The Plainfield Plan Commission met on Monday, January 3, 2005. In attendance were Mr. Thibo, Mr. Matrana, Mr. McPhail, Mr. Brandgard, Ms. Whicker, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. Haase.
ROLL CALL/DETERMINATION OF QUORUM
Mr. Carlucci administered the roll call.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
MINUTES
Mr. Thibo made a motion to approve the minutes of the Plainfield Plan Commission of November 1, 2004 and also December 6, 2004 as submitted. Second by Mr. Matrana. Motion carried.
ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Mr. Carlucci said we have to elect officers tonight, the first meeting of the year. The current President is Mr. Haase and the Vice Chair person is Mr. Matrana. I would like to open it up for nominations for either one or both of those officers.
Mr. McPhail nominated Mr. Haase as President and Mr. Matrana as Vice President. Second by Mr. Kirchoff.
Mr. Carlucci asked, is there a motion to close the nominations?
Mr. Thibo made a motion to close the nominations. Second by Mr. Brandgard. Motion carried.
Mr. Carlucci said the motion carries and the President is Mr. Haase and Vice President is Mr. Matrana. We also have a need to appoint to the Board of Zoning Appeals for 2005. The current appointment is Mr. Haase. I would like to open the floor up for nominations to appoint a member to the Board of Zoning Appeals for 2005.
Mr. Matrana nominated Mr. Haase to be the representative on the BZA for the coming year 2005. Second by Mr. McPhail.
Mr. Carlucci asked, is there a motion to close the nominations?
Ms. Whicker made a motion to close the nominations. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Carlucci said Mr. Haase is up for one more year. We also have an appointment of a Plan Commission member to the Design Review Committee. As you may recall, Mr. Cavanaugh was the appointment to the Design Review Committee. If I am correct about this, I don’t believe we have a Plan Commission liaison currently assigned to the Design Review Committee.
Mr. Haase said I believe you are correct.
Mr. Carlucci said we don’t have to do anything tonight if you don’t want to. You may want to take some time to think about it but if there is any interest from any of the members wanting to serve as a liaison to the DRC, you can speak up or volunteer.
Mr. Haase said let’s let the Plan Commission members digest that and see if we can come up with a volunteer. If not, at the February meeting we will grab somebody. We will table that at this time.
OATH OF TESTIMONY
Mr. Daniel administered the Oath of Testimony.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
Mr. Haase reviewed the Guidelines Governing the Conduct of Public Hearings. We have two public hearings tonight. The first one would be DP-04-031, Dick’s Sporting Goods distribution center.
Mr. Carlucci said we have a request from Dick’s Sporting Goods to expand their North Perry Road facility by adding some additional trailer parking on the south side of the building. This appears to be fairly straightforward. They are replacing an existing emergency road that is under-laid and has grass growing through it for fire equipment to go back into that area. However, the new area that they are proposing is an actual hard surface parking area, which will also serve as a way for the fire equipment to get back to that part of the building.
The reason that I’m up here tonight is Mr. Higbee, as you know, is no longer with the Town. There are really two main issues that were primarily raised, which had to do with landscaping. We will let the petitioners come up and talk about that.
You have comments from the Design Review Committee.
There are some issues on the transportation, especially a southbound left turn lane. Those are found on page 4 under transportation. These are comments from Mr. McGillem, if you have any questions about his comments. From my understanding they also appear to be open to those ideas, i.e., donating the right-of-way. The other question is how to pay for that but for the fact that they are doing what they are doing it is probably Staff’s position that it should be the cost of the developer to do that.
Mr. Haase asked, what about the transportation?
Mr. McGillem said as you will recall, we only had the Perry Road built up to Galyan’s. It didn’t go any farther north. So, that at the time the drive was put in they were not required to put a southbound left turn lane in in the median, which all other developments have been required to put in left turn lanes. When Panatoni went in last year at that entrance, we indicated with their drive location, etc. that they would need to put in not only a northbound left turn lane for their north drive but also participate in a southbound left turn lane and a median opening. Panatoni agreed and has an understanding and a bond with the Town for participating in that southbound left turn lane up to $40,000.00, 50% not to exceed $40,000.00. So, when Galyan’s or Dick’s came in with expanding their trucking facility, etc., we indicated that we thought that they should participate in the balance and see that the southbound left turn lane went in since it is primarily for their drive.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is this at the north edge of their property?
Mr. McGillem said yes.
Mr. Mark Thorpe with the Schneider Corporation at 6845 E. U.S. 36, Suite 500, Avon, Indiana, 46123 said as Mr. Carlucci has already mentioned, this is Dick’s Sporting Goods. They are looking to expand additional parking along the south face of their building. When we originally went to the Staff about expanding the parking, we originally looked at expanding it straight south. The reason was that if we ever do a future building expansion, this parking lot is going to have to be torn up and taken out. So, we were looking at having the most flexible building with their property for future building expansion. However, the Staff was concerned that this might seem like a vacant lot, like a parking lot in that lot. So, they really asked several things. One would be to reconsider so we came back with this idea of putting it along the south and face the building with the idea if a future building expansion does go in, we will have to remove that parking lot at that time.
The second thing has already has been mentioned is the Staff requested the left turn lane on southbound Perry come into this trucking facility. There are docks located along the north face of the building currently and on the east face and then there is trailer parking around the perimeter and that is all that this is is additional trailer parking because their needs are quite a bit different than what Galyan’s were, the previous owner.
The third item that the Staff requested was to evaluate the existing detention pond. It is a dry pond. It was always intended to be temporary but when the future expansion of this lot takes place, it would probably be more located centrally down here on the south property line where the actual outlot is, a wet pond or something like that. That was always intended to be a temporary dry pond so the Staff asked us to evaluate that pond and make sure that it is functioning properly, that it hasn’t silted in. It does have quite a bit of growth of plant material and things like that. We are in the process of evaluating that retention pond to make sure that it works.
The fourth item that the Staff requested was the potential future left turn lanes on Perry Road going onto Stafford or potential right turn lanes from Stafford onto Perry. That is something that they have agreed to work with them for the future right-of-way along both of those property lines.
The only other item that the Staff really didn’t request but the DRC requested is we originally had this mounded located more centrally across the property. What our thinking was there, I don’t know if any of you were involved in the original master plan, but this was a mirrored building with parking and everything completely mirrored. I think it was mentioned in your report. That mounding was located at that mirrored point so that wouldn’t have to be relocated in the future as well. But DRC thought it might be better to go ahead and place it all the way down here along Stafford Road and plant it with plants, trees to help screen that as well. So, Dick’s has agreed to do that to place a Level 1 landscaping along that south property line and wrap it around the corner as DRC has requested. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Mr. Thibo asked, with that landscaping will that hide the trailers?
Mr. Thorpe said I’m not sure it will totally screen it. Obviously, to totally screen it we have to have a mound that would be that high and it’s not. DRC requested a minimum of a three-foot mound. We were actually looking at a four to five-foot mound and then have evergreens planted on top of that. Obviously, the bigger the landscaping material gets the more that is going to be screened. I think that was one reason that they pushed it down here too is it would be closer to the cars and the line of site that would help screen that as well.
Mr. Kirchoff said (inaudible).
Mr. Thorpe said yes and what they did is it is kind of interesting because as you come around the corner, the south part of this detention pond is mounded up. That was done to create the storage so as you come around there, the building is not as visual but when you head up, there is a little break in the action between about half way up the detention pond and their entrance. They requested to put a Level 2 landscaping in that area, the DRC did and that is what Dick’s has agreed to do as well.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone in the audience who has anything that they would like to ask about this public hearing? Being no one coming forward do any of the board members have any questions?
Mr. McPhail asked, what is the financial commitment that we need on the turn lane?
