I'd like to call to order this. Meeting of the Monroe County Planning Commission. It is Thursday, October
23rd. And if you could call the role, please. Sure, David Bush. Margaret Clements. Tron and Ray Randolph
here. Scott Ferris here. Rudy Fields here. David Henry. Here. Jeff Morris.
Julie Thomas. Here. Joe Vandeventer. OK, so we have six members attending in a quorum. Thank you so
much and we'd like to move on to introduction of evidence, please.
I'd like to introduce the following items into the evidence. The Monroe County Development Ordinance
as adopted and amended. The Monroe County Zoning Ordinance and Subdivision Control Ordinance as adopted
and amended. The Monroe County Comprehensive Plan as adopted and amended. The Monroe County Plan Commission
Rules or Procedure as adopted and amended. And the cases that were legally advertised and scheduled
for a hearing on tonight's agenda. Thank you so much. Could I have a motion, please? So moved.
for adoption. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the introduction of evidence. A vote yes
is a vote to approve. Tron Enright-Randolph? Yes. Scott Ferris? Yes. Rudy Fields? Yes. David Henry?
Yes. Julie Thomas? Yes. David Bush? Yes. Motion is approved, six to zero. Thank you so much.
And now I will entertain a motion for approval of the agenda. I do have one change to the agenda There
has been a recognition that the Bell Vista section three Petition there was not a proper notice Sent
out for that one. So we do have to recommend its continuance to our November meeting which will be
November 18th. I'll make a motion that we adopt the agenda and continue item ASPP-25-2 to our November
8th meeting. Second. We have a motion and we have a second and I will note for anyone who's watching
or here in person
that on this agenda are a number of items that have been continued. All three items related to Holland
Fields and Holland three lot minor subdivision have been continued as has under new business SIA 21-7.
So it's been moved and seconded and I'll just correct the date, I apologize. It's been moved and seconded
to amend the agenda to continue SPP-25-2, the Bell Vista section three, primary plot amendment for sidewalk
and street tree waiver. It's been requested to be continued to the November 20th plan commission meeting.
A vote yes is a vote to continue it to November 20th. Do I have to still accept that? No, okay.
Scott Ferris. Yes. Rudy Fields. Yes. David Henry. Yes. Julie Thomas. Yes. David Bush. Yes. Tron Enright
Randolph. Yes. Motion is approved six to zero. All right. Thank you so much.
there are two sets of minutes. Motion to approve the minutes for. September 2nd and also September 25th.
Seconded We have a motion and we have a second. Any comments at its
commission to vote in favor, since we are just that majority. We have a six on line. Oh, there is a
six on line. I'm sorry, Mr. Henry. All right. If you could call the roll, please on this item. OK, it's
been moved and seconded to approve September 2nd and September 25th, 2025 meeting minutes. A vote yes
is a vote to approve both sets of minutes. Rudy Fields. Yes.
David Henry. Yes. Julie Thomas. Yes. David Bush. Yes. John Henry Randolph. It shows I was absent on
the September, but I did watch the cats recording, so I'll vote yes. Matt Ferris. Yes. Motion is approved
six to zero.
Thank you so much. We have some administrative business if you would please.
Yes, just a report for the CDO amendment prioritization list. We have not seen a change, substantial
change to this list since June of this year. However, two items on your agenda tonight we will touch
on are part of that prioritization list. So if recommended for approval or recommended positive
recommendation to the county commissioners and those are adopted or changes are made, we would update
that prioritization list accordingly.
Thank you very much. Anybody have comments or questions for staff? Okay, great. Thank you so much. We
will now. Move way down on the agenda. Look at how quickly we get
amendment 25.1. The peach minor subdivision. Preliminary Platt Amendment one. With a road width waiver.
This is a preliminary hearing and they've asked for a waiver of final hearing. Right so I'm
This is two parcels, it's 57.74 acres in Beam Blossom Township, section 12 at 9175 North Mount Pleasant
Road. And the owners, Richard Brown and Kimberly Gladys. All right, so the request is for a primary
plot amendment to the Peach Minor subdivision. They are going to subdivide lot three, which is 57.74
acres, to create a new lot, which is 10.01 acres.
The CDO says that a minor subdivision can create up to four lots. And so the Peach Minor initially has
created three lots already. They can add this fourth one during a primary plot amendment process. So
the proposed lot 3A will contain 45.66 acres and has existing access to North Mount Pleasant Road.
and the proposed lot 4A will contain 10.01 acres with proposed access to West Brown Road. The petition
includes a road width waiver request. West Brown Road measures only 13 feet in width, and the CDO requires
18 feet for a subdivision. So here's the location here in Beam Blossom Township. The primary plot amendment
is here on the right, so you can see lot
3a is the larger one which has an existing home and some outbuildings and then lot 4a is going to have
a proposed home and septic system shown there on the plot This is it kind of Shown up a little bit further
you have West Brown Road along the top there Which is only 13 feet wide and then down along the eastern
property line is North Mount Pleasant Road something to know is that this
Access point for lot 4a is not 200 feet wide at the road where it touches the road It does not reach
that 200 feet wide until it gets to here. So this is sort of a pole For a flag lot and is not considered
buildable, but they do have plenty of buildable area and this is kind of the lower half of the plat
you can see that there are drainage easements that have been included and
and the southern part of the lot here, lot 3A, with more riparian area and drainage easements. So there
is a summary table in the packet that describes the statistics of lot 3A and lot 4A and the buildable
area that they're gonna have. Staff confirmed that they do have appropriate septic permits on file.
and we looked at their roadway access. Right of way dedication is already dedicated out here. We confirmed
environmental conditions and existing structures. And then when we were starting to look at road width,
that's when we noticed that West Brown Road did not meet the road width requirement. Sidewalks are not
required out here. We do have capacity ladders and street trees. They do have a preservation area of
1.03 acres.
And this is the street tree preservation area, it kind of overlaps between the two lots, sort of straddles
the boundary line between the properties. So this is the original plat here, lot one, lot two, and then
this is lot three across the street, and this is the one that they're subdividing and doing the amendment
for. So the staff recommendation
It's interesting because...
Well, let's just go over the PLAT committee. The PLAT committee met on April 21st, 2025 and forwarded
a positive recommendation to approve the primary PLAT and rode with waiver with a vote of four to zero.
And the staff had recommended three conditions of approval and the fourth condition had been added by
the PLAT committee. All of those have been completed at this point in time. And so really the recommendation
is to approve the subdivision based on the findings that the proposed primary PLAT
that meets the county development ordinance subject to the highway engineer and stormwater program manager
reports and to also approve the road width waiver. Citing practical difficulties have been demonstrated
with no conditions. Any questions? Thank you so much. Anyone to my left have a question for staff? To
my right, online.
See a hand raised. Okay, well, I actually have a question which is related to lot 3A because under lot
3A on the graphic on page nine of our packet, it says existing undocumented septic secondary permit
and then it has a number.
thinking that's secondary septic here and an existing septic on this one. Is that the graphic? It's
in the table on page nine. Right. Okay. So it took a while. If I recall, they have a septic. We didn't
have a good permit that went with it, if I recall, and so we had them
Because it's older. Yes. Got it. And during their first subdivision, we did make them pull a septic
permit. And so we were using that one as the secondary site and not having them upgrade their septic
just because they were subdividing. But should it fail, they do have a secondary location. Got it. That's
what I thought. But I wanted to be sure. Thank you so much.
Thank you. All right. Um so now we will hear from the petitioner or the petitioners representative.
May come forward in the Natu Hill room or raise your hand on teams to be
If you could please give us your name. It's Richard Brown. Okay, Mr. Brown. Thank you for being here.
Did you have anything you wanted to add about this petition? No, I think everything we tried to get
everything that they requested. Does anybody have questions for the petitioner for my right? Online.
There is a Matt Lowers. Is he part of your? That's that's our son. He's the one buying the smaller lot
I will call on him and anybody have questions for these petitioners. Okay So we have somebody online
whose hand was raised we could hear from them Looks like their hand is down now. Oh
Yeah, I was sorry. I was just going to stand in if they did, so I'm just here for support. OK, great.
Thank you so much. Good good alright. OK, alright, thank you. We will now open this up for public comments.
See if anyone has anyone wishes to speak in
in favor of this petition, you may raise your hand on teams to be recognized or come to the podium here
in the NatU Hill Room. I don't see any hands raised on teams. Anyone wish to speak in opposition to
this petition? Please come to the podium in the NatU Hill Room or raise your hand on teams to be recognized.
Anyone on the board to my right or left or online have further comments before we get a motion. Okay,
somebody like to make a motion. Please move with respect to case number SM November 25 one, which is
the peach minor primary plat amendment one.
we the motion to approve. One is approve the subdivision based on the finding that the proposed primary
plant meets the CDO and is subject to the highway engineer and stormwater program manager reports.
That's one. And also to approve the road width waiver request citing practical difficulties have it
demonstrated. And as mentioned by the by the staff, the four conditions, all of which have been completed.
And also a wave of the final hearing. Great. Thank you so much. We have a motion. Is there a second?
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. We have a motion and we have a second. It's been moved
and seconded to approve both the subdivision as well as the road with waiver and
also the waiver of final hearing. A vote yes is a vote to approve. David Henry? Yes. Julie Thomas? Yes.
David Bush? Yes. John Henry Randolph? Yes. Scott Ferris? Yes. Rudy Fields? Yes.
motion is approved six to zero. Thank you so much. Um, next we have, um, agenda item S M N 25-3. The
John R and Mary Deckard minor subdivision primary plot amendment to
sidewalk and street tree waiver requested. This is a preliminary hearing. The waiver of the final hearing
has also been requested. Staff, please. Yep. Again, I'm going to cover for Drew on this one. This is
two parcels on 64.78 acres in Richland Township Section 23 at 3805 West Walcott Lane. The owners are
Stephen Deckard, irrevocable living trust.
So this is a primary plot amendment to the John R. and Mary Deckard minor subdivision. It is to subdivide
existing tract two, which is 64.78 acres, to create a new lot, which will be 32.14 acres. The CDO says
a minor subdivision can create up to four lots, so this subdivision is bringing it up to three.
The subdivision initially had created two lots and so this third one is allowed via the primary plot
amendment process. The proposed track two will contain 32.64 acres with existing access to West Walcott
Lane. Proposed track three will contain 32.14 acres and will also have access to West Walcott Lane.
The petition includes a sidewalk waiver request and a street tree waiver request. The proposed subdivision
is within the urban area boundary as defined in the CDO. So this is the location. It's pretty close
to West Woodyard Road and Heart Straight Road. There was a, up here in this corner here is the original
lot one. Lot two is this one here and then they're subdividing it.
through the middle, kind of with this L shape. Things that you'll notice is that there is an easement
that cuts through the property to access the subdivision to the south. And there is a special flood
hazard area and a drainage easement that comes through here and also a riparian area. Both of these
lots are essentially vacant. There is, I think, one ag structure on the property.
more of a close-up of the easement that comes through to service the subdivision to the south. This
is the summary table here. So again, we've got a summary of Tract 2 and Tract 3. There are acreage.
We do have wastewater septic permit on file for these. The property access will... There's an existing
driveway for Tract 2, and then we have a new driveway access for Lot 3 under right-of-way permit.
RW 24-314 Right of way dedication. It's already occurred, but we're confirming it and then there are
some DNR floodplains and some slopes that are greater than 25% The local road it is 19 feet wide so
we're good on that it does
encompass part of the urban service boundary, which will require the sidewalks. We do have capacity
letters for electric and water. And then there are 32 street trees required. And they are asking for
a waiver request from both sidewalk and street tree waivers. So this is the urban service boundary.
