamond remain
- that goes 46 darts and comes back into town. And so that area was always planned to have that happen.
- So, I mean, there is some natural things
- has transpired and kind of shows you how we're laid out. So your concerns, I get it. And I think I'd
- rather be a neighbor to 10 houses on 100 acres than 100 houses on 10 acres. So whatever, you know. But
- I think there's some natural inhibitors for concerns. I'm not saying it can't happen, but. OK, we're
- going to pause and hear a couple of comments from the public.
- I'm a township resident and I read the plan, the subcommittee's plan and for my limited knowledge, I
- understood it and I thought it was well done and answered my questions. My concern as I'm hearing here
- is again, as a township resident, I have no security that Monroe County is not going to change and redo
- things within the township.
- So I'm understanding, I don't understand why we feel like we need to feel, offer that security here.
- What would life be like if we don't reorganize? And what would life be like if we do? In both cases,
- changes can be made by the governing entity. And I'd rather have my security with reorganization than
- as I am now.
- Because as I sit on the fringe area of much of Monroe County's planning, my land can change in a heartbeat.
- And I have no way to voice that easily.
- Hi, my name's Anne and I am a Township President. I think that reorganization gives us a really unique
- opportunity to look at and really plan and have good representation around where growth might happen
- for Ellitsville. Scott, I definitely understand and hear a lot of your concerns and the concerns that
- your neighbors have. A question for you is,
- Do you believe that there should be growth and development happening in Ellitsville and in Richland
- Township? And if so, where? I'm happy to have this conversation, but I'm not sure that it's germane
- necessarily to the meeting. I understand. From the comments you are making and the questions that you
- are having, it sounds like there's a lot of concern around keeping
- things exactly the way that they are right now. I understand that for a lot of individual residents.
- I also understand as a resident of the township that there are likely things that are going to change
- in the future and so that's why I'm asking that question as I feel like it's relevant to this is I do
- believe that under reorganization change is coming and so I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are
- on that. Yeah, I mean I can only speak for myself.
- in favor of smart economic growth. I look at what Ellisville's planning has been. Obviously there's
- been a lot of thought put into that. I think when people make a decision about where they're going to
- locate as far as residents and everything goes, obviously they have the ability and might even say the
- duty to investigate the constraints that exist
- around them and are going to govern their use of their property and their neighbors because they have
- a certain amount of expectation that things will generally stay the same, change over time gradually,
- but generally they go in with an understanding of what's going to be possible. And so I think in this
- particular instance, we're just looking at the possibility of what could be a large amount of change
- in a short amount of time for township residents just in terms of what their immediate neighborhood
- might look like. I think that's something that we need to take into consideration and address. And we
- have to recognize that some people actually move to the county because they wanted the county's restrictive
- zoning. And I'm just asking these questions so that we can be aware of how we
- address those questions when people bring them to us. Yeah, I think it's, you know, I was on the planning
- and zoning subcommittee. We spent a lot of time with Denise discussing updates to the UDO and updates
- happening between now and day one, like we have all already mentioned. And I think that there's a big
- opportunity there for residents within the township to come to the table and have their voice heard.
- during that process, which is obviously going to happen between now and whenever that gets voted in,
- if it does get voted in. So I think that there's a big opportunity there for more people to come and
- voice their concerns about what that looks like. And I think that there's also a great chance
- for representation as the
- As a township resident right now, I don't feel like I have a whole lot of say in exactly what goes on.
- If the area becomes smaller with reorganization, I do feel like I would have a greater say in how all
- of that pans out. So thank you. Darlene, I have a question. Until a UDO is approved under the new reorganized
- entity, we wouldn't be able to just rezone these
- Correct. Okay. And so the suggestion from Mr. Dade is that assuming we have a semblance of a comp plan
- and a UDO ready for shortly after the first of the year, I mean January, February, his suggestion was
- that the newly reorganized town council pass a moratorium on permits, variance applications and so forth
- so that you're not trying to do a dual zoning, you know, looking at Monroe County
- If someone were to come in from the formerly unincorporated area of the township and file an application,
- they would still be going under Monroe County Planning and Zoning. So his suggestion was pass a moratorium
- long enough to get that UDO and that comp plan passed. That moratorium would be in effect from January
- 1? Correct. Or until extended or lifted by the Newtown Council. Correct.
- It is. So what I said was that Sean Dade, the gentleman who helped us with the UDO last time, had suggested
- that after the first of the year the Newtown Council pass a moratorium on the extension of application
- or sorry, the extension of permits or variances or things of that nature until the UDO and the comp
- plan is passed. You're welcome.
- So, Scott, does that alleviate some of the concerns that that's done? So the neighbors aren't waking
- up. I mean, I know that I'm using hyperbole here January 1, and all of a sudden they're all around rezoned.
- Well, I think that helps to answer the question of what happens on January 1 and the timeframe afterwards.
- I'm not sure that it addresses some of the other concerns that I mentioned. But the UDL can. Right, right.