Mr. McGillem said from my understanding, as part of their project, they would build the southbound left turn lane. Our financial commitment we have $40,000.00, 50% or $40,000.00 that has been committed to the Town to go toward that turn lane through Panatoni. We would be contributing that $40,000.00 toward the construction cost of the turn lane but they would actually be constructing the turn lane as part of their project.
Mr. Haase said they would construct it and the Town’s share would be up to $40,000.00.
Mr. Thorpe said I’m assuming an estimate was done at that time.
Mr. Belcher said it was actually based on the turn lane that we built out there right at $75,000.00.
Mr. McGillem said essentially Panatoni built the northbound left turn lane so the southbound left turn lane was based on a similar turn lane.
Mr. Thorpe said that is kind of what we are assuming too that our half is going to be approximately that amount.
Mr. Haase said irregardless you are going to have to build it so I don’t know what that cost is going to be.
Mr. Kirchoff said the comments that you made about where you originally proposed this to be do you have any sense of the possibility of the potential doubling the size of this building? Or are we talking about sometime in the not too distant future you coming in and saying that this building is going to be doubled and you are going to tear that lot out?
Mr. Thorpe said I think they can honestly say that they don’t have any current plans but not knowing how this transition is going to take place and their needs it is very likely that they would need to expand. We wouldn’t have an idea if it is two years, five years, 10 years.
Mr. Haase asked, where did they have it originally? How far down did it go?
Mr. Thorpe said basically that is the need. It came down to approximately this location.
Ms. Whicker said I think the Design Review Committee did a good job with the Gateway Corridor concerns.
Mr. Haase said with no further questions at this time we will close the public portion of this hearing and accept any further questions or discussion from any board members.
Ms. Whicker asked, could all the vehicles come out onto Stafford via that intersection whereas not going back around Perry Road?
Mr. Thorpe said I don’t know if that could be determined. If somebody was coming down U.S. 40 and come down Perry Road, that would be an option. All of the entrances and exits would be off Perry Road and then I’m assuming you are asking would they then go to Stafford Road?
Ms. Whicker said that is correct.
Mr. Thorpe said I’m not sure where they distribute their materials. It could very easily be north on Perry I would assume.
Mr. McGillem said Dick’s at Avon right now have some trucks going out north on Perry Road to go to the Avon site. I’m sure with the Dick’s being proposed going into the new mall they will have trucks in and out off of Perry Road northbound/southbound getting in and out of the distribution center in order to service that new store when it goes in. Plus they have the old Galyan’s or Dick’s on U.S. 40 that is still in operation right now. So, I would imagine that the majority of their distribution is south out of that drive.
I might point out too that the additional right-of-way, which they have agreed to provide off of Stafford Road for westbound, exclusive right turn lane and additional right-of-way off of Perry Road, they have agreed to put in with their platting and so forth. The reason that we had requested that consideration from them is our traffic study with the mall for the long-term traffic demands along Stafford Road now is calling for the possibility of an exclusive westbound right turn lane at Stafford and Perry sometime in the future. Also, the possibility with what we have in storage and on the current southbound left turn lane on Perry and southbound left turn lane on Stafford Road there is a potential for the need for a double left turn at that location. So, what we have asked for consideration when they were coming in with Dick’s having this entire corner right now was for the potential for the future access that amounted to 12 feet for the length that we are showing there. So, that whatever is built on that corner we don’t have to come back in and buy up additional right-of-way should we have to put those additional turn lanes in.
Mr. McPhail made a motion that the Plan Commission approve the development Plan/Architectural Review DP-04-031 finding that:
Regarding Architectural Review for Commercial development within 600’ of a Gateway Corridor the Plan Commission finds that:
The Development Plan complies with all applicable Development Standards of the District in which the site is located.
The Development Plan complies with all applicable provisions of the Subdivision Control Ordinance for which a waiver has not been granted.
The Development Plan complies with all applicable provisions for Architectural and Site Design Review for which a waiver has not been granted.
The proposed development is appropriate to the site and its surrounding.
The proposed development is consistent with the intent and purpose of this ordinance.
And that such approval be subject to the following conditions:
Subject to substantial compliance with the site plan, landscape plan, building elevations, photometric plan and associated documents file dated 1/27/04.
If any of the relocated foundation plants do not survive, they shall be replaced with minimum 2” caliper trees of a comparable species.
The retention area is to be cleaned and function properly and be approved by the Town Engineer.
The petitioner will build a southbound left turn lane and absorb all costs in excess of $40,000.00.
That the right-of-way for future turn lanes be dedicated with platting per the site plan.
Second by Mr. Kirchoff. I would ask for clarification on the cost of the left turn lane. This says $40,000.00 up to half.
Ms. Whicker said 50% up to $40,000.00.
Mr. Kirchoff said so if it is only $70,000.00, then it is $35,000.00.
Mr. McPhail said yes. I said that they were to absorb all costs in excess of $40,000.00.
Mr. Haase said they are to absorb all costs and pay any amounts that exceed $40,000.00 is half of the figure. Mr. Daniel help us out with this language.
Mr. Daniel said they are to pay one-half of the cost of the left hand turn lane unless it exceeds $40,000.00 and then they are required to pay overage isn’t that right?
Mr. Kirchoff said no because if it was only $70,000.00, then it comes out to $35,000.00 and we get $5,000.00 back is that right?
Mr. Brandgard said yes.
Mr. McGillem said essentially if it is $70,000.00, Panatoni pays $35,000.00 and Dick’s will pay $35,000.00. If it is $85,000.00, Panatoni pays $40,000.00 and Dick’s will pay $45,000.00.
Mr. Daniel said they pay one-half unless it exceeds $80,000.00 and if they do that, they pay anything over $40,000.00. They will be responsible for paying 50% of the cost up to $80,000.00 and then anything over $80,000.00 of the total cost they will be responsible for all of that.
Mr. Haase said we have a motion and a second. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – yes
Mr. Matrana – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Ms. Whicker – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
7-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Haase said the next item under public hearings would be DP-04-032, Sierra Gateway Park, building number 2.
Mr. Carlucci said the Sierra Gateway Park is located on the northwest corner of Stafford and Six Points Road. They currently have one building that is, for all intense purposes, completing its construction. If any of you have been up to the new Six Points Road interchange, I would guess that is one of the nicer looking buildings in Plainfield. I think it is exactly what they wanted and what we wanted on that gateway coming in there. There are not too many issues on this. The one issue that was discussed a lot in Mr. Higbee’s report had much to do with sidewalks in the right-of-way; piping the ditches or sidewalks on their property. There are some issues that could arise with how this development was done in terms of parking and office space. You look at those scenarios that could happen. My approach to this was see what happens and then we will worry about it then because we just don’t know. Then it becomes subjective. We try to make decisions on how landscaping is going to look here if it is commercial or industrial or it is all office. We just don’t know that because it is supposed to be flex space. Unless I’m wrong and misreading this report, and I talked to Mr. Higbee a few minutes before he went south, it appears to me that one of the issues was clearly the sidewalks and that they would have to pipe the ditch. I think they made it pretty clear that they would prefer not piping the ditch because it is an added expense than to put the pathway in.
The other issue is the Staff would like to see some type of specification that they are using on that sidewalk or greenway trail. We don’t seem to have at this point anything but that may be cleared up tonight. Hopefully, Mr. Higbee got these reports out to everybody. So, that is all that I have.
Mr. Jerry Kittle with the Schneider Corporation located 6845 E. U.S. 36, Suite 500, Avon, Indiana, 46123. With me tonight is Paul Meyer who is with JRA Architecture. He is the lead architect on this particular project. This project was actually before the board a year ago I believe. This project that you see is an overall 37 acres. Building 1, as Mr. Carlucci referred to, is this particular building here. That is the building that is currently out there and constructed on the Ronald Reagan Parkway that lies in this particular area, Columbia Road to the west of building 2. Building 2, the site that we are considering tonight, is this part here. The infrastructure drainage was all installed with lot 1 or building 1 located in this particular area here. So, basically this is just an infill for building 2.