Did I say that correct? Yes. And it does encompass this wall caught lane up here, which does require
then that we look at it for
this possibility of sidewalks or alternative transportation incorporation. And then we also have on
the plat, well, we had the petitioner include some of the existing trees that are on the property. There
are 40 existing trees, and there are images of those here on the bottom of the picture.
And then there was a discussion at the Platt Committee regarding for the sidewalk waiver potentially
adding additional easement to accommodate that. So we have a local road urban design which does incorporate
a sidewalk and kind of a
curb and gutter like roll curb. And we also have the local road rural, which is more of a 60 foot right
of way dedication. And right now we have a 25 foot right of way dedication here and that's what is required.
Should you want to do an additional
five or 10 feet. One thing to keep in mind is that we do have street trees down here that we
could potentially count towards that street tree requirement even though they are asking to waive those.
Also, I think that sometimes the highway department doesn't always want to be responsible for the street
trees and our ordinance in the subdivision doesn't allow us to count trees in the right of way towards
that requirement.
We would need to come up with a different solution, I think, for the street trees if additional right-of-way
easement would be dedicated to encompass a future alternative transportation plan, like sidewalks or
a side path. And then kind of looking at this is West Walcott Lane here in Turquoise running east-west.
This is that access easement we did during the first
amendment, we relocated the driveway. So this driveway is not valid anymore. It was in the floodplain.
We scooted it over to be outside of the special flood hazard area. But this stretch could have alternative
transportation along it to connect to the Karst Farm Greenway, which is 110 feet away. And there is
not, I'm not sure how the easement would work there. The creek runs this way.
And then I'll point out that we do have FEMA floodway. To get a permit for this, you would have to get
a state permit and a local flood permit, and then also prove that your project creates a no-rise scenario.
That does get kind of expensive. So that's something to also take into consideration if you want to
decide to support the sidewalk waiver.
And street true waiver and extra dedication of right of way would the county ever want to put a sidewalk
here? So we do have the sidewalk waiver Findings of fact in the packet for both the sidewalk and the
street trees we I touched on a lot of those So I'm not going to go over them here And then this is the
Final Platt Amendment 1, this is where we altered the road access and added the easement. And then we
do have our recommendation for SMN-25-3. So staff, well, let's see, we do have a Platt Committee,
let's see, Platt Committee met October 16th.
voted five to zero for a positive recommendation to the Plan Commission to approve the subdivision,
approve the sidewalk waiver, and deny the street tree waiver as recommended above. The Platt Committee
directed staff to converse with the petitioner about the receptivity to requesting the incorporation
of an access easement along West Walcott Lane that would ultimately serve as the location for the multi-use
path to improve pedestrian access to the Cars Farm Greenway.
And then staff recommends approval of the subdivision based on the findings that the proposed primary
plat meets the CDO and subject to Highway Engineer and Stormwater Program Manager reports. Also recommending
approval of the sidewalk waiver, citing practical difficulties have been demonstrated. And then also
to deny the street tree waiver request, preservation of existing trees can satisfy the requirements
of Chapter 832-14C.
and can be shown on the primary plat. Does anyone have any questions? Thank you so much. Any questions
from my right? Question for staff. More. Yes, discussion from the Platte Committee and how that precipitated.
Sure, OK, so. Just based off the location to a built
trail network, which will probably serve as one of our main backbones to our trail network in the county
that creates connectivity to the city and the town, maybe even beyond. But I guess I kind of brought
that topic up because I'm very active in some of our trail projects. If that's even something that should
be continued
to be discussed, I would say that we should probably bring this back to the administrative meeting.
Due to the Platt committee meeting being canceled, we kind of got not necessarily out of order, but
usually we could have had this discussion at the Platt committee and then at the admin meeting. So it's
just kind of how are we going to talk about these more rural areas and still be able to have access
to continue our trail network or
maybe at one point build sidewalks. I was pretty amenable to going ahead and supporting this and the
practical difficulties of having to relocate the street trees to meet that requirement is one thing that was
50-50 for at least for my position. So I'm fine with supporting this as is, but I'm also fine with bringing
this back and discussing how can we really look at retaining clean easements to expand our network in
the future. I don't think by any means the property owner should go ahead and take on the cost of building
out the trail.
or a sidewalk at this point because the connectivity is very limited. But in 10, 20 years, one of the
most difficult things we encounter with expanding our network is having a clean easement. So that's what
kind of precipitate that discussion. I just wanted to bring a little more context to that. And again,
I'll kind of defer to the rest of the plan commission of the direction they want to go. So, but I don't
think we could kind of, I would recommend, let's not try to dice this out at today's meeting if it's
even a consideration. Did you have any questions, Mr. Henry, council member Henry?
I do not. Okay, any questions for staff from my left? Okay, thank you so much. Now we can hear from
the petitioner, petitioner's representative, please come to the podium here in the NETU Hill Room, or
you can raise your hand on Teams to be recognized. There is a hand raised. Deckard.
You will need to unmute. I'm muted, I'm there. Thank you. Did you have any comments you wanted to make
on this petition or anything you want us to know? No comments. I'm not opposed to maybe a 10 foot easement.
I know that the embankment between Walkout Lane and the property is probably a
75 degree angle and eight feet tall. So to get a sidewalk there would be a lot of grading. We'll go
from there. The street trees along there are like eastern cedars and almost fully grown. To remove those
would be sad, so to speak. I'm sure the other neighbors would like it. I have no other comments other
than if you have questions for me.
Thank you so much. Any comments or questions for the petitioner from my left? Please. One comment. I
was in the plaque committee withdrawn in that discussion and I believe that under the curtain book of
words that they hit all the spots they need to hit and to ask them to do something else is exactly that.
If you want to ask them about it, cool. But I just wouldn't want anybody to
someone in a way that says, well, you know, we didn't do this, so we need that. You know, I think there's,
I think there is a, in my view, I believe that these folks are, and based on the practical difficulties
of things they've talked about tonight, that that waiver section needs to be deleted and approved as
is. Okay. Thank you so much. Are you talking about the sidewalk waiver? Yeah, all the approval,
that are marked for approval and the denial, which, you know, works in their benefit, too. I think those
are all things I export. Great. Thank you, Mr. Bush. Yeah, I was on the plaque committee and was supportive
of Tron's discussion and when the idea
consideration of an easement was brought forward. I thought it was a good idea. I still think it's a
good idea. I will not hold up this petition because of that, but I think that is something in the future
we want to probably bring back to an admin meeting and tackle long-term how we're going to try to preserve
accessibility to the trails. Thank you.
Any comments or questions for the petitioner from Mr. Henry? None, thank you. Anyone to my right have
a question or comment for petitioner? Okay. Great, so we will now move on to public comment. If anybody
would like to speak in favor of this petition,
you may come up to the podium here in the net you hill room or you may raise your hand on teams and
to be recognized to speak. No one does anyone wish to speak in opposition to this petition? Again, you
may raise your hand on teams to be recognized or come to the podium here in the net you hill room.
Seeing none, we'll come back to the board for comments before a motion. Anyone to my right have a comment?
Yes, I don't like kind of looking at a petition kind of as it's moving forward. I like kind of having
those larger discussions and kind of having kind of some predictability and where it's applied across
the board. So I guess I'm looking to support this as is today.
but I do think it's a very important conversation to have about how we can secure easements or at one
point when we want to build sidewalks to create connectivity that's contiguous, at some point we're
going to have to decide to do that and over time it will create that contiguous connectivity that I
think we're looking for.
Like I said, I'd rather address that so it's more applied across the board versus case by case. Any
comments from Council Member Henry? None at all, thank you. Any comments from my left? No. I have a
comment which is that
I think that. While I understand the desire ability to create sidewalks to connect to trails. We there
are a couple of key issues with the lay of the land here. Um and I think that the way that the staff
has organized the approvals and denials. Um
the petitioner to try to overcome issues relating to floodplain and or deep ditches. And if we insisted
on that easement, then we would have to revisit the street tree question. And I don't I'm not sure that
that's fair to petitioner at this moment either. So
I do support it as it is. And with that, we could see if anyone here would like to make a motion. Please.
With respect to case number Sierra Mike November 25-3, which is the primary plat amendment two. The
recommendation is to approve that primary plat amendment two.
approve the sidewalk waiver, and to deny the street tree waiver. And also, we waive the final hearing.
Thank you so much. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Okay, we have two seconds.
Makes it a fourth. All right. Please call the roll on this item. The motion is on SMN-23.
5-3, which is the John and Mary Deckard Minor Primary Plan Amendment 2. This is for a sidewalk and street
tree waiver request, as well as a waiver of final hearing. It's been moved and seconded to approve the
primary plan amendment, approve the sidewalk waiver, deny the street tree waiver, and approve the waiver
of final hearing. A vote yes is to do that in that order. Rudy Fields? Yes. David Henry? Yes.
Thomas. Yes. David Bush. Yes. Tron on right. Randolph. Yes. Scott Ferris. Yes. Motion is approved six
to zero. Thank you so much. Thank you. The petitioner. Appreciate bringing this forward. Um, we will
now move on to item for triple S dash 25 dash to the domain sliding scale subdivision primary plat.
Sidewalk waiver requests. This is a preliminary hearing the waiver of final hearing has been requested
This is on two parcels of 15 plus or minus acres in Richland Township section 1 at 3500 West Maple Grove
Road I'll just keep
Presenting for Drew substitute of the year. All right. Thank you All right. So this is a sliding scale
subdivision with a sidewalk waiver request There they have 15 acres the lot 1 they're proposing to be
3.8 to 4 acres and lot 2 will be 10.4 to 8 acres CDO says the parent parcel remainder cannot be further
subdivided for a period of 25 years and
Proposed lot 1 will contain 3.8 to 4 acres on West Maple Grove Road access and lot 2 is the is the 10
plus acres with also access to West Maple Grove Road the petition includes a sidewalk waiver request
and is classified as a moderate priority road improvement per the transportation alternatives map in 2018
And in lieu of street trees the property has is required to exhibit a tree preservation area or tree
planting area And this area is depicted on the primary plot So this is the location along West Maple
Grove Road in Richland Township This is the proposed
primary plat, so lot one is here on the left, lot two is on the right, which already has some existing
structures on it. The other one is vacant, and I do believe they made this exactly 200 feet wide, which
is the design standards for the AGR district. This is a little bit more of a close-up here, showing
the right-of-way dedication. There is some utility easement that runs through the property that's depicted,
and they are showing the septic locations.
Here's the summary table of lot one and lot two. We do have some septic permit evidence on file. The
access road, we have driveway permits for each of those. We're dedicating 45 foot of right of way because
this is a major collector. No environmental considerations here. And there is a single family residence
on lot two existing.
The road is wide enough, it's 18 to 24.5 feet wide. Sidewalks, it is required because of the classification
of it being a moderate priority road improvement. And then we do have capacity letters on file for electric
and water, and we've discussed that there is a tree preservation area, and then they're requesting the
sidewalk waiver.
So the tree preservation area they're putting on lot two up above is 0.213 acres. And we've got some
photos of the frontage here because of the sidewalk waiver request. And the PLAT committee met on October
16th, 2025 and forwarded a positive recommendation to approve the primary PLAT and sidewalk waiver
by a vote of five to zero and the staff recommendation is to approve the subdivision based on the findings
that the proposed primary plat meets the CDO subject to highway engineer and stormwater program manager
reports and also to approve the sidewalk waiver request citing practical difficulties have been demonstrated.
I'll take any questions. Thank you so much. Questions for staff from my left?