- I mean, that is something, you know, maybe that is worth clarifying too, that a lot of what's in the
- subcommittee report will be subsumed within an updated UDO, correct? I mean, all of the reclassification
- criteria and such are going to be something that's reflected in, you know, this document. It's not,
- you know, we're not going to be depending upon the subcommittee report for the, you know, for the next
- 20 years. So when you say a moratorium, you're talking a moratorium for
- the whole township? Because how would you do that when there's no governing body? No, you have a governing
- body. You're talking January 1st. January 1st, yeah. Well, the UDO should be finished before January
- 1st, isn't it? Well, hopefully there will be a very good draft done, but you can't pass it until the
- new government gets on board, for lack of a better word. And you want to see if the reorder passes.
- So if it passes and you have your new newly reorganized town council, they will then have the authority
- to look at approve whole public hearings on the comp plan and the UDO. Okay. So there will be some window
- of time unavoidably after January 1 where there are public hearings and discussion. Correct. No matter
- what state the UDO draft is in as of December 31, there will still be a process after the first of the
- year to put it in place. Correct. Okay. Scott, the kind of edge case question of what do we do with
- a property that
- doesn't have municipal utilities, doesn't have water and wastewater service, isn't contiguous to any
- part of this existing town. It's interesting because as I look at the map. Notice that, I mean, contiguity
- is not, is not mentioned in here, right? But people, I think, generally would understand that a property
- that is similar in character and contiguous to the town is more reasonably understood to be in the range
- of rezoning than a property that is divorced from public services,
- isolated, non-contiguous. If we do this reorganization, we no longer have only one contiguous developed
- zone. There are properties along the southeast corner of this new township, this place that are significantly
- industrialized and developed. And so we would have several kind of epicenters of more commercial, industrial,
- light industrial area.
- I mean, yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I do think, frankly, I think that, you know, obviously,
- you're gonna be starting with pockets of town in different areas, but that town, but further additions
- or, what's the word we're using, transition, no, sorry, reclassification from rural to town should be
- contiguous to town.
- I mean, I think that there's a good policy argument in favor of the current annexation requirements,
- for example, because the patchwork quilt version of having more intense uses in the middle of non-intense
- uses and going back and forth just doesn't make as much sense as having contiguous density. Because
- that encourages growth that's smart.
- as opposed to growth that happens in strange pockets just because of one landowner's desire. And I am
- very much in favor of people having generally the right to do what they want. But there are things called
- externalities where what I do does have an impact on my neighbors. And so I think that it's completely
- appropriate to take that into consideration.
- not only what the landowner wants. Is there any language that you think needs to be added, deleted,
- revised to address some of the concerns? I mean, I could suggest some, but I don't know that it's going
- to carry the day here. So it might be something that's. I'd like to hear it. Me too. Absolutely. Well,
- I think the contiguity.
- is a big one. It shouldn't be with town, but we've already established that the majority of our group.
- There used to be, now this is, Mike might be able to help me, but there used to be something called
- shoestring annexation, where as long as you had a major corridor connecting proper with something that
- wanted to happen over here, exactly what you're talking about. And that got shot down, I don't know,
- and a good example of it is,
- Deer Run, whatever they call it. They call that Deer Run, don't they? Deer Park. That was shoestring
- annexation. That was some folks that said, we want to develop this. County told them no. They said,
- well, we'll annex to Ellisville. They didn't have anything contiguous, so they said, as long as it's...
- And they somehow got that done with what's called shoestring annexation. That's outlawed now.
- That's not even a possibility. So I see what you're saying, and it is a valid concern, but, you know,
- as Andrew said, if you want to, obviously, the county missed a phenomenal opportunity. A chipmaker,
- okay, working for Crane, wasn't it, wanted to build at the airport. Okay, the county was making it more
- and more difficult with each passing moment.
- And they finally said, hey, we've got several places that want us. And it was a chip maker, going to
- employ a bunch of people for Crane. Southern Indiana cannot afford to have Crane move. You'd shut down
- two or three counties. 70% or 75% of their citizenry is employed by them. If that opportunity reared
- its ugly head in, no, I know what your concerns are, but if it's something like that, something that
- made a whole lot of sense,
- a holster manufacturer, and they wanted to build in the township. Why are you in Owen County? Because
- you had the opportunity to buy up and revitalize an existing machine shop that was closing, rather than
- build a new facility and go through all the zoning and planning hassles that would have happened in
- Monroe County. There you go. So does that make sense? But a very practical limitation. We're not a very
- big company.
- But we couldn't look realistically at any location that didn't already have three-phase power run with
- significant amperage available for our equipment. And so even if there were some beautiful isolated
- pocket of property out in the township, if it didn't have access to the utilities we need, it wouldn't
- matter how it was zoned. We literally couldn't operate there. Sure, tons of industry can't operate without
- fiber optics.
- Okay, so that shoots down 90% of what would happen in the township if a factory came in and wanted to
- build and could afford everything and the fiber optic was the issue. It's not gonna happen overnight.
- I'm not sure that's true. That it could happen overnight? Fiber optics? Oh, yeah. Well, I can name you
- tons of places. I'm pretty sure we're wired here. No, you're not. And I'm pretty sure we are. Okay.