We agree with Carlucci. We presented the plans to the DRC. We believe we have made every attempt to make all of their comments and had a few comments to address. The one comment that seems to be coming back is the concern about the sidewalk. I believe you have a color rendering of the site plan. To my right and to your left on there on the time of this particular project was considered during the rezoning process as a PUD. The walk that Mr. Higbee is referring to is this particular section 1. You will notice on the color rendering the walk follows this pattern. We would propose to straighten that walk. That walk is actually a six-foot asphalt path along Columbia Road. We would like to put that walk near Columbia Road. There is an existing swale down through there to carry storm water drainage. The reason that it is located where it is is we had to bring sanitary sewer up Columbia Road on the east side of Columbia Road as well as water. That is sort of unusual, if you will, to bring water and sewer on the same side of the road in order to get that separation. We would like to propose to leave that swale. It’s not just from a cost standpoint, although the cost is certainly significant to extend the storm piping to the north, but it also allows a little more flexibility in the landscaping since we have existing utilities. We also have telephone and power and those type of utilities located in that particular area. It is an asphalt path, as I mentioned.
The other Staff concern talked about the parking. As Mr. Carlucci stated, we really don’t know exactly what is going to go in these spaces. We have committed and said before and will say again that as this project develops to the south, we will look at each parking area for each building. We may have to reduce the size of one of the future buildings, if this proposal would have more office space than what we have allowed for. We have used a percentage to calculate those spaces and have significant spaces for what our proposal is at this particular time. At this time I think I will let Mr. Meyer come up and at least answer questions and give a brief presentation about the building and the exterior of the building.
Mr. Meyer said if you have gone by building 1, building 2 is going to be more of the same. There is just a subtle difference between building 1 and 2. Building 2 is a little bit more square footage and the building is a little bit deeper but generally the characteristics are very similar to the building that is out there right now. I think the way that we have situated those on the site we were trying to screen the truck docking area, truck maneuvering area, the service area between these buildings but situating the fronts of these buildings facing Columbia and Ronald Reagan Parkway. It appears that we are looking at leasing about 50% of building 1 this first quarter. So, that is what is kicking off their need to go ahead and start planning for building 2 at this point.
As far as parking ratios right now the way that these leases are looking it looks like we are looking at 30-40% office depending on the size of the leases. We looked at the number of cars the tenants are requesting for their lease-out and so far the numbers are working out about where we planned as far as the number of cars required for the two leases that they look like they have a firm commitments on. So, if we have more than 40% office, we are probably going to have to take some of that up in the back. Of course, if we have more office, we have less truck spaces required so we think that will basically balance out. But if somebody does come in and wants 100% office, then we are going to need to pick up parking. We are probably going to look at pulling that off of the adjoining lots that are not developed at this point.
I have put up a couple of boards here but I think when you look at the elevations, it is basically the same materials that’s on the first building. It will look real familiar. Unless there are any further questions that concludes our portion.
Mr. Thorpe said I might make one more note that I failed to mention along the landscaping requirements along Columbia Road, which would be required at this particular time is we originally committed to a Level 4 landscaping. That is still in the plans as well so again that is another reason why we would like to have some consideration on the walkway with the intense landscaping that we are being asked to provide along Columbia Road.
Mr. Haase asked, do you want to put the walkway right against the curb?
Mr. Thorpe said no we do not. We would like to put it within the right-of-way. The dark line represents the existing right-of-way. The pathway is against the right-of-way but within the right-of-way of Columbia Road. It’s a six-foot wide asphalt pathway as originally agreed to in the PUD rezoning that this would be a six-foot wide hard surface asphalt pathway no matter which way it ended up.
Mr. Meyer said I think there is about a six-foot greenway and then the hard surface pathway the way that it looks.
Mr. Thorpe said that is correct. Our landscaping is along what would be the west side of our parking lot and the swales and the sanitary sewer and the water, which we have brought from the south and extended to the north to allow for this particular project as well as future expansion of the project to the land to the north running both of those utilities side by side. It really controls what we can do.
Mr. Haase asked, is the water and sewer going between the curb and the pathway?
Mr. Thorpe said the water is about five feet off the back of the curb. The sanitary sewer extends at least another 10 feet to the east of that water, to the east of the water line. So, it’s coming up behind the right-of-way as well.
Mr. Haase said so the pathway would not be on top of either one.
Mr. Thorpe said no.
Mr. Brandgard said it would be kind of in between them.
Mr. Haase said but there will be some green belt between the pathway and Columbia Road.
Mr. Thorpe said correct.
Mr. Meyer said this strip is about six-foot wide. That is back of the curb basically to the edge of the path. The path really is right along the right-of-way line.
Mr. Thibo said the small building, the 27,500, what type of business would likely go in there?
Mr. Thorpe asked, this building here?
Mr. Thibo said yes. It’s pretty small isn’t it?
Mr. Brandgard said it is building 6.
Mr. Thorpe said the southern buildings were basically designed more for office use, the whole south pattern. There is a significant drop-off here at the edge of this parking lot. So, these parcels here is really more of a flex space, industrial space. Hopefully, as we get south this is prime office space. It can be anything from a one-story office to a three or four-story office building depending on the user that might come along or the need at that point. This is going to be a growing and changing area and flexible in the way they develop the property.
Mr. Haase said I think they showed down there two or three different types of buildings. Is there anyone in the audience who has any questions about this public hearing? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing. If there are no further questions, the Chair will accept a motion to act upon this public hearing.
Mr. McPhail made a motion that the Plan Commission approve the request for Final Detailed Plan Secondary Approval, DP-04-013 finding that:
The Final Detailed Plan satisfies the Development Standards specified for the PUD as included in this submittal.
The Final Detailed Plan accomplishes the intent set forth in Article 6 of the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance.
The Final detailed Plan provides for the protection or provisions of the site features and amenities outlined in Article 6.,C.,4.,a. of the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance.
And that such approval be subject to the following conditions:
Substantial compliance with the site plan, landscape plan, building elevations and renderings, photometric plan, sign plan, sign details, and lighting details and six-foot asphalt path file dated 12/27/94.
Trash compactors and dumpsters shall be reviewed for compliance and approval by Staff.
Second by Mr. Thibo. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – yes
Mr. Matrana – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Ms. Whicker – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
7-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
OLD BUSINESS/NEW BUSINESS
Nottinghill Subdivision PUD
Mr. Carlucci said as you know, Nottinghill Subdivision used to be at the northern most part of Saratoga and CR350S, a Planned Unit Development/condominium project. You all received information from Mr. McPhail. That development is a quality development. It is a beautiful development in there. There is a proposal for another development group to take over that project. I believe they are here tonight to talk about that and get your input and see if they are going on the right direction on this.
Mr. Bill Trent at 7724 SCR825E, Plainfield said what we have in mind, and I’m going to speak on behalf of myself and there are three more of us involved in this development and that is myself, John Wiggins, Raymond Andrews and Jeff Roberts. You are familiar with most of us. Also, in my presence is Bill Furman who is a current resident of Nottinghill and the current developer, Kevin Andrews. Kevin Andrews has had some difficulties and I don’t think that it is any secret that it is ready to go into foreclosure. We are trying to get that back on its feet. We have a letter of commitment from the bank to try to get it bought at face value. The dilemma that we have out there is we have 12 customers and a total of 60 lots so we have 48 developed lots that we can’t sell. Mr. Andrews hasn’t been able to move those. We think it is because of the cost out there. Most of those units are starting around $300,000.00 and up. They are beautiful but the demand is not really there. What we have proposed with the blessings of the current homeowners is to try to reduce some of those original covenants that were approved I think before the Plan Commission and the Town Council back in 2001. I think you have a copy of the original. We have met with the homeowners out there and like I said Bill Furman has worked real hard with us and the homeowners have been very cooperative. Naturally they want to see some development out there and some neighbors. We put a proposal together to try to reduce some of what we thought were running the costs up out there. We had Lee Comer’s office declare a new declaration of covenants. Does everyone have a copy of those?