Mr. Henry online. Any questions for staff? No questions at this time. Thanks. Thank you. Any questions
from my right? OK, with that, thank you so much. We'll move on to petitioner petitioners representative
if you'd like to come to the podium here in the net you Hill room. And bring your family. Please give
us your name.
Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. No comments for me, but appreciate your support and happy to answer any
questions. Great, thank you. Does anyone have questions for the petitioner? For my right online.
For my left, look at that. No questions. That was easy. Alright, glad you could all make it for that
excitement. Quiet this whole meeting, so they think good.
All right. That's awesome. All right. Does anybody wish to speak in favor of this petition? You may
raise your hand on teams or come to the podium. Anybody wish to speak in opposition to this petition?
You may raise your hand on teams to be recognized or come to the podium.
Seeing none, let's see if there's any final comment from the board. Any members to my right have final
comments, please? Yes, and I think this is more meant for the public to understand kind of the discussion
we just had with sidewalk waivers and the request here with a sidewalk waiver. This isn't really located
right next to a built out trail. So, you know,
That was the impetus of wanting to kind of try to stir a discussion up about how we could do a better
job of addressing that, especially when there's not practical difficulties there, but just the lack
of connectivity. I'm looking forward to supporting that, but I just really wanted to make it clear why
there was a larger discussion just a few moments ago and that there isn't really any discussion I have
here or larger concerns about
you know, granting a sidewalk waiver. Questions? Any comments or questions online? None, thank you.
Okay, anything from my left? Look at this. Oh gosh. Okay. All right. With that, we will entertain a
motion please. Be happy to do that. In the matter of
case number SSS-25-2, the Dolman sliding scale subdivision, recommend to approve the subdivision based
on the finding that the proposed primary plat meets the county development ordinance subject to the
highway engineer and stormwater program manager reports and approve the sidewalk waiver requesting requests,
citing practical difficulties have been demonstrated. And with this final waiver, would this be a waiver
of final hearing? Yes.
Recommendation for a waiver of final hearing second. Thank you so much great We have a motion and we
have a second if you could call the roll, please This is on petition sss-25-2 the domain sliding scale
subdivision primary plat sidewalk waiver in plat approval with a waiver of final hearing It's been moved
to approve all of the items requested a vote. Yes is a vote to approve Julie Thomas. Yes
David Bush? Yes. Tron Enright-Randolph? Yes. Scott Farris? Yes. Rudy Fields? Yes. David Henry? Yes.
You turn your camera on one more time. I'm sorry, I might have put it. He's there. He's there. Okay,
great. I've got it. Thank you. Six to zero is approved. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you
for checking on that camera. Excellent. Thank you so much for being here.
All right, we will now move on to item five, which is a rezone request, REZ-25-5-8383SVRLLC, rezone
from mineral extraction agriculture to mineral extraction.
This is a preliminary hearing. A waiver of final hearing is requested. This encompasses five parcels
on 114.986 plus or minus acres in Section 20 of Bean Blossom Township at 8383 North Steinsville Road
and 8436 West Hedrick Road. Staff, please.
I'm gonna turn this one. Yes. All right Okay, Drew did us a great favor and did the power point at a
time So to clarify this is going to be Technically a rezone of the whole property to clean up any zone
map changes So it's it's stated as two hundred twenty one point nine eight acres that they have mineral
extraction slash AGR and they want that solely to be mineral extraction
The area that they're actually rezoning is is about 10 acres or less So it's we'll show in a few maps
or a few slides from now a map kind of showing the cleanup that they're seeking So the petition excite
exhibits an ongoing quarry activity at the address of 8304 and 8383 North Steinsville Road and includes
approximately 189 point seven nine acres
The remaining 32.19 acres at 8436 West Hedrick is sort of the area of focus here, and it contains a
portion of property utilized for quarry activity. It was also established as track one of Indiana quarries
and carvers type E. So there was a subdivision in 2020 that moved lot lines. So ultimately, the petitioner
now intends to perform a plat vacation and subsequent second type E to combine the
2.19 acre property with the remaining 189 point seven nine acres and be all one quarry property one
lot of record
Before the type B, the 32.19 acre contained only 22.8 acres and was rezoned under a 2011 ordinance from
AGRR to ME. So this is the remainder of that 22.8. Well, 32.19 minus 22.8 is about what we're looking at here.
So again, before the type B, the 32.19 acre property contained only 22.8 acres and was rezoned in 2011.
We went and looked at that ordinance and it did include seven conditions of approval, which we are going
to be referencing again in our recommendation. One thing to note under number six, rock crushing is
prohibited on the subject site.
Remember that these conditions were really just with the 32.19 acre site in mind and we wouldn't want
that to be applicable or the petitioner likely would not want that to be applicable to the entirety
of the quarry site, the 200 plus acre quarry site. So here's a location map in Bean Blossom. It is several
parcels that is contained in this petition.
And circled here on the screen are the portions of the property that are either zoning map errors from
lot line shifts over time or our parcel lines sometimes become a little bit skewed. So they want to
clean up everything and also turn any green that you see circled in white to the grayish color mineral
extraction, which is about 10 acres or so.
So just for your reference and in the packet, there are definitions established for different zones.
So agricultural residential 2.5 and mineral extraction, they are very different zones. But typically,
if you look at some of our mineral extraction zones, they tend to be surrounded by agricultural. So
it isn't unusual, as you see in this screen here, to have somewhat sparse residential uses surrounding
our mineral extraction zones.
So we do have under the county development ordinance a use for mineral resource extraction, especially
for new quarry activities or expansion of quarry activities that are occurring under the CDO. One of
the things I want to point your attention to is that number one, it says mining operations shall not
be conducted on parcels located within residential districts.
In the case of a mineral extraction zone property within the areas deemed to be determined logging comma
urban area This is a reference to the Indian estate code thirty six seven four
1109 where it says that you have eight homes in a quarter mile square. It's considered an urban area
So we've done that analysis on the 32 plus acre lot and the hatched area on the left is showing you
Give or take the urban area So that's the area that's encompassed by eight homes and we shift the box
and capture the eight homes and that's the maximum extent of that area deemed urban so they would have to
going back to the standard either get a variance from that or Purchase further properties that
are constituted as a home and remove those homes to be out of that urban designation So it's something
we wanted to follow up from Plant Commission administrative meeting question
And then on the screen, we do have the ordinance from 2011 with those reference conditions and also
exhibit five from the original ordinance, which I believe is still exhibit five in your packet. There
was a a a e com exhibit about the karst
evaluation for the rezone request. And so that's in the packet as well for your review. I believe there
may be a clarification needed by the petitioner for this, but I will get to that in a second. And then
here is the Indiana quarries and carvers type E. Here's the subdivision transfer area that you can see
with that. It says 9.27 acres that was not zoned. Mineral extraction is still zoned.
AGR so with their purchase of this and wanting to have it all one zone. That's kind of the with the
reason they're here today for the reason request and Then this is the big Creek limestone type II This
was showing all the different parcels that they own and again their plan is to combine those into one and
And then there was a recorded easement between Stigler and American Limestone. I believe this was a
requirement and it was to discuss the, I believe it's for the pole of a flag lot or the track two parcel
here, so off of Hedrick. So they're going to be limited for any quarry activity, it's going to be limited
off of Hedrick, which will be one of the conditions that they've agreed
Okay. So here's the staff recommendation that we have from the packet. So in regards to REZ-25-5, the
rezone request from
Me agr to me mineral extraction staff is recommending a positive recommendation to the County Commissioners
of the rezone request subject to the conditions of approval set forth under ordinance 2011-27 For the
same twenty two point eight nine acres of the property on the south end of the petition site so this
is to be applicable to the now thirty two point one nine acre site and
So number one, record the easement agreement between Michael Stigler and American Limestone. That has
been satisfied. Number two, incorporate the recommendations of the AECOM CAR study for the subject site
as part of the actual quarry operations. And we're requesting during the petitioner's testimony if they
can confirm that from the quarry owner operator that this has been done already, therefore not needed
as a condition.
Access to Hedrick Road is restricted for all uses other than residential or agricultural purposes. Cory
traffic shall use the internal roads of the American limestone property to the north in addition to
their right away driveway access point on Steinsville Road.
Number four has been satisfied, a driveway permit. They have received that. Number five, quarry activity
shall not extend down into the 50 foot frontage access strip or flagpole of the subject site. That still
would be applicable. Rock crushing is prohibited on the 32.19 acre site. And number seven has been satisfied,
but it was requiring a 25 foot right away dedication on Hedrick Road.
So with that, I can take any questions. All right, thank you so much. Go first. On item number two,
with respect to the confirmation from the quarry owner and operator, should that be satisfied before
we move forward with this petition?
In looking back at the meeting minutes and trying to determine that It looks like they had satisfied
a lot of these conditions So that was something that we wanted to just make sure we could confirm with
them today If it's not something that they have an answer to then I would recommend we continue it until
we get an answer for that I Guess my question is kind of the rock crushing is prohibited
I think I'm fine with that due to kind of the proximity of the residential zone. My question is how
are you going to regulate that? Or how are you going to ask them to delineate that if they're going
to combine all of these moving forward so like we know where that area is?
Technically speaking, if there's an expansion to the quarry operations, we should have a site plan on
file. We do have site plans for other quarry operations where they show the locations specifically to
rock crushing. So that would be something that we would be able to get a site plan for. Okay. It just
seems like it's going to be kind of a
interesting scenario is kind of making sure that they stay compliant because I know that some of the
rock crushing equipment is mobile. But at least it's there. So if you get complaints by the neighbors
and such, at least we have some ability to kind of get them to stop doing that. So thanks, it's just
interesting. Councilor Henry, do you have a question for staff or comment?
questions at this time. Thanks. Thank you. Anyone from my left? Yes, Mr Fields and question about again
number two. Who and this is my I believe my first time I've come up on a zoning recommendation. Who
within the county system evaluates the karst issues as drainage board involved is who all is involved
in looking at this to see that their plan adheres to
the setbacks provided in the CDO. That would be stormwater, but. It would be stormwater. So quarry operations
are interesting in that they actually are permitted to quarry all the karst areas, whereas otherwise
in the county we're protecting those karst areas from development by a buffer.
to be a site plan. But typically if there were to be a site plan, then that is when our drainage board
or stormwater program would be involved because there would be an actual plan for them to review. So
since this is just at the reason stage, they didn't have any comments for they don't typically have
comments on reasons. Um so my question relates
They're still going to submit a site plan after this. If there is any plan for expansion, so they may
be pre existing legal pre existing non conforming. So if they want to expand quarry operations with
the combination of all these lots in the rezone, then we would ask them for a site plan for that is
is moving the rock crushing operations considered an expansion, or is that just part of day to day business?
On the 32.19 acre parcel, there is a little bit of quarry activity you can see. I don't know unless
the petitioner could clarify. I'm not sure if they can point out to us where the rock crushing is currently
taking place or if it's taking place. We assume it is, but we don't believe that it's on the 32.19 acre
parcel as it stands today.
that. Since they don't necessarily have to do a site plan. I wonder if. Staff would. Create a basic
map. That combines the previous petition and this petition to indicate where they are not supposed to
be. Performing rock crushing activities is
Timmy's bringing up a good point since they are planning on platting we could add some of these conditions
onto the plat Excellent. So do we need to add that to the conditions? Yes, that would be helpful. Okay,
so we would need to say for item six Rock crushing needs to be indicated on do we call it on the platter
on the site plan on the plan on the plan? Thank you if you don't mind and
The other question I have is, and after reading through everything, I wasn't sure about that flagpole
lot on Hedrick, but it is part of that 2011 petition that wasn't clear when I looked at the packet for
the admin meeting, but it's clear now. So thank you for that. So I never asked a follow up question
to staff on that, but it's interesting because it's,
part of the 2011 plat or I'm sorry, ordinance. And it still says only residential or agricultural use.
