The Plainfield Plan Commission met on Monday, February 2, 2004. In attendance were Mr. McPhail, Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Cavanaugh, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. Haase.
ROLL CALL/DETERMINATION OF QUORUM
Mr. Carlucci administered the roll call.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to approve the January 5, 2004 minutes of the Plainfield Plan Commission meeting as submitted. Second by Mr. Brandgard. Motion carried.
Mr. Kirchoff abstained since he was not a member of the Plan Commission at that point and time.
Mr. Haase said and with that said Mr. Kirchoff I would like to welcome you to the board of the Plainfield Plan Commission. I look forward to a lot of good input.
OATH OF TESTIMONY
Mr. Daniel administered the Oath of Testimony.
PETITIONS OR PUBLIC HEARINGS
Mr. Haase reviewed the Guidelines Governing the Conduct of Public Hearings. Before we begin tonight’s public hearings do we have any requests for continuances?
Mr. Higbee said I would like to make you aware of one last minute continuance request for ILP-03-064, American Mattress ground sign request. I found out today that they had failed to send out their legal notice. At the previous hearing they also asked for a continuance because they were still working on the design of the sign. I came to find out today that they had forgotten to send out their legal notice. So, they are asking for another continuance to March 1.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone in the audience to speak on that? Being no one coming forward is there a motion to grant the continuance?
Mr. McPhail made a motion to continue ILP-03-064, American Mattress until the March Plan Commission meeting. Second by Mr. Cavanaugh. Motion carried.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone else in the audience who would care to request for a continuance on any of the remaining four public hearings? Being no one coming forward we will begin with RZ-04-001, the Bishop property.
Mr. Higbee said as you will recall at the last meeting, the Plan Commission recommended rezoning for the major part of the Bishop parcel, as I refer to it, in your Staff Report tonight. That parcel was a little over 60 acres in total, however, a 9.47 acre portion of that 60 plus acres was excluded only because of the way the legal notice went out for the original rezoning. You will recall that the 9.47 acre parcel was discussed at the previous hearing as the parcel on the south portion of the site. It contains the drainage area. It would be a portion of the area recommended to go to General Commercial, if you recommend approval for the rezoning tonight.
Since it was fully discussed at the last hearing I’m not going to add any more comments unless you have questions for me at this time.
I would like to hand out one thing. I referred to part of your minutes from the last hearing just to give you a refresher on the motion that you made last month in case that was of interest to
anybody. I wasn’t sure I actually attached it to your report so I’m going to hand that out. If you wish, you could duplicate the same commitments as part of your motion tonight since those commitments apply to the 51 plus acres that you recommended approval for the last time.
Mr. Haase asked, would the petitioner like to step forward. Do you have anything to say?
Mr. Carmosino said I have nothing to add. It is pretty straightforward.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to speak either for or against this matter? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing and the Chair would accept a motion.
Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to certify the zone map amendment request of RZ-04-001 rezoning approximately 9.47 acres from AG to GC to the Town Council with a favorable recommendation subject to the following conditions:
Owner shall reserve adequate right-of-way for a planned INDOT collector-distributor road paralleling I-70 and shall accommodate this with a site design that conforms to Town ordinances and standards unless INDOT indicates in writing that such roadway is not required. This commitment shall not bind INDOT to acquire such real estate within any specific period of time.
Owner shall not petition nor allow others to petition for the development of real estate which must rely on access from the real estate to Hadley Road until an access easement has been recorded across abutting land and through Plainfield Business Park as necessary to provide such access in conformance with the traffic study.
Owner shall enter into an agreement with the Town Council regarding the schedule, extent and level of participation in the identified improvements to Hadley and Clarks Creek Road per the traffic study and subsequent Town traffic consultant’s comments dated 12/22/03 prior to the earlier of the development plan approval or improvement location permit approval.
The west facade of any industrial building oriented toward the GC portion of the real estate shall include substantial architectural treatments more in keeping with an office or commercial development rather than a typical side elevation of an industrial warehouse development.
The south facing docks of any industrial building on the real estate shall be screened by a level of landscaping which adds a plant unit value of at least four to any plant unit value otherwise required by the ordinance or development incentives.
Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – absent
Mr. Matrana – absent
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Cavanaugh – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 2-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Haase said next will be DP-03-027, the William Sodrel Commercial Development.
Mr. Higbee said this is an Architectural Review request for a parcel near a Gateway Corridor, Six Points Road and U.S. 40. And also it is near a Residential District. This is sort of the first parcel that presents itself as you turn off onto CR251, if you are familiar with that area out on the far east side. It is a 1.25 acre parcel that we have been talking to Mr. Sodrel about for probably over a year. It has had some activity recently. It went to the Board of Zoning Appeals not long ago with many variance requests, which were denied. However, what they have done since that time is redesigned it and this is the redesign that you have in front of you tonight. There is also a pending new variance request that is different than the variance request that was denied recently. Variances are going to be requested on this site because of the triple road frontage. It is not unusual for a double or triple frontage site to request at least some variances. You add that to the fact that it was only 1.25 acres to begin with and you have a site that is challenged for development. So, I have noted under the Board of Zoning Appeals’ portion of this report on page 2 what all of the variances are.