Mr. Haase said I believe we do.
Mr. Trent said in a nutshell we want to reduce the square footage for starters. The original covenants call for a 1,700 square foot minimum on the ground floor and we wanted to reduce that to 1,500. If you have been out there, you have seen the roof pitches. They go to the sky and back. We want to reduce those from a 12/12 to an 8/12. Another big expense was to the garage doors and the front doors and cupolas. They add a lot as far as the features to look at but they also drive the cost of those up. Two big things that were in the original declarations that you approved in 2001 was the swimming pool and the tennis courts and a parking lot that were on the original. I don’t have a copy of that but I do have a copy of the original declaration and the covenants and the ones that we are proposing to change. We have met with the homeowners to get their grace. We have all of the signatures of the homeowners out there on a set of the new covenants. They are amendments to the old covenants. It’s not a whole new set of covenants but it is the amenities that talks about the roof pitch, the front doors, the garage doors, the parking lot, tennis courts, swimming pool, square footage and cupolas. We have to get a product out there that is nice but it has a decent base price. Then we wanted to put in all of the options that the current homeowners have out there that the new homeowner would have to pay for. We don’t anticipate putting anything in there. I think we are talking somewhere around $200-225,000.00, maybe around $180,000.00 as a base with the same exterior as far as the masonry. There really are not a whole lot of big changes, just some of the things that are driving the cost up of the base price to get those things on the market at a reasonable price. We don’t have a dollar amount put together but we think our base price would probably be somewhere around $180,000.00 to $190,000.00 and then we would go up from there. We anticipate several being in the $300-350,000.00 range. We think there is not any traffic out there because of the base price. So, we are looking for some direction and as always time is an issue here. We did get a 30-day extension from the bankruptcy judge but that is not going to get us to the next Plan Commission hearing so we are going to ask for an additional 30-day extension. We feel like we have the funds together but this whole thing is hinging on these contingencies that we can get a product in there at a decent price or we would be stuck with the same situation that Mr. Andrews probably has.
Mr. Haase said so you are looking at probably coming back before the Plan Commission with a final resolution.
Mr. Trent said yes. I guess what I’m doing tonight is filling you in and letting you know what our interests are. There has not been any money exchanged. It is in foreclosure proceedings now but we have called off the dogs because we are trying to get a proposal put together that you will approve. We want to get back before on your next Plan Commission meeting in February. We have met with the existing homeowners and Mr. Furman is here and has been our spokesman out there and we have signatures already from all of those homeowners with notary on the new amended covenants from Lee Comer’s office.
Mr. Haase asked, the same copy that we have?
Mr. Trent said correct. We think we could start at 1,500 for the lot sizes and expand on that and give the customer more options.
Mr. Haase said I have read over all of these. I will make a statement here and I would appreciate any other member who has read over these. I don’t have a real problem with anything that you are doing here. I think from our standpoint our biggest concern that the current residents are in favor of it. We have kind of dealt with this before at Colony Lakes and as long as the residents are not opposed to it because we want to take care of their original investment. Of course, they also realize that their original investment will be better off when it fills out. Two questions that I have with what you have here is how will those 8/12 pitches compare to those 12/12 pitches in appearance? Will they look out of place? I don’t know. That is probably not my ballpark. You guys are taking it over so you think it is going to look okay.
Mr. Trent said right.
Mr. Haase said the other thing I had a question about was number 12, “A community clubhouse with a gravel access drive will be provided no later than at the completion of the final lot sale in Nottinghill Section 1.” Is that Section “A”? Is that what you are talking about there? You say Section 1 and I’m not sure what it is.
Mr. Trent said if you are familiar with that, the clubhouse is in. It’s the barn and already in.
Mr. Haase asked, what is Section 1?
Mr. William Furman at 3328 Nottinghill Circle said the large oval that you see there and there is a little pigtail with a small oval around it. The large oval is that first section that you are talking about and what he is saying is when all of those lots are sold, at that time the barn clubhouse would be turned over to the owners, is our understanding. That is located in the Section “B”. You can see the majority of the lots or units would have to be sold.
Mr. Haase said I don’t know how important that clubhouse is to the people who live out there.
Mr. Trent said they don’t know if it is an asset or a liability.
Mr. Haase said I thought the build out of Section 1 before you put that in might be a little late to agree to. When was it proposed to go in?
Mr. McPhail said that’s where the current covenants are at the end of Section 1. They haven’t changed.
Mr. Haase said then the other statement would be I don’t think we could buy the gravel driveway. I think everything ought to be paved. A gravel drive would take away from out there and the Town’s requirements in commercial districts are all paved anyway. I realize this is residential but I think that being paved would be a big thing and a big plus.
Mr. Furman said speaking in behalf of the owners we have discussed this a little bit and, as I said, we are not sure whether it is an asset or not. To us it is opened on the table. There is a possibility that we might want to tear it down. If we did that, I don’t think we would want an asphalt drive there.
Mr. Haase asked, would you put another house there?
Mr. Furman said it would be a common grass area.
Mr. Haase said in the event the building no longer resided on the property then you wouldn’t need a drive.
Mr. Furman said I was wondering if rather than requiring these guys putting in an asphalt surface on there right now, could that wait until a decision is made to what happens to the building?
Mr. McPhail said the current commitment, and I’m reading from the current that is on file, says “the community clubhouse with a gravel access drive will be provided upon the final lot sale from Section 1. At the completion of the final lot sale of Section 2 there will be an addition of a swimming pool and a tennis court.” So, we approved a gravel drive when we approved it originally.
Mr. Haase said we shouldn’t have. From the Town’s standpoint I realize gravel doesn’t bring a lot of debris onto the roadway. I don’t have a problem with waiting until you are done with Section 1 and you will know when you are done with Section 1, whether or not you are going to keep it. Who buys into this is going to say whether they want the clubhouse or they don’t I would guess. I think the gravel driveway is the only thing that we overlooked the last time that we can pick up on this time.
Ms. Whicker said I’m just confirming that Section 2 is the pigtail loop?
Mr. Haase said yes.
Ms. Whicker said and you don’t have any current construction in Section 2.
Mr. Brandgard said yes there is.
Mr. Furman asked, are there lot numbers on there?
Ms. Whicker said 21, 20 and 19 have an “x” on them.
Mr. Furman said 21, 26 and 20 all have existing homeowners on them.
Ms. Whicker asked, the clubhouse is currently in existence is that correct?
Mr. Furman said yes, the barn/clubhouse.
Ms. Whicker asked, is that shown on this map? Is that a tennis court?
Mr. Brandgard said it’s a tennis court in this area right here.
Mr. Kirchoff said I assume that if they decided they don’t want that, they could come back to us and propose to subdivide that.
Mr. Haase said they just said they would want to tear it down and make it a grassy area but they could do that yes.
Mr. Trent said we have already told the homeowners out there our intent is not to build something else there. We want it to be common grassy ground. It’s not to gain more land to build. We just can’t afford to put them out there. Grass will be nice and any common ground we could have out there would be nicer than what is out there.