But now there's absolutely none of that anywhere on the property. So what can they do with that?
That's a good question. So with the urban area analysis I think that also further prevents the quarry
activity in that flagpole lot We're asking that if they combine this parcel They essentially give up
the rights to access to Hedrick and only access from the north. Okay, so I think that they would have
to basically comply with this buffer or seek additional approvals and
And then if they wanted to farm the rest of it or do something to that extent, we could look into a
possible driveway for that kind of activity. OK, so we can leave it leave the text as is in the conditions
and still be OK. The text as it is today applies to that property right now, so I think that we would
if you want to carry it forward, you could still carry it forward. OK, great. Thank you, yes. So Jackie.
Based upon this discussion, going back to item number six as a condition, how would you rewrite that
condition? Our council over here as well reminded me that rock crushing is typically or sometimes mobile,
so it may be challenging to add it to a plat, but the idea was to reword this to say,
Rock crushing is prohibited on the thirty two point one nine acre site and that all We could say all
possible locations for rock crushing be indicated on a future plat And then they could put it Or they
could mark the areas where they will not It might be easier. It might be easier either way. I Just think
it would be cleaner if we had a map
to go on because typically this is complaint driven, right? And so if we heard from a neighbor who said,
oh, it's rock crushing, it's like right at my back door, we could say, well, here's the map. We know
where it's permitted or where it's not. And so perhaps it could be written either in the prohibited
or only allowed in sense. So yes.
Yeah, I like this discussion. I think making sure wherever it's prohibited, we delineate that on the
plat when they go to the replatting. Maybe make sure it's pretty apparent hatching or something. We
don't want just the dotted line because if it's a neighbor wondering if they're kind of too close doing
the rock crushing, I would want them to be very aware of where that location is and not necessarily have the
the skill sets to read a survey like, oh, look at this big hashed area. They're definitely within that
area. My thoughts into Mr. Ferris's question, if you ask him to delineate the areas that are prohibited,
I think would go very well with that amendment or that condition. So much as we did on the previous
petition, anything that's marked satisfied, we,
we don't have to add as a condition. My question is relating to the karst features, and I don't really
understand what that looks like. What does it look like when the karst study is incorporated? What does
that mean? I'm trying to get a grasp of what it is. Is it a document? Is it a plan? Is it a procedure?
How do we know that it's been addressed?
Yes, so this is what we have from the minutes was that it was a memorandum back with the 2011 ordinance
and it essentially has the the outline of a typical Karst evaluation that we receive So I think that
there were maybe some recommendations on maybe some amendments to how they could
that they could. Work into their quarry operations. Some of these recommendations, but we can't tell
based on the aerials whether they've. Done some of these recommendations, so we were hoping that they
could speak to some of this. So that's why you're saying all we really need at this moment is just a
verbal acknowledgement. That there is a car study that it still
Yes. Does Stormwater monitor ongoing quarry operations throughout the life of the quarry or is that
something just on the front end? There are a lot of protections for quarry operations under the state
code that minimize our ability to regulate them.
We don't necessarily take them into our inspection inventory. We're not necessarily going out there
all the time. I will say some of the quarry sites that we will get complaints on are related to blasting,
and there are some that have, like there's one south of the county that was established only in 2005,
and that one
We do have some litigation or past case history where we can ask them for blasting reports and things
like that, so they have to keep track of that kind of information. My sense is there's just so much
sediment generated from crushing and cleaning and all of the things they do. You know, is that sediment
stream monitored so they're not pumping it into a sinkhole? You know, so that's my thought is how do
they incorporate this
and what do they do with that incorporation during the life of the operation? Questions, OK, yes. Really
good questions. Alright, anything else from the board? OK, let's see if the petitioner petitioners
representative is. Here to speak on this item may come up to the podium.
Welcome, please give us your name and we'll have you sign in as well.
Thank you for your time this afternoon and considering this request before you. My name is Kevin Buckheit
and I am a land use planner working for the law firm Creek Devault out of their Carmel, Indiana offices.
I am here today to represent the petitioner 8383SVR LLC. With me is David Edgeworth. He is a member
of that LLC and he's also the president of Big Creek Limestone. He'll be able to address some of the
operational questions that you raised. There are a number of
what I'll call housekeeping items that are happening on this property today. One is what you're addressing
in particular is the consolidation of the zoning to make sure there are no gaps internal over time.
And we're using a single new perimeter description to handle all that. We've talked about the vacation
of Track 1 from the earlier subdivision. We've talked about creating a new administrative subdivision
to incorporate this one big lot now.
That then will allow us to go back to the assessor and finish the work that I started in January to
consolidate the parcels. It was actually that discussion that they could not incorporate the track one
that led us to the planning department that helped discover that the zoning was amiss on this property
as well. So we're just trying to clean things up for going forward and let everybody know that what
is out there today is what's going to continue.
What happens through this rezone application isn't going to change any of that. It's just trying to
clean up the process. Staff report is awesome, thorough, very complete, and I commend them for that.
You have a great staff. We agree with their recommendations, and I'll come back to those individual
conditions of approval that they've pulled forward.
We understand that they did an urban area delineation. If we want to pursue activity in that area, we
understand that we have to come back for a variance. So just want to acknowledge that. Looking at the
conditions of approval, at the bottom of page 96 in your staff report, as has been mentioned, number
one has been satisfied.
We acknowledge that it exists. We acknowledge that it applies, and it is incorporated into the operations
of the site, and Mr. Edgeworth can answer any specific questions you may have about that. Access to
hydrochrome, we understand and accept that. It's just an oddity that it exists, and it doesn't make
sense to try to go in there and mine anything because you'd maybe get a foot wide to work with.
Um, driveway application has been satisfied for Steinsville Road. Um, quarrying activity shall not extend,
uh, down. It's number five. Um, I, and, and we talked about that. That should still apply. Um,
rock crushing, I think if you can figure out what needs to happen and delineating, I think perhaps prohibited
areas on the Platte might be the way to go. Um, we can certainly agree to that.
And then number seven has been satisfied as well. Once the discussion is done for today, we are respectfully
requesting a positive recommendation to the county commissioners for the rezone. And we respectfully
request, if you are satisfied after the discussion, a waiver of the second hearing.
Thank you so much. Why don't you stay here as well? Let's go ahead and hear from Mr. Edgeworth, and
then we'll come back for questions if you don't mind staying close. Sure. I'm David Edgeworth, a member
of 8383 SVR, the landowner. Point of clarification, if I could have that site map up. The one with the
circles on it? The one that it was in color that had yellow outlines. It was up just a second ago. I'm sorry.
Can you go back to the mic? I'm sorry. It's going to be really hard. Yeah. The northern tier of that
property, it's a rectangular box, long east-west. That is leased to Lincoln Park. They run the crushing
operations. It is a fixed facility and they have a lease and the land is limited to that period. So
we can work with your office however need to be to fix that in place and address the issue of any mobile
crushing, which will not occur. It will all be limited to the existing lease along that northern tier.
And again, we can provide any information we need to your office to get that taken care of. Also, it's
my understanding, just briefly on that ACOM report, the recommendation was just to protect several karst
features from runoff.
And they're identified in the report. And we're not active in that area right now. And I understand
that if we do become active in that area, we'll have to go back to that report, make sure we know exactly
what sites have been identified, and do the runoff and the protection to protect those. So we understand
that. Excellent. Excellent. All right. Good, good.
Okay, let's go ahead and see if there are any questions for either petitioner from my left. Questions
from my right. Mr. Henry, questions for the petitioner? Petitioner's representative? No questions,
thank you. I don't either. Everything, yeah, you're right. Staff is awesome and you all are great. Thank
you for your input and information today. Appreciate that, thank you.
I would recommend just before motion. I think that the conditions that are important to remain. I would
suggest it would be 235 and six on the screen with edits, right? Yeah, yeah, thank you. Let's let's
go ahead and see if there's any public comment on this item. Anybody who wishes to speak in favor of
this petition?
Please raise your hand on teams to be recognized. They come to the podium here in the net. You Hill
room or raise your hand on teams to be recognized. Being none. Is anyone wish to speak in opposition
to this petition? Please raise your hand on teams to be
Seeing none, any final comments from members of the board, or did you have anything else you wanted
to add? Okay, any final comments or questions from members of the board to my right? Mr. Henry, questions
or final comments? From my left, nothing, okay.
All right. Uh, we are ready for a motion. Mr Ferrer. Oh, yes. Just wanted to acknowledge that the conditions
outlined by staff numbers 2, 3, 5 and 6 are acceptable. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you for that.
Thank you for that clear. Please. With respect to case number Romeo Echo Zulu.
25-5 which is a reason request to change for mineral extraction and AGR agriculture to all mineral extraction
and also a final hearing as well we We the motion is to forward a positive recommendation for the reason
request subject to the conditions set forth in ordinance 2011 27
And for the same 22.89 acres of property on the south end of the petition site, specifically conditions
two, three, five, and six. Is that correct, Jackie? Yeah. Like I said before, and waiver of the final
hearing. May I offer a friendly moment? I do think condition six was a
change to delineate the areas that are prohibited. Would you accept that as a friendly? Absolutely accept
it as briefed by Jackie when she provided an explanation of what numbers six would entail. Second. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right.
And I will just note for the record that for item number two, we have received confirmation, um, from
the quarry owner operator about. The e com car study being, um, considered and incorporated, but I do
think it's good to leave that in, um, just for the future. Okay. All right. Um,
I'll call the roll. Please call the roll. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to send a positive
recommendation to the county commissioners based on RAZ-25-5, which is the 838SVR LLC rezone for mineral
extraction and agricultural residential 2.5 to mineral extraction.
And it also includes a waiver of final hearing and the following conditions, which I will read into
the record. And this will apply to the now 32.19 acre parcel of the property. So number two is incorporated
as a condition which says, incorporate the recommendations of the AECOM CAR study for the subject site
as part of the actual quarry operations plan.
Number three, access to Hedrick Road is restricted for all uses other than residential or agricultural
purposes. Quarry traffic shall use the internal roads of the American limestone property to the north
in addition to their right-of-way driveway access on Steinsville Road. Number five, quarry activity
shall not extend down into the 50-foot frontage slash access strip or flagpole of the subject site.
And number six,
Rock crushing is prohibited on the 32.19 acre site. The future plat should delineate the 32.19 acre
site as no rock crushing permitted per ordinance 2025- to be determined. A vote yes is a vote to approve
or send a favorable recommendation and waiver of final hearing. David Bush? Yes. John Enright-Randolph?
Yes. Scott Ferris? Yes. Rudy Fields? Yes. David Henry? Yes. Julie Thomas? Yes. Okay. Motion is carried
six to zero. Thank you for your time. Do we have an idea on what the council or the commissioner's meeting
date might be?
We will let you know they meet every week. So we'll just try to get you on accordingly. So we'll be
in touch. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you. Right. I just had a request to go ahead and note for
anybody who's joined us on teams or is here waiting for item number eight, the Bell Vista section three
subdivision.
that that item has been continued, um, to our November regular session meeting. So just a reminder for
anybody who's involved in that. All right. Um, so, um. Leave two more items on our new business
which are amendments to the county development ordinance specifically relating to the sliding scale
subdivision. This is a preliminary hearing and a waiver of final hearing is requested. If you would please.