- I'm Diane Crishlow and I also served on this planning and zoning subcommittee. And a couple of things
- I want to share with you. I'm a Mary Kay sales director, which has nothing to do with this. However,
- my father was a custom home builder. My oldest son owns a construction company. My middle son works
- for that construction company and my youngest one sells floor covering. So I come from deep family history
- of the value of
- homes. While we're considering the people who live in the rural districts who purchase that property,
- hoping that it would stay the same forever, we have to consider the people that own property in those
- rural areas that want the opportunity to pass it on to their families with the opportunity to develop
- it. If you don't give them that privilege, you are ruining a family's financial future.
- which is what the county has done. Now, those zoning requirements do not allow you to build currently
- 100 houses in the middle of no place on 10 acres because you've got your sewer requirements there, okay?
- And no, the county health department is not going to approve sewer for 100 houses on 10 acres. I think
- you also have to consider
- what this community overall has done in the past three to five years when it came to planning and zoning.
- One, they put together a broad group of people, a very diverse group of people, to discuss what do we
- want. Many of you were a part of that, okay? And they worked closely with a professional consulting firm
- to put together a good plan. This microphone and I don't have, we're not good friends. And I have a
- lot of faith in the basis, yes, the nature of people are going to change. They should. I live in the
- township, okay? I want to have some say with what happens. But I do think we have to look at their past
- record as to what they've done in the past five years and it was good and it was solid. If you require
- growth only in contiguous property, there is no reason for the majority of your township residents to
- come into this, really. If you're required to be contiguous, why do it, other than the fact the state
- wants townships eliminated, and that's a factor that we're not talking about a whole lot here. But that's
- my opinion, is please give consideration to all of the residents in the township.
- We've got a really good discussion. Unless there's a recommendation for how we might adjust this part
- of the plan, I suggest we move on to another topic. That's the last topic. Well, within the planning
- and zoning. Is that the only thing we have to talk about with planning and zoning? I think so.
- Scott, I'd still like to hear your language. I don't know what you would like to see in there. I really
- would like to hear that. Well, I think, like I said, at this point, I would like to see a contiguity
- aspect, or I would like to limit the freedom to reclassify from rural to town.
- But at the end of the day, I really don't think that it's going to carry the day in our conversation.
- And that's OK. I think it's probably issues that are better dealt with in the process of thinking through
- the actual regulations and legal language that we would find in the UDO and the related documents than
- to try to hash it out here.
- I'm very sympathetic to the externalities requesting an argument. I would be much more cautious about
- moving forward on this if we were putting the new rules in place right now tonight by our vote. But
- what we're actually doing is agreeing to put it before the public for a general vote. And every single
- voter in the township has a voice on that. And to the degree that Diane believes that a majority of
- township residents would have
- less or no reason to come in for a benefit of planning and zoning, if we required contiguous placement,
- they will have the opportunity to tell us if we give them the opportunity to vote on it. And even if
- they vote yes, that will still give them an opportunity and people feel this way to make those changes
- in a UDO. So I mean, that just got this
- this committee won't rule that out, we can't. That's gonna depend on it. And then there's always public
- hearings. Right. And there's remonstrance, I mean there's a ton of safeguards put into place for that
- kind of thing to happen, but in the end, being honest, I'm a proponent of, you've got land, somebody's
- gotta come up with a good reason why I can't do something with it.
- Anyways. I would entertain a motion at this point. I make a motion that we accept the subcommittee's
- recommendations. Move forward on it. For planning and zoning. For planning and zoning. I second that
- motion. Any further discussion?
- Hearing no for the discussion, I'll call the vote to approve the planning and zoning subcommittee report
- as submitted. I vote yes. Kevin? Yes. Jerry? Yes. Mike? Yes. Scott? I appreciate the work that's been
- done, so I'm not going to vote against it, but I'll abstain from voting. Okay. Dawn? Yes. William? Yes.
- Thank you. Vote passes.
- Do we have anybody from the public that would like to come up and speak at this time? I very much appreciate
- the planning and zoning subcommittee members making sure to be here. Thank you for your work. It's a
- complicated issue, and the report was very helpful. You're welcome. And Denise wants out of here. Are
- we going to have a meeting? We are going to have a meeting next Wednesday? Are we from tonight? Yes.
- Yes, thank you for humoring me. I think though next Wednesday, unless there's
- something from what I understand, it's just putting all of our discussions that we've done into one
- report. So this really, for the most part, is a wrap on the organization committee and our work. And
- I want to say I really enjoyed working with all of you. I think someone had said it, so I'm stealing
- it. I can't remember who to give credit for. If this could be our new council, I'd love it. Because, you know,
- I think that was Mike. Well, I would also compliment the people on this committee because there are
- many of you who really carry the heavy load and I particularly relied on your hard work and your research
- and your insights in making my decisions and I just appreciate
- each and every one of you. Likewise. All right, any other thoughts? All right, we'll see you next Wednesday
- night, six o'clock. This meeting has concluded.