Mr. Haase said I think it is the intent for the Town to assist the building area to keep it going rather than to hurt it and to also help the homeowners that are already out there. If this does it, and like I said I guess we missed it the first time, but the gravel drive is the only thing if the clubhouse stays, I think we ought to asphalt the drive to it, if there is such a thing. Other than that I don’t have any trouble with what I have read in this.
Mr. Brandgard said as you mentioned, we have done this before when an area starts to languish and have to make adjustments. The key is the existing property owners have to buy into it and agree to it because you are changing the level of what is going out there. If the area is doing nothing, it is not helping the existing property owners so this has to be better I think.
Mr. Trent said we felt, to be honest with you, we want to put all of the cards on the table. We went to the homeowners out there and said here is what we are up against. We want to help. We possibly could make this thing work in the next three or four years and get it built out but we have to have some concessions. I think the people involved mean well and I think we can get it done and we just went right to the homeowners and said this is basically what we need to do. Mr. Furman has worked with them and Mr. Roberts has met with them several times. We felt like we were bringing in a local. Most of them knew of Mr. Roberts and myself and Mr. Wiggins and Mr. Raymond Andrews, of course. So, we did get their blessing on everything before we even came to talk to you tonight. We got signatures of all 13 existing homeowners out there on that document. So, I guess the next step at this stage would be to have a public hearing before or at the time of the next Plan Commission meeting is that correct?
Mr. Carlucci asked, do you have someone to help you out on this?
Mr. Trent asked, on which?
Mr. Carlucci said on filing the petition. You have to notify adjoining property owners.
Mr. Trent said we are going to have Lee Comer’s office help us on that.
Mr. McPhail said I think you would need to get that done this week.
Mr. Carlucci said they need to have someone call me from Mr. Comer’s office because we are using Gene Valanzano and I will encourage Mr. Valanzano to move this along quickly.
Mr. McPhail said I reviewed this with Mr. Valanzano on Thursday and Friday of last week so he is aware of it but he does have to have a file this week to get it on the agenda.
Mr. Haase said I think I can honestly say by the reaction of the board members that it has our blessing to proceed. I appreciate you coming in with a good document that let’s us know what is going on.
Mr. Trent said like I said we wanted to be up front with you and naturally for the homeowners out there there is no sense in coming to see you. So, I think we are on the right page so we will get this going and see you at the next one. Thank you for all of your help.
Mr. Haase said if you need to meet with Mr. Carlucci tomorrow to make sure you get everything to us in a timely manner, please do that.
Plainfield High school Pre-filing Presentation
Mr. Jud Wolfe at 7041 Willow Lane said I’m the Assistant Superintendent for the school corporation on behalf of the school trustees and Dr. Hollifield, the Superintendent. I just want to say thank you for giving us a chance to come before you tonight and share with you some information about our high school project. A little over nine months ago, actually March 11, a group known as the Yellow Ribbon Task Force Committee brought a recommendation to our school board to build a new high school. After they caught their breath, talked about, deliberated, the board accepted that recommendation. During the past nine months there has been countless meetings with all levels of staffing working on the programming of the new building. We have acquired land to build the new high school. So, tonight we want to come before you and provide information to you to let you see the proposed building and provide a lot of information about our progress in the last nine months.
Speer heading the presentation tonight will be Kevin Shelly who is the project architect from Schmidt and Associates.
Mr. Kevin Shelly said as Mr. Wolfe mentioned, our goal tonight is to inform you of what is going on. We have been very busy with the school corporation and actually with your staff in developing the land that will be for the new high school site. I want to just bring you up-to-speed with that and with me tonight is Corrie Meyer. She is the landscape architect with Schmidt & Associates and she will be helping me make the presentation this evening.
I will be doing all of this through Power Point and we have some boards in front that we will be able to share with you as well. I think you also have eleven by seventeen of the site plan but there will be several pieces that we will be sharing with you. Our purpose tonight is to inform you and let you know what we are doing. I just wanted to make sure that was really clear and to do that we are going to go through a site design development presentation and I will show you where we are on that. We will discuss landscaping materials and berming and some of the issues related to that. I will go over building finishes and then we will talk about the Planned Unit Development that we are putting together for this project.
To start with I will let Ms. Meyer get into the site plan. Again, you have the eleven by seventeen in front of you, which mimics what you see up here on the Power Point and she will also use the board here.
Ms. Meyer said just to give you a little bit of context I’m going to put in place where we are. This is Quaker Boulevard that runs north/south and Hadley Road. Here is the BP Station located right here. Reeves Road currently runs directly straight through the site and to the north a little bit farther is Stafford. What we will be proposing is to have the Reeves Road vacated where the new high school is and rerouted to the north side. So, I will just walk you through the Power Point presentation over here. Basically, the main entrance would be off of Reeves Road entering the parent drop-off loop directly at the main entrance located on the west side. Directly south of the parent drop-off and main entrance would be visitor parking and staff parking as well. This parking lot located to the south accommodates 800 student parking spaces. Within that lot is a vegetated swale, which will meet our requirements of landscaping within the interior parking lot. I will discuss that a little bit later. Just west of the building is our loading space. This is directly adjacent to the subdivision. We have tried to screen the best way possible. We had put a 12-foot masonry wall around the mechanical yard just adjacent to the roadway. Accessing this service area is a berm with evergreens on top of that. And then on the other side of Reeves Road would be another buffer yard along this way. Just to the northwest of the site we have allowed for future additions. This is a staff parking lot here. Then this area right here would be a bus drop-off. This would be the main student entrance for students riding the bus. Basically, the buses would enter here and stacked in these spaces and exit through this way and exit out the same drive. There is only one access point out of this area. This area here is also located for staff parking. That pretty much sums up the area directly adjacent to the main high school. Mr. Shelly will go through the high school layout a little bit later.
Just north of the Reeves Road relocation is a dry detention basin and acreage for future development. We will not be addressing any future development within this proposal. Just south along this new road, which will be called Red Pride Drive is the athletic complex. Within this athletic complex we have several practice fields. We have a parking lot that would accommodates the football field for visitor parking at the football games. And then it would also accommodate the alternative school and football locker building located right here. This building would also serve as locker facilities for the other sports within this area as well. The other buildings located within this athletic development are press boxes, one located here for the soccer buildings, one for the softball and one for the baseball. We also have two ticket facilities, one located here for the softball and a baseball complex on the south side and then one main ticket entrance for all of the other events.
We have a main pedestrian corridor that connects all of the fields and the high school building that would be hard surfaced. Directly west of the main ticket building is the tennis courts. We have a lighted varsity soccer field and we have a non-lighted soccer field that is just directly west of there. There are two football practice areas that will not be lit. Also, just south of there are two non-lit softball and baseball practice fields. What we have tried to do is position the fields that are lit away from the residential areas to help buffer the photometrics. This would be the varsity baseball field and the varsity softball field and then just directly north of that is obviously the varsity football field along with the track events that would be located directly adjacent to them.
In this area we have also accommodated for a dry detention and located here is a wet detention basin, which is actually the Town’s property.
We have looked at buffering and screening from the residential areas along the west property boundary. This will accommodate a berm and landscaping and I will go through that in a little bit.
This is the swale area that is in the parking lot. Basically, the parking lots are draining directly into this center swale and then leading out into a pipe that will take us out to the detention basin. This swale is going to have lawn up against the drives with the parking bumpers so the cars won’t drive in. Then in the center of the swale we would have wild flowers and grasses. We will also have small shrubs, evergreens as you can see, and deciduous trees as well.
This is an example of a vegetated swale located between two roadbeds. It is a similar practice. It gives you somewhat of an idea where you have the edge and then grasses in the center. We will obviously have trees and shrubs in there that will give us a little bit more winter entrance. This picture was actually taken two months ago.