Okay, so I'll go ahead and start by saying this is one of the CDO prioritized list items that we discussed
at the beginning of the hearing. So it was tabled during the CDO approval to be discussed by the full
plan commission as a separate item. So this is the separate item that has been reviewed by the ordinance
review committee discussed at length.
the ordinance review committee and has been introduced to the planned commission as an administrative
item. Um, we will go ahead and go through some of the changes that have been recommended. So the first
change is under chapter 8 31 in the beginning, and the suggestion was that we go ahead and put together
a visual of the different subdivision types. So we have table one dash 8 31, which is the different
subdivision classifications. But we get a lot of questions in the
of what's a minor versus a sliding scale versus a major. So we have examples with some context now added.
So the first one is an example of a minor subdivision, four lots or less, each with at least 10 acres.
And these are connected by a private sewage disposal system, or IE, a septic system, each lot.
Okay, and then this is a minor subdivision in a more urban area. It does have access to a public sewage
disposal system, i.e. sewer, so they were able to meet the minimum lot size requirements for the zone.
The top of the screen is an example of a sliding scale.
Three of the lots are exactly two and a half acres in size and then you have the large what we call
parent parcel That's at least 55% of the total. These are also on a septic system But it's allowed to
be subdivided into three smaller lots with one larger lot being reserved for a 25 year period which
we will discuss below and then lastly we have an example aerial of a major subdivision of
five lots or more. These are all connected by sewer. So under Chapter 831, Section 4, we did have two
additions to the purpose statement after deliberation by the ordinance review committee about the
of the sliding scale subdivision. So I'll just go ahead and read those. So number seven was added to
state allow the flexibility to create smaller residential lots served by private sewage disposal systems, i.e.
septics, while also preserving a majority of the original tract for agriculture or conservation purposes.
And then number eight was amended to add, it says permit development in rural areas that will not overburden
existing infrastructure and services
And to not adversely impact existing low traffic roadways police and fire coverage emergency service
response times and other governmental services So one of the discussions that we had is that a sliding
scale subdivision in a rural area They're not required to put in the infrastructure that may be associated
with a more
Dense development such as a major subdivision. So that's the limitation of the four lots and also Also
discussion of reserving that parcel the parent parcel to not create a further dense area in a rural
area so then the the last change that was recommended to us was under the current text in the county
development ordinance it states that
under the discussion point, letter B, it says the black text is existing and not changing, but the red
is new. So the designated parent parcel remainder shall not be further subdivided for a period of 25
years from the date of recording of the secondary plat unless connected to a sanitary sewage system
or further subdivision of the properties authorized by ordinance. This restriction shall be noted on
the secondary plat.
The county commissioners legislatively find and conclude that the 25 year restriction is reasonably
necessary to accomplish the purpose of the sliding scale option. And as a matter of legislative policy,
see ordinance 2015-02, which is the ordinance that created the sliding scale subdivision. It represents
a reasonable trade off for the opportunity to create smaller lot sizes than otherwise allowed under
the minor subdivision.
So that's all I have for that text amendment. And then I will let you discuss this one separate from
the second text amendment. Thank you so much. Any comments or questions for staff from my right? I'll
have a comment. I'll wait until we go through the public. Mr. Henry, any comments or questions?
or comments for staff? The same as Mr. And I'll follow with hold until public comment is over.
Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any questions or comments for staff from my left? I don't have any either,
but I will point out that this is really a minor thing, but on point number six, which is on page 137
in our packet,
The words should appear provide the opportunity. I don't know if that's something we could do without
even Worrying about it's really not part of this, but anyway, just bothers me Okay So Let's go ahead
and hear from the public if anybody wishes to
speak on this amendment which is Presented here you may come up to the podium here and offer your input
Good evening. Ms. Pearl Good evening All right Thank you so much. My name is Jen Pearl and I'm from
the BEDC and
I'm also a member of the CDO coalition that presented the white paper last fall. I wanted to start by
thanking the plan commission and staff for pursuing this item following public feedback. We know that
the team has spent many hours looking into this issue. We've sat with you in the room for many of those hours.
We are concerned about this item for a couple of reasons. Our community is facing some parallel challenges.
Number one is an aging population with the need to attract and retain working age families. Number two,
Monroe County offers 78 percent the national average of private sector wages, but we are 99 percent
the national average of cost of living. And third,
Following SEA 1, there's a strong need to raise revenue for local government through business AV and
local income tax. The BEDC and our partners are working to attract and grow jobs to increase wages,
but housing and cost of living is a critical other side of the coin. Prospective employers often ask
us about available talent and where they live. These are critical elements that allow their operations
to thrive.
In an expensive market, sliding scale subdivisions are just one important tool in the toolbox for creating
that place for families and their children to grow and build wealth. We agree with many of the comments
from the August 11th ORC meeting, including this is a very technical issue and it's complex and hard
to follow.
25 years has a very big impact on families and Infrastructure is an important question around development
and soar is always best But if city soar is not available as we've seen there are other options through
package plants or regional sewer districts So we come with a request for two things number one is
that the 25-year reservation be reduced or even better eliminated, similar to the 2015 version. This
impacts families and generational wealth. This change won't alone solve cost of living or housing challenges,
but it's one tool in the toolbox for growing a thriving workforce that enables us to attract and grow
quality jobs. Number two.
Please do anything you can to simplify and communicate the sliding scale requirements to residents and
let them know this conversation is happening, especially given the interest last year. We still nearly
missed this item this week buried in the agenda, and we make it our job to follow the public calendars.
This is an important issue that many people are interested in. Anything that can be done to clarify
the language and communicate what is happening is critical. Also shout out to planning staff. You guys
are saints in
I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I'm just going to give you an explanation explaining this.
So thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you. Does anyone else have public comment to offer
on this item? Good evening, Madam President. This is Christopher M G from the Greater Bloomington Chamber
of Commerce. I want to echo. Our
working group that put together that CDO paper. We want to just confirm her comments and then go to
really the 25-year moratorium piece of this and where it kind of comes into our advocacy as something
that doesn't appear as reasonable as I think it maybe it should be. It's just a rational planner and
we'd like to think of ourselves the chamber's rational individuals. 25 years is more than a generation.
It's longer than most residents' mortgages, longer than mine, business leases, economic development
cycles. No private business agencies, the planning department even, goes on a 25-year-old,
25-year assumption. Things change in that time. The environment, infrastructure, all things. Just think
about 25 years ago we didn't have cell phones. This rule kind of locks property and investment for a
quarter of a century, prevents some adaptive
land use, a key ingredient for both responsible growth and economic resilience, which I think we all
in this room support. If you go back to the 2014 Plan Commission discussion that we heard from
the administrative meeting back on June 3rd, that 25-year number was sort of bantied about, and it was
deemed, I quote, anecdotal and really unsupported by data, with members admitting it lacked sort of
evidence of validity.
And this is where Monroe County kind of stands alone here on the restrictive use. I think Tippecanoe
County has 10 years. None of the, I think, Donut counties have this. So it kind of puts us in a competitive
disadvantage. When we're attracting new agriculture enterprise, rural investment, small-scale development,
we need all the advantages we can get. It doesn't seem like a big thing, and I don't think this is going
to change the course of housing or anything like that, as Ms. Pearl alluded to.
But we have to sort of balance this sort of growth and preservation, and this doesn't quite do that.
A more transparent evidence-based approach would be maybe a 10-year review period tied to measurable
infrastructure benchmarks or something. Something that seems a little bit, I don't know, maybe
one generation, 15 years, 10 years. So I think it's unrealistic to expect landowners, investors, and future
boards to operate under a moratorium that will outlast the policy cycles. Look at the driveway that
they didn't even realize that they had paved it and it was against the PUD. These sort of things in
long periods tend to happen when you have things that are that long in scope. So I encourage you to
not take on this 25 years and to have amendment maybe changing that something much lower. And I thank
you for your time tonight. I do appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Emgy. Appreciate that.
Does anybody on teams have any comments? You can raise your hand to be recognized, or if there's anyone
here in the NET-U Hill Room who wishes to speak, who has not spoken yet on this item, you may come up
to the podium. Okay, seeing none, we'll go ahead and,
public comment and we'll go ahead and hear from members of the Planning Commission on any final comments
or statements or suggestions, et cetera, that they may have. We'll go ahead and start online with Councilor,
County Councilor David Henry. I'll pass and wait for other comment by those in the room, thanks.
Okay, this would be this would be the last comment period before a motion. I appreciate that. I'm literally
parking, so go ahead and talk in the room and I'll be there in a minute. Okay. So he's asking to be
you want to be recognized Asian after I'm asking to pass my turn and so others speak and if I can get
please withhold until the end. I'll hold till the end.
Okay, so we'll come back to you. I'll come back to you. Okay, I'm sorry, the sound is a little distorted
in here, so that's why I didn't understand what you're asking. Anyone from my right wish to comment?
Surveyor and Ray Randolph. Yes, thanks. I've said a lot on this topic. Some of what I'm gonna say, and
I'm sorry that it's gonna be
repetitive for my colleagues up here, but I think it's really important for the public. As elected county
surveyor, I'm the only one that's directly elected
to serve on the planning commission. We do have other elected officials, but they are representative
of their bodies, one from the county commissioner and one from the county council. So it's very important
for the public to understand my position on this because this was a pretty large discussion. I am on
the ordinance review committee, but I was not there when the vote was had to move this discussion forward.
I'm very, very concerned that if we go ahead and, you know, decide to approve this, which is a very
interesting position to be in because this does bring some information and clarity to what the sliding
scale is and what that tradeoff is, moratorium reservation, I understand that.
But I also think this will remove it from the prioritization list. And I think the main discussion there
was the reservation or moratorium, more commonly referred to prior to one of our ORC meetings. So I
do not think we really had the discussion, in my opinion, of should we reduce that 25 years. And I did
mention at the admin meeting, and if anyone wants to
watch that meeting, you'll get your typical Tron in right Randolph, you know, speaking as I normally
do, very blunt, straightforward and putting my cards on the table. I'm gonna be a little more concise
with this because again, I've spoke a lot about it. We need to ensure that we are making good decisions
choices for the entire county, and there's a lot of things that have bottlenecked our ordinance. Getting
sewer provided to us is one of them. I feel like, in my opinion, we're getting ahead of ourselves, the
cart in front of the horse, but that could just be my opinion. A lot of people will say, no, we're focused
on this, but if we're focused on this, we should then address it fully, and I think we need to address the
moratorium. We don't know what's going to happen, and the fact that everything in our ordinance is contingent
to septic or sewer, and if you have to go the septic route, you have to have a minimum of 10 acres.
We saw some examples, which I appreciate, that can show you what type of lot sizes you can have if you
can have sewer, but we don't know when that's going to happen.
If we were addressing things in an order where like we were providing another option, then I think I
could go ahead and leave the sliding scale as is because we have other tools. But right now, if this
is the way that we're going to move forward, I feel like we're, you know, not really adequately addressing
what the sliding scale tool is.
for folks and I would really, you know, it'd be hard for me, but probably support a reduction in the
moratorium to something like 10 or 15 years versus 25. I don't foresee when we're going to get,
you know, the opportunity to have sewer extended into some of these areas that have appropriate infrastructure.
to sustain density. But that's kind of the way I feel about it, the same type of analysis I do from
a GIS perspective of looking at infrastructure, looking at kind of roads that have been built out, looking
at large sized lots that weren't hooked up. So now they're just limited to a sliding scale or 10 lot minimums.
Um, and if you have 50 acres and you don't want to do the sliding scale, you can only create five lots
and that's bothered that bothers me. So, um, thank you. And I won't be supporting this. There is a lot
of emotion on this topic.