These sketches address the buffer yards along the west property boundary. What you are looking at is a sketch of a deciduous tree on top of a three-foot mound and an evergreen tree on top of a three-foot mound. We will incorporate the two types of vegetation together to help us with the security practices for the high school. We hired a security consultant and he had concerns with solid evergreen as a buffer up against that west buffer yard for security purposes, kids hiding behind them, etc. So, what we have done is shown deciduous trees intertwining with the evergreen trees and locating the evergreen trees in the primary visual areas, mainly just directly behind the houses and focusing the deciduous trees along the church property boundaries and putting some character in among the evergreen buffer.
These next couple of slides will show the practice that we are looking at for the dry detention basins. This is a picture of a dry detention basin that has a center swale that runs through the basin. The center swale is planted with native flowers and grasses. Since the swale is primarily wet throughout the season we want something to grow all year round and not be a mucky mess with cattails. So, in the center we would have a swale running through and then the edges of the basin would be wild flowers and grasses. This picture was taken just after it was seeded. This picture was taken the next season so you can see how it fills in. The primary focus that we were trying to achieve here was low maintenance and not having to mow this every month. That pretty much sums up the site portion of the property. Do you have any questions? Mr. Shelly is going to go through the building.
Mr. Carlucci said you might point out that the islands in the parking lot, the swales will make it easier to move snow into those areas and there will be less curbing for the snowplows to work around. That was one of the attributes of putting that in there.
Ms. Meyer said basically we put all of the required landscaping in the interior parking lots and combined it all into one area so that there is less snowplow movement.
Mr. Shelly said the next piece we want to show you is a video animation that we used to develop the design of the building. It is a study model that is a fly around of the building. It will give a sense of the massing. I will talk through what the pieces are as we go around the mass and we can also talk about what some of the materials will be. The model that you see here is all gray. By the time we did the model we were not looking at materials. We were just trying to understand what the pieces and parts were.
This is looking directly up Reeves Road. Right into the main entrance of the building you can see the parent drop-off. Following then to the south you can see the gym space mass and the main south entrance. To the west or left of this image you can see the pool and to the right is the gym. You can see the vegetated swale moving through the parking area there. Coming around the west side is the field house and the receiving area and the screening that we mentioned, the music performing arts area and now we are getting into the classroom wings. There are four two-story classroom wings with hipped roofs. Now you are seeing the student bus drop-off median center and you will see two more classroom wings, two-story classroom wings coming around.
Quickly on the floor plan we will start with the fly around that is coming into this main entrance. The blue area represents the administrative/main entrance of the building. Organizationally the way the building lays itself out there is a main commons that runs north/south through the building we have identified what we are calling three pavilions. One is the event pavilion on the south end, the main entrance/auditorium pavilion in the center and then an academic pavilion on the north end anchoring the south center of the north part of the building. The building basically organizes around that spine from north to south. On the north end is the academic wings. I mentioned the two-story classroom wings. Those colors represent the different departments within the school, educational departments. The media center also anchors the north end. Moving south the cafeteria/kitchen spaces are here in the yellow. The orange color is the auditorium and the performing arts spaces, band room, choir rooms. There is a 1000-seat auditorium. I mentioned the blue administrative area and the remaining space is the field house, locker facilities, pool and then the main gym. The main gym will seat 3,500. The pool will seat 500 and the field houses really will seat 200 depending on what you are using it for. There is a lot lower seating capacity in that facility. That is the main level of the building.
The second floor I mentioned the two-story classroom wing and then you have the seating areas of the auditorium and the pool. The total square footage of the building is 440,000 square feet approximate. With the expansion possibilities it will serve 1,600 students and when we are done, it will have the expansion capacity of 2,200 students when the additional classrooms are added, which will be out further in this direction. You saw it on the site plan and on the floor plan there will be another wing.
From a materials standpoint here are some character sketches that we wanted to show you. The board recently reviewed these in December. I wanted to share them with you tonight. The first two images are focusing on the administrative entrance, the main entrance where you can see the character of the building. At least at the main entrance, the flat roof pavilion, two of the pavilions I mentioned would be brick masonry facade with aluminum windows, in this case a metal trim. You begin to see in these images left and right of the administrative entrance the metal roof will be used on the classroom wings and sloped roof areas to provide another material to the facade. This being the main entrance this is the event entrance of the event pavilion and entrance from the south.
The next series of images are really studies of the classrooms. The first one that you are looking at is looking at this facade along the north side of the building. You are really looking straight down the canopy element that brings you into the student parking bus area into what is the academic pavilion beyond, that was the round raised image in the middle. You see a classroom wing to the right, media center to the left and another set of classroom wings extending to the east in this location. The materials that you are beginning to see is the red brick that we are proposing. You can see a classroom wing where the red brick comes up to limestone and then a darker masonry brick that is inset just to provide more relief to the mass of the building and then the metal roof and the three-four foot overhang to develop a roof element. On the end of this element you begin to see a stair tower that exists at each end of the classroom wings.
This is looking at the canopy element at the bus entrance. You are looking due west at this side of this classroom wing with a red brick base and limestone belt and then dark brick above with lower windows a little bit larger and the upper ones a little bit smaller. They are like four foot by seven feet.
You are seeing at the end of this corridor the greenhouse element that exists for the Science Department. This is the opposite side of this same wing. You can see the red brick base, limestone belt with darker brick and a metal roof and then the stair tower at the end of the classroom wing. There are classroom wings here in the middle and an LGI construction space in the middle of those two wings. Agan, the same character using the red brick and the dark brick above. In this case you can see the art room. Because of the function or studio space there is a lot more light needed for those classrooms so we created larger light elements for this to take in that north light.
Here are some interior shots. The left image is the event pavilion. You are actually looking back to the north right as you come into the building from the south side. There are gym space entrances to your right, the pool is to your left. There are concession stands here. There is the field house and fitness areas beyond in this location but again there is a two-story space. A lot of people in this area want to make sure there is a large space. Anchoring the north end of the building the image you are seeing here is the academic pavilion. Again, you will see similar brick. We are using the exterior and bringing it inside, painted drywall to develop this space, again a two-story volume. This being the anchor of that north end there is a lot of student traffic going in and out of this area. They wanted a large space and a lot of natural light coming in from above.
That was a very quick overview of the project to date. I will open it up for questions that you might have.
Mr. Haase asked, what is a field house and a gymnasium?
Mr. Shelly said the way that we are using those terms today the main gymnasium is just that a competition gymnasium. It will seat 3,500 people for an event. It’s focus is basketball most of all. It will have three courts in it for practice but during an event mode it is basketball and volleyball mainly. That is the two things that it will do. The field house is very multi-use. You name the sport. There are four basketball courts, track, batting cages, wrestling mats, there is a wrestling room adjacent, more PE functions. You name the sport and there is activity in the field house. Multi-use is the key and the competition gym is just that.
Mr. Brandgard said you mentioned the total square footage. How much is dedicated to academic and how much to sports?
Mr. Shelly said it is a bit misleading as you look at the floor plan because you can see a large orange area here, which are the athletic type spaces. This is really a PE function. All PE will function out of the field house and classroom wings are two-story. The actual percentages I don’t know that off the top of my head.
Mr. Brandgard said I’m just curious because when you look at that, it looks heavily weighted other than academic.
Mr. Shelly said I just wanted to be clear that those are two-story academic wings. There is a lot more space there. There is another whole set of classrooms on the second level that don’t exist in the gym and at the other end. It can be deceiving that way.
Mr. Brandgard asked, where is the powerhouse? How are you going to heat and cool the building?
Mr. Shelly said the main chiller plant and boiler plant exists right here. Right off of the receiving area are the chillers. They exist inside this masonry wall to the west. That is where the main plant is. Throughout the building there are mezzanines for all of the air handling equipment.
Mr. Brandgard asked, are you using the same type as the high school?
Mr. Shelly said no. At the current high school there is ice storage system. That technology while it made sense then the payback is not what it was then so this is an air-cooled system as opposed to ice.
Mr. Haase said with that in mind we have experienced trouble at our new recreation center with noise.
Mr. Shelly said that is why we definitely talked a lot about what the equipment can do to be more sensitive to that, the way the chillers can stage themselves down and not using them all on or all off. So, that is one thing that we are doing. Another thing we developed a series of buffers.
Mr. Haase said I don’t want to knock your design and I understand but it seems such a shame that we have to put mechanicals and receiving docks right against the one housing addition that sits there.
Mr. Shelly said that is a challenge that exists with buildings today because there is no back. That is the hard part. You have to have a place to receive and you have to have a place for mechanical systems but unfortunately everybody wants the front to be where they are looking.
Mr. Brandgard said I think the real point being made is with the recreation center we learned we have a problem that nobody ever thought about and at least you are thinking about it. I’m not sure we have a solution for it yet.
Mr. Shelly said I understand.
Mr. Carlucci said you really are not getting the scale of the distances back to that housing addition. It is a lot farther. Cinergy has a 50-foot easement to begin with and then they have their back yards and then you have a wall intervening so hopefully we won’t have the same problems.
Mr. Kirchoff said you might clarify where the property actually ends on the east side.
Mr. Shelly said the line that we are looking at entering the site as you cross the bridge, that is the bridge point at that location where the new Reeves Road project ends and the loop road starts. Back to Mr. Carlucci’s comment the easement is from here to here and then you have the berming on this side of Reeves.
Mr. Haase asked, where is the eastern property line?
Mr. Shelly said it’s the creek.
Mr. Haase said she said the wet retention was on the Town’s property.
Mr. Kirchoff said as part of the interlocal agreement the school bought all of that property and then they have given it back to the Town. The west side of the road becomes the right-of-way line. So, everything east of that creek has been deeded to the Town. We will have a trail system go through there.
Mr. Haase said so anything that develops east will have to develop east of the creek.
Mr. Kirchoff said correct.
Mr. Thibo asked, would it be floodplain there?
Mr. Shelly said yes.
Mr. Kirchoff said so we could build a road through there but you couldn’t do any development. That is how we worked together with the school corporation to get that. It is unique that their retention pond is in essence on our property but that was part of the interlocal agreement.
Mr. Haase said it looks like it works.
Mr. Kirchoff said it does work. If you look to the north, Southfield Drive, as you know, we have extended it down to Stanley by the hospital. It is intended to go south from Stanley. It will cross over Stanley and then we would expect as this develops on the east side of the creek that the developer would probably want to run Southfield down to Reeves and perhaps even cross Reeves going south. Which is why we were agreeable to the Red Pride Drive onset because we think Southfield will run between Red Pride Drive and Quaker Boulevard at some point and time as that develops.
Mr. Haase asked, will that Red Pride Drive be opened to the public all of the time?
Mr. Shelly said once the school opens. The current plan is that road will open when the school opens. It will be opened from that point forward.
Mr. Kirchoff said we are looking at a couple of stoplights.
Mr. McGillem said there will be a signal at Hadley and Red Pride Drive. There will also be a signal at the Red Pride Drive and Reeves Road. Of course, there will be a new signal as part of what we are working with INDOT on SR267 at Reeves Road and SR267.
Mr. Belcher said we are not yet sure about Reeves Road and Center Street exactly what that intersection looks like yet. There could possibly be a roundabout, possibly a signal, possibly neither but we are still in the traffic study and design phase on that.
Mr. McPhail said the intent is to not make it convenient for the students to come up that way.
Mr. Belcher said right. The Council and Plan Commission already knew about the pedestrian movements at Hummel Park and the trail at Reeves Road. That was something that we were working on when the school project started looking at this site. We sort of held out to see what was going to happen. Now we are back to looking at the traffic from the school to try to make it all work at the same time.
Mr. Carlucci said just so you don’t think we were sold a bill of goods on that detention pond we actually got to use that pond for the road. We will have our water mixed with their water so that works out pretty well.
Ms. Whicker said on your floor plan where have the technology labs and computer labs been placed?
Mr. Shelly said each department has a dedicated lab for that department within their area so the math classrooms have a math computer lab. Then there are small general labs in the media center of the building. They are distributed throughout.
Ms. Whicker said with many testings being computerized that can be really difficult to utilize that and have enough units available.
Mr. Shelly said another thing that we are looking at is developing technology so that we can bring in a lab with laptops or set up a classroom and bring in the carts and set up a computer room in the classrooms depending on what the needs are.
Mr. Carlucci said using part of the rooms associated with the football field facility, the locker room in that area and the meeting room the school system is renting space for the kids in our system to go to. Using this space you bring them back on campus and be a part of the school system as opposed to taking them off campus and putting them somewhere else off site. So, it gets to be a dual use facility, which may take a little bit of the sting because of controversy about other football fields and the assets that they have.
Mr. Shelly said the locker room facility, concession stand, restrooms for football and outside sports there was a request for a meeting space for those programs but what other opportunities would there be? And the comment Dr. Hollifield threw out was the idea of bringing alternative school back to these meeting rooms. These classrooms can be opened up for a meeting room for football but during the day it is alternative school classrooms so they have a multi-use.
Ms. Whicker asked, define if you could, alternative school?
Mr. Hollifield said basically it could be for students who have previously dropped out of school and have a desire to return. There are some students who don’t succeed in that regular program a lot of us have gone through. So, it is just a program to help those kids to get that one on one type of ratio to get through what they need to get finished. We probably have seven or eight students in our program right now with one full-time teacher.
Ms. Whicker asked, do they still have access to the school facility?
Mr. Hollifield said that all has been worked out because right now those students don’t but what we envision is sharing staff back and forth between the main building and the alternative school. It may be a poor choice of words but it’s like an incubator to help these kids get back on the right track and then get back into the regular building.
Mr. Thibo asked, how many acres are there?
Mr. Shelly said 153 total.
Mr. Thibo asked, how much land is left there?
Mr. Shelly asked, north of Reeves Road?
Mr. Thibo said yes after all of the facilities are in.
Mr. Shelly said there are 15 acres that exist actually up here, which leaves probably another 20 acres so 35 acres. There are a lot of other opportunities there that right now the school corporation just wants to leave open as to what they might do.
Mr. Kirchoff said part of the Yellow Ribbon Task Force was to look at other needs as we go forward. Another elementary or a separate kindergarten center are things that we looked at. That was deemed for the potential site for either a kindergarten center or an elementary.
Mr. Haase said correct me if I’m wrong, but property in Saratoga the school system has said that we don’t want that property anymore.
Mr. Shelly said from what I understand we had an option to purchase that at one time and that option has since expired.
Mr. McPhail said but you have property on Moon Road?
Mr. Shelly said yes. We have 40 acres out on Moon Road.
Mr. Haase said as far as the design and layout of all of this school you have gone to a great extent haven’t you within all of the department heads to get all of their input as to what they are needing and what they have done without?
Mr. Shelly said to date we probably have met with each department chair, twice during schematic design and we still have at least one more session.
Mr. Haase asked, haven’t they been on some tours to newer school facilities?
Mr. Shelly said yes. They looked at performing arts, other auditoriums, pools, etc. to see how they are teaching in newer facilities.
Ms. Whicker asked, what is the classroom capacity size for students?
Mr. Shelly said we designed them to 25 knowing full well that we could probably get more in there. In one study we did if we are at capacity of 1,600, that is based on 25 students per classroom. Bumping that we could get almost 2,000 in there without having to do the additional.
Mr. Hollifield said I’ve been in other school systems before where that wasn’t possible but that is the direction that we are trying to go with at this point.