It has been discussed for decades. Within this body, speaking for myself, I've got over a year and many,
many hours of talking about this and gnashing of teeth and trying to truly understand what the heck
we're talking about with respect to subdivisions. We talked about the 25 years in detail in the ordinance review
committee, we did talk about it. There were four of us and three of us support the changes that you
see in front of you as part of this amendment. What I personally was concerned about is an explanation
about the major, the minor, and also the sliding scale, because it was clear to me after going through
the public hearings that there was a tremendous amount of confusion on what was and what is.
come to find out that after the meeting was over, the Planning Department met with any number of people
and explained to them the differences between the subdivisions and, in fact, what was doable.
In some cases, and actually most cases, they found an alternative, something other than the sliding
scale. So as our discussions continued over time, that what you see now
on the front end on the subdivisions is an explanation of those subdivisions and also more importantly
we wanted to have the overheads and examples of those type of subdivisions pictorially so people could
take and see them and apply them on it might apply to their petition on whatever they're wanting to do.
By adding an explanation and also the overheads, as you see as part of this amendment, I think the staff
has done an outstanding job of laying out the differences. And most importantly, in something that was
said in the very beginning and has been said over and over and over again, if you have a question, contact
the plan department and talk to them about it.
And they will walk you through what you can and cannot do. And in most cases, you're going to find that
you're going to be able to do what you want to do. You just didn't necessarily have a very good understanding
of what the ordinance said. Adding the paragraphs in there on the front end hopefully allows for an
explanation to at least answer some of the preliminary questions coming from the petitioners. So I support
this amendment. Thank you.
All right, thank you so much. To my left, do either of you have comments to make? Please, Mr. Fields,
we'll start with you. I am pretty new to the Planning Commission. I did not sit through any
of the discussions about the ordinance review and all that when it happened, and it baffles me. I do
not understand it, and so I can't vote for or against because I just don't understand the driver for
it. The driver for?
25 years. Okay, got it. Thank you Mr. Bush. Yes I'd like to compliment staff on what the changes they
made. I also love to see the pictorial presentations which takes what could be a very confusing
and makes it a lot more easy to understand. The only place where I am stuck on this, once again, is
the 25 years. I don't know where that number came from. I personally think it's long. I don't know that
I have a better recommendation, maybe 15 years.
And I get why you don't want it to be too short, because then that tempts people to buy the property,
sit on it, and try to make a lot of changes and maybe prematurely alter the county's flavor. But I do
think 25 years is too long. Thank you. Thank you so much. Council Member Henry. Thank you.
Commissioner and thank you for the grace there to find parking on a Thursday in Bloomington from Indianapolis
getting in here. So I want to thank the public for comments on this particular amendment and I want
to echo some of the sentiments of my colleagues up here in terms of the origin of the 25 years. We had
a discussion in the administrative meeting that I still think has not really been fully addressed in
the document about the
The origin story of that that rule and the only reference we have is the meeting minutes from the June
meeting that was referenced in public comment where a four four vote of this body in 2014 a split vote
Failed to amend it the last time so it did not pass without controversy 11 years ago about half of 25
years if we think about it pretty close to that so
As I said in the administrative meeting, the argument is circular because it is self-referencing back
to previous decisions of the commission. And the evidence of the 25-year rule is going back to site
itself. And so it doesn't have a basis in law. In those transcripts, then Richard Martin, I think, made
the comment about it not having an analog or being data-driven. Mr. Schilling was there and, of course,
has also reiterated in the administrative meeting this month that it's a policy preference. It's not
found in code.
as a rule. And so I think the other comments, where we would have to point to where else in code or
practice 25 years equals a generation, is hard to do. We wouldn't have a TIFF that's 25 years, for example.
I think there's some other references that have been made to other instruments of time that we'd have
there. And even demographers would say that the boomer generation, Gen X, millennials, are 15 to 17
year generations. So I think on this, if we can
do two things still one is you know when we say in that particular space we're pointing back to policy
or decisions of the commission if it is circular and we're pointing back to just previous discussions
instead of a ordinance that is sanctified Monroe County that we when we say generations it's 25 years
here is something that we need to think about otherwise I would
I would like to. Open maybe an amendment to this this evening. Is a as a way to fix up or address the
25 years as a generation rule. So I would offer today amendment to this if we can do that meeting today
to move that we amend section 8 60 dash 10 dash B dash three to read 15 years instead of 25 in that
for clarification purposes. Is that the only amendment that you are offering on this section?
On that section, at this time, unless there's a friendly amendment to clarify or extend other references
to the 25-year rule, I would entertain that. I would ask maybe if you were willing, I hate to do this
for being the second, but there was an area where we could add the, would you go to that area?
right there on the six would be the. But willing to I would entertain that sure I accepted friendly.
My second stands. We have a motion. To amend this portion of the CDO regarding the sliding scale subdivision.
We haven't actually even put this on the table yet. So I know that's okay. I can wait. I'm sorry, it
was a point of order. Did we not introduce this item into? We haven't. We haven't. Well, that may have,
I'm happy to wait, but I. So I would ask that you go ahead and make a motion to approve and then
with that amendment as well, if you would please. That's my apologies. I thought we already introduced
a motion. So I'll make a motion to proceed with approval of the adoption of this adjustment to the CDO
as presented with the amendment that I've offered. I'll still second. Okay, thank you. So at least we
have something on the table to talk through. Thank you. Does anyone have
Any comments on this motion? Or the amendment with the amendment amended language? Did you have anything?
Okay, I have my case already. I have not spoken yet, so I'd like to please. And that is to say that
I do appreciate the interest in this. This ordinance was created to protect
farmland and if we're not Getting food from farms. I don't know where y'all think it comes from but
But really it's about the rural parts of the county and these rural parts of the county can't handle
extensive high density development as much as people may look at
large lots of land, for example, things we've looked at today, and kind of think, wow, I could put 100
homes there. Well, you could, but they'd be 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. And then that creates
road issues, and it creates septic issues, and it creates, well, of course, we'd have to be on sewer.
It creates other issues as well. And that is difficult.
And so for those who don't want to create a minor or major subdivision, which you're always welcome
to propose, any property owners is invited to do so and make that proposal, that can be done. But if
you are a person who wants to conserve land, perhaps it's not buildable.
You want to conserve land that perhaps is in your farming family. And you still want to maintain that
conservation or that farm, but yet you have. You would wish to sell off a small piece to help fund retirement
or you wish to sell off a couple of small pieces. Just for homes for relatives, for example.
then you can do that without going through a minor. And unless you're seeking a sidewalk, road waiver,
other thing, you can actually do that without coming before us, right? And so that's the benefit, right?
Is if you don't wanna have to come to the Planning Commission to rezone your property and then
the commissioners, because we're such evil commissioners, you can avoid doing that and just work with
the planning department, our magnificent planning staff. And unless you're seeking certain waivers,
it doesn't even come across our desk. So that's why it was created. Now, one of the suggestions is,
well, just get rid of the 25 year. Well, then this becomes a different kind of subdivision.
And if and if folks don't want to have this, then what will happen is almost immediately has been pointed
out. It'll get chewed up and land just becomes housing prospectors dreams. What this piece does do is with the
images and the graphics is it does present to the public what these options are and how they differ
from one another and Where you need septic where you need sewer how it all works together What it looks
like on a map or in an overhead on a GIS? And that is brilliant, and I hope no matter what that you
don't get rid of that and
So I would hope that we're going to vote for clarity and for our residents. So worst case scenario,
if we don't vote for clarity with our residents, I would ask that the staff at least use utilizes these
images at the front desk where residents may come in with questions.
Now, I do understand that if sewer became magically available and widely available and things changed,
I think we would be looking at a lot of the parts of the CDO or considering other options. So I don't
think that
that doing it now will bring sewer. So I do get it that sewer changes things, but it doesn't change
intersections and roads and other infrastructure that's needed. It's one infrastructure piece that's
vital, but it's not the only one. And so then the question becomes, do we have the road width? Do we
have the intersections? Do we have the ability to
insert a large population away from the city center. Ah, who pays for it? That's always a good question.
And how many deputies will that take? And how do we pay for fire? And is there a nearby fire station?
And all of the other hundreds of questions that we ask petitioners to consider when they bring in a
petition. Do you have hookup? Do you have access to this utility, that utility, and the other? Do we
have water? Do you have electricity?
that. We ask every petitioner to do that, so I'm not sure why we wouldn't do that. So um, so that is
what I wanted to say. I think if, um, folks. Want to open this up yet again or keep talking about it
in perpetuity. We could do so. Um I would much rather we give this arrest for a few
I don't want this to be on our agenda. Um nonstop because staff has already got enough to do and I don't.
And I don't know that this is, um. The right way to approach this, but that's what I wanted to say,
and I appreciate
Um, all right. So, um, any other, um, I just have a point of order. Okay. And it's really, I don't know
what it is. It's a comment. It's a statement. It's a question. We have a motion and a second on the
table and we're having our comments before we vote. That's correct. Yeah. If, if for some reason this
is voted down, what happens to this topic?
Is it completely removed from the list? Well, this is a, this will be a recommendation to the board
of commissioners. So tonight if we let's assume, let's assume that we have a, have a, uh, a fail, a
failed motion. The recommendation would go forward with a failed motion, correct? We would need a majority,
either no recommendation, a recommendation for negative or recommendation for positive. So it's still
up to that point for the county commissioners to make a decision.
what we see in front of us. I mean, I understand it. I just want you to say it. If we don't get majority
by rule, it defaults and it proceeds to our next scheduled meeting. We had that occur during the CDO
process where we weren't able to get a majority either way. Am I correct, Mr. Schelling? Yeah, I mean,
if you get a positive recommendation and negative recommendation or no recommendation tonight, that
takes it off your plate.
Period. It's in the commissioner's court at that point. So, yeah. But that needs a majority vote. We
need a majority to say. To say one of those three options. Right. If we don't have a majority vote because
there are only six of us here, then what happens? I think was the question.
Well, typically someone will make a motion to send it forward with no recommendation or you'll continue
it to the next hearing where there might be Other members present. Okay. Thank you and just to be clear
the Motion that included an amendment Is part is can be considered right? Yes. Thank you. I just want
to make sure that that's true. Okay
We'll go back to Mr. Henry. Thank you. I'll keep it brief and I appreciate your comments, Commissioner.
I would agree with much of what you said. I don't think what you offer in terms of what this amendment
does or what the motion does really
It has anything to do with the 25 year rule, whether it's 15 years or 25 years, we still have the instruments
inside the CDO to review the use the sliding scale the divisions and so really the amendment itself
is only addressing in what time span that those conversations happen, whether it's a real generation or the.
25-year concept of a generation. So I don't necessarily disagree with most of what you presented there.
I will say, and I think it has been brought up a few times around this topic, I am the current county
councilor sitting here. And things have changed in our county where when we think about how we generate
revenue, the state of Indiana has shifted its tax policy from property owners to wage earners in our
county, which means we're going to be drawing more and more from income tax to fuel our government.
And when we do not have opportunities to develop and attract those
taxpayers that are wage earners to live in this county. If they work in our county and they reside in
other counties as we all know that income tax goes home with them. And so the culture has changed a
little bit since 2014 when this was discussed last and certainly the 1970s the last time our tax code
has been so changed dramatically that I would I hear the comments about infrastructure development.
I understand the scenarios that have been presented in the room but those aren't the only scenarios
and there may be good planning I
we do for cost benefit analysis to figure out the breakpoints of what would be a reasonable development
that could occur on a property where we could afford the extra deputy or the fire service. But that's
the work of plan commissions. That's what they do, right? And that's what planners do. So I think to
have all that in our minds as we're trying to say, well, do we try to protect all that right here in
a vote, or do we actually do the work as things are presented to us within 15-year increments is totally
fine. We're going to have to reimagine
the way we do protect our spaces and we do build in a way that is meeting that triple bottom line for
our community that protects people and the planet and shared prosperity in our community. So I don't
disagree with much of what you said. I think the issue just floats around what is this idea of 25 years.