Mr. Steve Craney said I’m working with Jeff Banning. Mr. Banning and his firm are doing all of the site design work as you may or may not be aware of under contract to Schmidt. We have been very fortunate and have had the opportunity to work with the Schmidt firm. I have worked with a lot of architectural firms over the years and they really have a great program and go about it at the highest level I have seen yet. It has been a rewarding experience and continues to be for us.
The petitioner said we had our second pre-filing meeting today with the staff and Mr. Kirchoff has been kind enough to join us. These have been informative type meetings like we have had with you tonight and also going into a little more in depth detail. A lot of the road design work and intersections have been massaged many times by different consultants. Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem have really gone out of their way to help us keep this process moving along. We really appreciate that. It has been a great team effort and I’m sure Mr. Kirchoff has talked to you about that on occasion. We are looking forward to actually see some dirt move hopefully the latter part of April or the first of May. That is our goal right now.
As far as filing, we are going to meet again with the TAC committee on the 13th of this month for another review session. We are going to also have a quick review like we have had with you tonight with DRC at a meeting I believe the 18th just to bring them up-to-speed so they don’t get cold with this next month. We will file for our PUD and all of our other filings that are necessary on February 3rd and be back before your group on March 6th. We are talking about at this point having a larger facility in the event we would have more people from the neighborhood. Obviously, the notification is going to go out to many, many residents so there is a good possibility that we will have a big turn out that evening and we want to make sure we have enough room. Mr. Carlucci also suggested in the meeting today that we would like to plan on the possibility that if that meeting needs to have additional time and there isn’t time available that evening to have a back-up so to speak or a contingency to continue that meeting to the next week. The reason for that being is timing for us to be able to achieve a start date that was set several months ago and to meet our completion date, which is currently hopefully to be in this facility and operational by January of 2008. So, we want to have everything basically completed in the fall of 2007 so that there can be about two months or plus for moving in. Again, that is the timing. We would get your approval hopefully completed in March. If we need, then we still have your April meeting. We would come before the Council at both of their meetings in April to have the first, second and third readings of the ordinance for approval, thereby, allowing us to hopefully start turning dirt the end of April or the first of May.
We will bid this first package of the site work in March and probably hopefully make an award by the first of April. So, we would maybe have some mobilization on site in April but not actually start physical work until the Council has given final approval.
Mr. McPhail said it seems to me that we ought to plan at this point and time to have a special meeting. If we try to hear this with other items on the agenda, they will get lost and we won’t do a good job for anybody. I think tonight we ought to set a special meeting, if we can.
Mr. Carlucci said I will let the Staff set that meeting time. One concern we had was there is a short turnaround time between the Plan Commission meeting. Our Plan Commission meeting got moved a day in April so it was moved from Monday to Tuesday. At the time we thought this was a great idea and it still is but it cuts the time.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, were you thinking the same week?
Mr. McPhail said or a week early.
Mr. Banning said what we had talked about is if the regular meeting is on the 7th, that we have the regularly scheduled hearing that night, everyone that is on the agenda, offsite probably at Cinergy is what we were talking. And then maybe the following Tuesday, the 15th being the back-up date, if that worked.
Mr. Carlucci said what we were afraid of was if we get back in that April meeting and we finally figure out what we need to do, if that meeting is on a Tuesday, which it is and then at the next Council meeting they have to have everything prepared to accept it. We didn’t want to get caught into that.
Mr. Brandgard said I think let’s see how this flows. This thing deserves its own attention.
Mr. Haase said I think for the community it does.
Mr. Brandgard said it is going to be subject to how they get their documentation together and when they get it together in order to schedule everything.
Mr. Carlucci said we already knew that we would have to move it off site because if one-third of the people show up that they are going to notice, this room can’t handle it.
Mr. Brandgard said I agree but I hate to notice it where we have a lot of things on the agenda and have this last and then continue it to another meeting. I don’t like doing that.
Ms. Whicker asked, how many days notice do you have to post for a public hearing?
Mr. Banning said it is 15 days. So, we need to know a day fairly soon. That is just for mail notice. For the newspaper we even have to get it in before that so we probably need 20 days minimum prior to the meeting so that we know what date and can get that in the newspaper.
Mr. Kirchoff said why don’t we see what night we can set for just our regular meeting and what night Cinergy’s auditorium would be available.
Mr. Brandgard asked, what would be wrong with the regular meeting being the 7th and having this on the 8th or the 9th and schedule it that way?
Mr. Banning said probably the 8th or 10th would be best.
Mr. Kirchoff said we can go ahead and check with Cinergy and if we needed a back-up date, we could continue it like the 15th or 17th.
Mr. McPhail said I would suggest we start at 7:00 instead of 7:30 to get a little quicker start. This is once in a lifetime I think.
Mr. Banning asked, did we decide who was going to determine the date and the facility?
Mr. Kirchoff said the 8th or the 10th is what we are saying, the 8th being our first choice and the 10th being our second choice.
Mr. Haase said it’s fine with me at this point.
Mr. Banning said March 8th or 10th.
Mr. Kirchoff said with a continuation date of Tuesday or Wednesday of the next week.
Mr. Haase said there will be basketball sectionals.
Mr. McGillem said I don’t think the draw will be held until a couple of weeks before.
Mr. Haase said I meant what week is sectionals? I just wanted to put that out there on the table.
Mr. Brandgard said let’s not micro manage this here. We know what the intent is so let’s see what will work out.
Mr. Kirchoff said we also want to work around spring break. We won’t want to hold a hearing on spring break.
Ms. Meyer said the last thing that we want to talk about is the Planned Unit Development. Some of you may know that the property is currently zoned four different zones an R-3 and R-2 and an R-4 along with Agricultural. Instead of going in front of the BZA and requesting lots and lots of variances we opted to draft a PUD. We currently have a draft written. The approach that we are taking on this is basically we are using the Office District as the guideline along with the Gateway Corridor guidelines. We are just drafting the PUD around those guidelines basically just saying we follow everything in this ordinance except for this or we follow everything in the ordinance and above and beyond what you have already set forth. We will be submitting that document for you on February 3 for you to review.
Mr. Haase asked, will staff have a chance to review that prior to that?
Ms. Meyer said actually we just gave Mr. Valanzano a copy of it today.
Mr. Carlucci said we also made a decision that if we do have a new Planning Director, that Mr. Valanzano will start and end with that because I don’t want to break continuity as we go forward.
Ms. Whicker said I commend you for informing the public through the mailings and through the flyers.
Mr. Shelly said Dr. Hollifield and Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Jackson if there is something that needs to be communicated, they are going to do it. We work with a lot of school corporations I can tell you none communicates as much as this one has. No one can say that they don’t know about it that is for sure.
Mr. Kirchoff said we have had conversations with the school staff about this spring as we go forward to really work hard on some communication pieces. Some night when we have some time we really need to have Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem to paint for you the picture of what this means to us from the transportation standpoint and the impact on that whole area. It is major. You just can’t believe all that is going on in the next couple of years to get us ready to do that. This is not the time to do it but when we can, we really ought to do that. The Council has been pretty much apprised but I think it would be helpful for the Plan Commission to understand.
Mr. McGillem said if you haven’t found your way from Stafford Road to the new interchange, you better between now and next year.
Mr. Haase said SR267 will be done when this opens.
Mr. Brandgard said about the same time.
Mr. McPhail said we have a new INDOT commissioner coming on board and I think things are going to be better.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would ask Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem when they think it is appropriate, to put something together and give it to us and make a presentation. You all need to have an appreciation for what is coming.
Mr. Belcher said we will watch the agenda and we will bring it in.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. McPhail made a motion to adjourn. Second by Mr. Thibo. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
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Mr. Mitchell P. Haase, President