And I think there's a reasonable adaptation as we move forward in this. I also want to say too, for
the record too, which is really important, I understand
Fair has presented the procedural piece of this which is we'll vote and that goes to the board and the
board will make their decision. Is that I think it's just that I mean we understand we understand that
procedural space but bear in mind we have a CDO list of amendments that has been sitting
and we've been working through since December. It is now October. And we're working maybe at the speed
of government here, which maybe frustrates the speed of commerce about how quickly we're resolving some
of these issues in the CDO so partners know what the playbook is to do the work in the community. So
I feel that, you know, we probably need to get the rest of that list handled in short order as a promise
to the public. I'd hate to be here in December with languishing amendments that took a year to get to
when some of these decisions
really need to be brought front and center, but I appreciate the work of the ERC and revisiting this,
and I'll just rest my comments there. Thank you. Great, Randolph? Yeah, I'll be pretty quick. I'm torn.
Like, the comments you made, Commissioner Thomas, are very applicable, and also the comments that the
rest of my colleagues have made. That's why I've never even
suggested getting away from having that type of reservation. I think 15 years gives us appropriate time
to plan. These documents are fluent. If somehow the city starts extending sewer, then we can petition
the plan commission to bring forward an amendment and we can go back to the 25 years. I think that tool
was very helpful for all of the reasons you expressed, but we're in a new
time where it's not business as normal. Also, I think one other thing I wanted to make a comment is
the people that want to carve off those lots, they still have the opportunity. What we're discussing
is the reservation and moratorium. The people that want to preserve that land and be good stewards,
they still can. That doesn't change anything. What the time
difference in my opinion does is people that might want to then maybe carve out another lot. And I think
if they go through 15 years and we see some issues with this, we can readdress it. We could put a longer
timeline. I guess that's what I really want to get across with my comment here is like these aren't
static ordinances. They're fluent. We should be addressing updates to our CDO every five years. We start
in 2016 slash 17. It's about the end of 2025. It took us this long just to get to this point to have
this discussion. And I feel like the 15 years is a medium.
And if we need to address that in 10 years from now, that still gives us five years on the people that
would choose that approach. Some of the people that had already chose to do it might just be getting
out of the moratorium and reservation and be able to then maybe go in subdivide again. But I'm not going
to get in a position where I'm hyperly concerned about someone
going through a sliding scale every 15 years to subdivide a large lot because you still need the minimum
lots. So if you wanted the three, that's 7.5 and you still need 55% in the parent parcel every time.
So eventually that becomes limited itself. And I really think that like it's the best thing we could
do right now
unless we went through a different sequence of discussions to address the hardship that some of the
property owners in this county are dealing with, and that would have been maybe creating another subdivision
process. But I'm not gonna go down there. I already said I'm gonna try to stay very on topic and refrain
from some of what could allow me just to not
be too concerned about 25-year, but we don't have other tools in our toolbox, and I am not willing to
pass anything until we address this. I won't support anything unless the timeline is reduced, because
this needs to stay on our prioritization list, where it was put. In my opinion, we haven't really addressed
it fully, and we have
quite a bit of few new Plan Commission members, and I think allowing them time to really grasp the gravity
of this is very important, because I don't know if everyone's under the same assumption as if we move
this forward. It's off our prioritization list. It's off. So who knows when it comes back? So this is
our opportunity to address it.
We're not the final decision makers. I understand that part, but I do think the 15 years is a is a balance.
And if I do think that we can address this moving forward when, you know, things go back to normal,
which is probably a term I shouldn't use because I don't know if that will ever happen. I said this
in previous meetings, I apologize.
I was a planner for 40 years. I've dealt with all types of plans. The argument I'm hearing or the discussion
that I'm hearing is, why 25? And how do we get 25 years? Because it's generational. I now hear an argument
about 15 years. Why 15 years? And if I go back to what
David says down here about how do I argue the point with anybody who's asking me the question, why 15
years versus 25 years? I don't have something, I don't have legislation, I don't have statutory requirements,
I don't have anything. It's based upon the judgment of this body and previously to the judgment of a
former planned commission, going back what, 10 years ago? And even though that vote was, I believe it was 4-4,
what everybody's hung their hat on for all of this time, 25 years. It's in the ordinance right now.
That's what the ordinance says today. So why 15 years? I mean, I heard what the chamber said, noted,
and I heard what the BED said, noted. But why 15 years? And so why do I want to change it? I mean, you
had a sovereign body, a planned commission,
based upon judgment at the time, making an informed decision based upon the argument that was put in
front of them. And that's what they came up with. We, this body, or not necessarily the new folks, because
they weren't part of the discussion before we formalized this ordinance, we spent an enormous amount
of time talking about this. And as you can see, there's still not a common understanding. We do not
have a common ground here yet on 15 versus 10 versus
25 versus anything or doing away with completely like BEDC suggests. I would love. Let me let me finish.
And then you can I mean just I mean we've been talking about this for a long time. There are really
very few instances with petitions that in fact this will even apply to. As we've discussed in our meetings
it's really a handful
And again, in most of those cases, they've been resolved by doing something other than a sliding scale.
We're talking to Wednesdays and Tuesdays, and we're spending an enormous amount of time on something
that was agreed to years ago. So I go back to Y15 versus 25. And I can't answer that question. But I
have to rely upon the judgment of our predecessors and the discussions they had
If you want to make it a different time frame, give me the argument other than, well, it makes sense
because of. And I understand what you said. But there's other folks who think differently. And so we
really don't have a consensus. And what's going to probably happen here is that because we continue
to have this discussion, none of this is going to take and change. And we're going to go back to what
the ordinance originally said that we approved.
back in December of last year. So why 15 versus 25? Mr. Thomas, I have a motion, if you'd entertain
it. I was just wanting to address kind of the, I thought I, I don't want to hijack the meeting either.
So I am happy to make a motion, but I refer back to the chair for who speaks next, but yeah.
If you will, he was kind of, he wasn't saying names, but alluding. My reason is,
the difficulty we're having with the extending of sewer and a lot of our focus with building out this
ordinance, that was not an issue. It is an issue. That's my why. And if we were able to kind of build
the ordinance out with the same expectations of how we were developing the county as we started the
ordinance, as our predecessors developed this ordinance, I have already said, I don't think this would
be that big of an issue.
The fact that we don't know that, I feel like the 15 years creates a better balance. Now, as far as
why 15 and 25, yes, but the reason why, the reason I'm making is due to the fact that the sewer's not
being extended, all of our ordinances contingent to septic or sewer, and they allow different types
of lot sizes and developments in infrastructure, and I just think
Right now we could find a middle ground at that 15 years. And then if that becomes a bigger issue, we
can readdress it, move it back. If we are able to, you know, get the ability to have sewer again, then
we can maybe move that back. Because I do think the intention is pure and I'm in support of that. That's
why I've never said let's do away with it. So I just really wanted to make that clear.
just based off of your comment, so. David, can you say one thing? Sure. Can I say one thing? Please,
and then I need to go to my left. Okay. I'm sorry. That's okay. The whole issue of annexation. I'm just
telling you, the whole issue of annexation for a lot of us who have been involved in that, and the whole
issue of whether or not it's actually going to happen, and whether or not sewer is actually going to
be extended outside the city limits, to me is a non-issue.
at this point in time. Let me finish. Because it is at this point in time. And what may or may not happen
in the future can be addressed in the future. But that's not what we're talking about today.
That's all. All right. I'm going to go to my left again and see if anyone has any follow-up. Don't look
to your left, Mr. Fields. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
I struggle with understanding the driver. I heard your point. Got it. I hear their points. I just, I
really have a hard time understanding it. I just, you know, I mean, the annexation thing, I don't understand
that very much either. But does the 25-year thing, does that, you know, tell the city of Bloomington,
ah, you don't have to worry about it. Does, you know, would more development give them more encouragement to move?
some infrastructure? I don't know. I don't know. It's a really big, hairy problem. I don't get it. Did
you have anything else you wanted to add? Reluctantly, I don't know the number either. I'm hearing two
compelling arguments, both of them valid
I suspect that's what happened the last time this was batted about in 2014 or whatever. I don't see
the link between a
Let's say someone who is a large landowner selling off a portion of their property to automatically
charge again and putting in an infrastructure, because we know that the cost of the infrastructure is
exorbitant, even if all participants are willing to expand that infrastructure, which it appears not
to be the case in today's climate.
I'm thinking from a personal point of view If I were to want to sell part of my property, I would like
to have that option Which I do obviously and and subdivide a portion of it But as as was pointed out
by one of the other members there's there's already limits in there as to what could be to subdivide
how much can be subdivided and how many times a
in a 25-year span or a 15-year span, that can be replicated. So I think it is self-limiting to a degree.
I'm still struggling with the number. Other than that, I think everything that's here, that's been presented,
I support.
I'm just going to say that I think a good question is, if you say why 25, then the question why 15 comes
up. I do think that if sewer services became available, we would be looking at the CDO anyway. So I'm
not sure I would say, well, let's just prepare the way so that when sewer is available, it's, you know,
so I would, because we don't know where
And it may be a zone or a region. So it's not gonna be everywhere, certainly. So I think I would wanna
wait and see where that is. I'm not, to this day, heard any complaints from anybody, any property owner
who has utilized the sliding scale and said, but I wanted to do this and I couldn't, and I wanted to
do this later and I couldn't. I've never had anyone say that.
And that's interesting, because I'm sure I would have heard it. And I have not heard that yet. So that
also makes me feel like this is a problem that actually doesn't exist, that we're uncomfortable with
a number that I agree we should consider, readdress when infrastructure changes.
one of the and I and I do want to say this I've said it before and I'm so sorry for those who hearing
it again that one of the reasons we went with this number back then is because this is about how often
road infrastructure transportation plans are made and that's why because John Irvin used to talk about
road sheds like you would talk about watersheds you would talk about road sheds and it was
How much road do you have and how many people can live on that road? And it was an interesting way to
think about road sheds versus watersheds and other sheds. But anyway, that's also part of this mechanism
here. And I just wanted to make sure y'all knew that. So I don't know if you wanted Mr. Henry to-
Okay. Yeah. So it's changed since this discussion, but I will now actually, because in honor of Colonel
Farris's analysis that we don't want to be arbitrary and create another circular self-referencing date.
And I hear the comments that were made. I've of course reviewed those transcripts as well.
So it's interesting how I think all of us might be selecting what
in the transcript we want to pull out in terms of evidence or not evidence, I don't want to create another
circular self-referencing random generational date here. So I'm going to motion to table this back to
the ORC and direct staff to conduct an analysis that is not time-based, but maybe capability-based or
use-based instead of time-based and come back with recommendations on how to address this part of the CDO.
So it's motion to table and to address staff to investigate another way to do this other than a time-based
approach unless they can find a definition of generational that we can cite. I'd be happy to go ahead
and second that too because I'm not going to support anything that we see today, which makes me feel
like if we don't get a majority, it'll just come right back to us next month. This kind of goes in with
Some of your comments of giving it a little space to breathe. So it would go back to a smaller group
and then back to the plan commission administrative with a new proposal and then back here because we
can keep picking at years until we settle on one. But I think we need some data to back up our choices
here. So back to the RC to figure it out.
And we have a motion in a second. Did you want to add anything or ask any questions? Please some clarity
there. Yeah You're afraid of that Okay, so what it does is it would take it off of oh this goes to the point
the county commissioners next. We don't change anything at all with this vote. Everything stays as it
is while we go back to the drawing board, as it were, in the ORC. And I just want to make sure we're
all on the same page here. We all understand. Okay. Any other comments? Anything? Okay. Great. Great.
Can we call a vote? Can we have a vote? Please. Just so we're clear, please restate what we're voting on.
Motion to table this item back to the ORC and the direct staff to review capabilities or other basis
for the rule and to identify what a generation is for the purposes of this ordinance. Okay. Could we
do the December 8th ORC? Is that reasonable? Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. All right. It's been moved
and seconded to
Continue this item to the ordinance review committee meeting date of December 8th a vote. Yes is about
to continue John Enright Randolph Yes Ferris Rudy Fields, yes David Henry Julie Thomas I'm gonna be
a no because I feel like we already did this but I'm gonna say no David Bush. Yes
Okay, motion fails four to two. I'm sorry, motion passed four to two. I'm sorry, I'm gonna go ahead
and change my vote and say yes. Just for the sake of moving on. I appreciate it, thank you. And for
the sake of moving on. We have one more item. We'll just make it six zero.
Thank you all for being here. All right, so thank you. Um, do we need a quick break? Yeah.
that's okay with everyone. And we will come back at 8 10. Look at that. It's eight o'clock. It's almost
time to ring the bells. It's we'll come back at 8 10 for our last agenda item, which looks like a doozy,
but it really isn't. It's not all right. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to going
And we are now on item seven, ZOA 25-6.
So this is a different amendment to the county development ordinance. This is more of the result of
staff edits as well as Some of the house bills that have come down as particularly the one that's in
relation to stormwater house bill 1037 So we are going to go through a series of amendments and I'm
going to do so quite quickly they are mostly just
Corrections and things like that. But if there's anything you want to discuss more fully I'll pause
and I can do that So on page 151 of the packet we are keeping this table updated with each amendment
It's going to have a summary or revision history So that anyone that goes through the ordinance can
see what changes have been made since its original adoption
I'll go ahead and take out for now the upper red text, which is regarding the sliding scale. But leaving
the last column that you see in red here, this is a good summary of just what we're doing today. So
we're changing some language. The language design standard does not show up in the Indiana code. It's
only referred to as development standard. This is a requirement to just meet what the state code reference
is instead of having our own version of that.
And then we also have some changes and corrections to logging comma urban area and artificial lake or
pond. This is as a result of the stormwater changes. Changes to fueling station parking minimums, removing
the requirement for sidewalks if located near a moderate priority Green Lake corridor. That's something
I want to talk about a little bit more in depth. And then we're also going to be seeing changes regarding
reference to soil and water conservation versus
resources, natural resource conservation, and then some clarifying language throughout. So I'm going
to go ahead and get started and go through these. So I won't go through each change from design standard
to development standard. It's sprinkled throughout the ordinance. So I will go ahead and start at just
a note. So since the
Since the CDO is linked, whenever we do a word to PDF, it keeps showing up that there are changes that
are not. So if you actually look at the strike through on some of the text, it's not actually a change.
I just want to point that out because I can't seem to get rid of that. But this is not a change, but
it looks like we're changing a lot. So just as an FYI.
The first substantial change is on page 204 of the packet. This is to the use artificial pond or lake.
And like I mentioned, this is in regard to the transition of review
for some of these things coming back to the planning department. They were transferred to stormwater,
but then there was a house bill that said that they basically cannot do some of these reviews. Planning
still retains the ability to review some of these things, so that's why these changes are the way that
they are. So artificial pond or lake, it is a use in the use table. People want to build a pond or a
lake. These are the standards for which they have to go about
getting that review approved. We also have a change to the logging urban area. So this is taking out
the applicability of stormwater doing that review because they're no longer, they do not have that in
their ordinance any longer. So it is going to be solely with planning. I'll also note if you see,
An error of zero and then a strikeout of the real chapter. That's not what we're proposing We are proposing
it stay chapter 817 not zero. So that's somewhat of an error And then we found a spelling error so we're
gonna fix that page 248 just site design items and then this is an item I want to spend a little bit
of time on we are
suggesting that for subdivisions, we remove one of the requirements for sidewalks. You saw tonight a
few sidewalk waivers. We're realizing that adding in the reliance on the alternative transportation
plan is causing people to have more requirements for sidewalks, which is good if in a place that makes
sense. But we also realize that we need to update our alternative transportation plan map.
The moderate priority greenway corridor, I'll just share the map right now. It was, I think, envisioned
as more of a hopeful plan to come up with trails. It is the purple line. When we followed the purple
line on most of these, it was, we think this was the 10 o'clock line.
This might be a Duke Energy power line. This is following a creek bed, we believe, which would be all
floodplain. And then there were just other lines that when you followed them on the aerial, they just
didn't seem to follow consistently along a road exactly, or we just weren't sure what their
purpose was, to be honest. They seem to be kind of floating lines. So we're recommending that the purple
not be a requirement for subdivision. And that's something that's open for discussion. There was a correction
needed. There was an error based on the
Linking so we just fix that under section a here. So we're going to be fixing that Section under the
eco chapter we did have some disturbance of point seven five acres as a requirement for stormwater grading
permit and Right now we are going to keep that language just more
in line with what the state code requires, so sites may also require a stormwater grading permit and
refer them to Chapter 761 to make that determination.
So under the agricultural activities for Eco and Lake Lemon, we originally had the Natural Resource
Conservation Service as preparing conservation plans for us. This year, we had somebody who wanted to
start a new agricultural activity in the Lake Lemon area. And they went to Natural Resource Conservation
Service and said, unless you enroll in a federal program, we cannot help you with the conservation plan.
So Water stepped up and said that they would be able to help us and that they're used to doing
these types of plans. So we've happily changed it to Soil and Water, who can handle both people in federal
programs or people that just have smaller programs just starting out. So that's a change.
The change here for 394 is that this looks like a lot of change, but again, it's the linking. We're
not changing the code references. The only thing that's changing here is that we added a sentence for
the exception under the eco area, and it says, in evaluating the request for an exception, the director
shall consider the section below.
which has been added as part of the CDO and was never linked to say to look at that. So that's something
that we want to fix just for clarity sake. Make sure that I got that. Okay. And then under the policy
for emergence of new sinkholes, again, we had to kind of create the language that just
points people to Chapter 761 instead of saying it did definitely require applicability under 761. And
we're hopeful that with some future changes in the CSGP requirements that we can still review those
items. But just for now, this helps us in the interim to be compliant with state code requirements.
And then we had a word
Error here. We changed preliminary plat to primary plat
And then we have had some interest in a new administrative subdivision type that we've created, which
is one that is exclusively to create a parcel for agricultural or conservation purposes. We wanted to
make sure it was clear that you can create one new lot for a maximum of two lots included in the Type
G, the original lot and then the one new lot, since that had been a common question in our office.
Then question on that since you said so that is already doable This is just for clarity. Okay.
Thank you. Yep under our chapter for site plan plot plan and certified plot plan one of the
listed requirements was a holdover from the prior ordinance, which was that
The surveyor or the person had to put down the nature and intensity of the operations involved with
the project under the CDO We no longer assign automatic intensity of use to the use table. So that's
something we decided needed to be cleaned up and Then we made two quick changes to the definition section
under commercial mixed use we used to have a separate
use for shopping center, but now we find that that can be combined under just commercial mixed use.
So even though this is out of alphabetical order, what we've done is indent shopping center and say
that it includes this definition and use here. And it's green text, which means it was just moved. It
didn't actually change any substantially. It didn't change substantially. OK. Oops.
The last definition change is in regard to sewer. We wanted to make sure we reference sewer because
it's stated both ways in the code. So under the state code, they refer to sewers as sanitary sewage
system, which we have a definition for as well. So we're just pointing people to the right definition.
So with that, that's all I have. I can take any questions.
Great, thank you so much. Any comments or questions from my left? From my right. Just really brief and
it's about the multi mobile transportation plan that is completely outdated. We have built trails that
don't even show up on that. Another I think reason why we should kind of try to start looking at that
a bit quicker is like whenever you're talking about regional connectivity, if there are
Places, destinations that are mentioned within our transportation plan or alternative transportation
plan, it could significantly help increase their opportunity to secure different types of grant and
funding to build out their trails. We encountered that just recently. I kind of reached out to see if
there was any other language.
it would be nice to update that even if it's just updating the map, but not the entire plan. I know
that's just adding more work to your table, but it's been a long time. And I guess I'll just repeat
myself once. We have built trails that don't even show up on that map. So outside of that, I'm in support.
I think that is something that came out of
I think it's a good question. What was the highway in the past with consultants? Transportation alternatives
plan actually was a group that we hosted. It was a committee, but we've since created the internal trails
group, which includes a lot of members, so I do have it on the agenda to start there. And hopefully
we could either we could get some direction on where to go because we'd have to get some consultant
money. I just think it goes to a
It would, yeah, miss things, you know, right? It would have to be passed by resolution as well. It's
not just something we can do at staff level to fix, right? Yep. Thank you. All right. Um, any public
comment on this side? There's no one here in the Natu Hill room, but, um, anyone on teams? Raise your
hand to be. Okay, seeing none.
Can someone make a motion, please? Thank you, sir. I'll try. You'll be fine. With respect to Zulu Oscar
Alpha 25-6, which is the amendment to the CDO, item 13, I motion that we take a positive recommendation
to the county commissioners on this item. Second. Are we waiving the final hearing? And we also want
to say it's late. I know. It's not in my notes. And we waive the final hearing. All right. Second stands.
Excellent. Anybody have other comments or questions? There is Santa. OK. Great. Great color roll.
So that's been moved and seconded to send a positive recommendation to the county commissioners and
waive the final hearing for zio a-25-6 Which is an amendment to the county development ordinance primarily
staff edits item number 13 from the prioritization list a vote. Yes is a vote to send a positive
recommendation Tron Enright Randolph. Yes Scott Ferris. Yes, Rudy Fields. Yes, David Henry. Yes Julie
Thomas. Yes
David Bush? Yes. Motion is approved, six to zero. I do have two quick reports. Please. So first is that
we were notified by the Purdue Extension Office that they have appointed a member, Joe Vandeventer,
as a temporary appointee that's allowed under state code.
to be the position for the Purdue extension in the vacancy of that position. So that position has not
been filled by Purdue. So the extension board is able to offer a temporary fill of that position. They
say that they approved that vacancy position on October 15th. And according to Purdue extension, it
would be valid until December 31st.
of twenty twenty six. So we hope to invite we invited Joe to this meeting. He wasn't able to make it.
So we hope to see him at a future plan commission and from there and then the other.
Other announcement that we have is that we'd like to let you know that one of our planner twos, Anne
Christelius, has taken another position. So she has put in her two weeks with the county. Just want
to spend a minute just thanking Anne for her service to the county in her tenure of six and a half years.
She's done quite a bit to streamline our department, keep us organized. Her GIS skills have been
invaluable. She's also earned her AICP in that time period and just helped us all with a lot of different
projects here and there. So just really a good team player and the that wish her well in her next position.
So her last day will be November 5th. Do you think we could get a card and have the Planning Commission
sign it and circulate it? I think that would be nice. I will see you on the admin meeting the day before
her last, so I will. I can do that. Awesome.
Okay. Yeah, so I do want to wish Miss Priscilla as well, all of her future endeavors and thank her for
her time here. We've all learned a lot from each other. And I will be seeking a request from the council
to fill the position since we're under a current hiring freeze. So we will be trying to seek approval of that.
Everybody turn to your right. I already reacted to that. Okay. Just adding it in there. All right.
Thank you. Ms. Schilling, did you have anything for us? I do not. Oh, lovely. Well, thank you all for
a scintillating discussion, an interesting meeting, and we are adjourned.