Essentially, what they have to do is reduce some of their setbacks and reduce some of their landscaping in order to be able to get everything fit in the parking area and the building. What they have done since their recent denial at the Board of Zoning Appeals, however, is really substantial to improve those setbacks. They have pulled the building back to a full 30 feet from CR251 where it was originally 17 feet away, etc. They have pulled it over a little bit so it has the right side setback. But the parking area is still challenged with some reduced setbacks and there is a somewhat lesser level of landscaping than normally would be required by the ordinance.
There is a need, if you were going to consider approval of this request tonight, for a waiver on building materials. Because it is on a Gateway Corridor, as you know, there are requirements for the type of building materials and amounts and variety of the building materials. That is what we call Architectural Review requirements. In this case the requirement that the primary material on the building facade visible from the Gateway Corridor be at least 60% brick or dryvit or EIFS, they call it, is not met. You have a brick wainscot and a metal structure and then there is some EIFS there too. But it doesn’t meet the requirements for 60%. We are talking about the west facade that faces what will be the new north/south corridor probably 300 feet away. It’s very close to Six Points Road today but the new north/south corridor will lie a few hundred feet west of there.
Mr. Haase asked, is there the likelihood though that there will be development between this building and the north/south corridor?
Mr. Higbee said I’m honestly not sure about that at this point and time.
Mr. Carlucci said between the existing Six Points Road and the new north/south corridor there will be room in there. With that old U.S. 40 cut off there is land just south of that road that can be developed but that is farther to the west of that development. I don’t know if there is anymore railroad right-of-way that can be developed out there.
Mr. Haase said I was just thinking between the north/south corridor and this development is there developable land?
Mr. Higbee said I’m not sure if there is enough there to provide an intervening site that would shield this from view from the corridor. There is some land south, as you were mentioning, but this would have to be on the other side I think. So, if you choose to consider approval, as proposed, and you have the building elevations in your packet, you would have to grant a waiver of the Architectural Review requirement for building materials.
Before it went to the Board of Zoning Appeals with all of the variances that were denied the Design Review Committee reviewed the request and they recommended approval. That is for the Plan Commission. There has been a lot of discussion about whether BZA needs to see DRC items. So, that really wasn’t relevant to BZA but it is relevant to you. They had made the request before these changes were made. These changes were only positive. They added some landscaping, etc. And the building design is essentially the same except they have shrunk the size of the building. Before it was upwards of I think 10,000 square feet and now it is less than 10,000 square feet. So, you can see the building size on your site plan. That is one of the things that allowed them to increase their setbacks was that they shrunk the size of the building. So, it was my feeling that this didn’t have to go back to the Design Review Committee again since they had seen the previous project. And from the standpoint of what they normally comment on it was pretty much the same. So, I didn’t take it back to them a second time.
Mr. Carlucci asked, did you say that they recommended approval?
Mr. Higbee said yes they recommended approval the first time. I didn’t feel that we needed to take it back a second time because all they did was add landscaping and shrunk the size of the building and maintained essentially the same design.
On page 4 of the Staff Report I do have an error under your motion. I mention that we need a complying dumpster enclosure plan but actually there is one in the packet. So, if you just want to strike the comment where it says complying dumpster enclosure plan, we are okay on that item. And I would answer any questions that you would have.
Mr. McPhail said I have a technical question. If I’m looking at this building path properly we have an office building that is in front of a garage building. Technically, when you look at that west facade, are you looking at the office building or all of that?
Mr. Higbee said I’m looking at everything in two dimensions. So, yes I’m looking at the garage behind the office building too.
Mr. McPhail said the only graphs that we are looking at is the percentage of difference of material, is that correct?
Mr. Higbee said the only waiver for tonight’s hearing would be the building materials just on that one facade. The other three facades would not be visible from a Gateway Corridor.
Mr. Carlucci said previously they brought the petition to the BZA first and then they were going to come to the Plan Commission. We have a pretty independent Board of Zoning Appeals so I doubt whatever is done here will have that much influence on them. But typically we don’t like to have the Plan Commission say okay go ahead as long as the BZA approves it. That tends to put pressure on the BZA to approve it. I was just wondering why they came here first.
Mr. Higbee said it was sort of me trying to help them out a little bit. This one has had such a long life and has been through multiple continuances and BZA denial and so forth. I felt like they had made substantial changes in response to the BZA’s requests. We don’t know for sure if BZA will recommend a granting of those variances but certainly they have made substantial changes. Rather then knock them off this docket and kick them into the future again to another Plan Commission I just thought it might be more expedient to leave them on this agenda and let you hear them with possibly a condition that it could be subject to BZA approval. If you feel like you want to do it the other way, that is typically what I recommend to people, that they try to get their variances first. It is only because of the way this has been happening on this particular project that I let them come in this way. But if you feel that way, you could continue the case and let BZA hear it and bring it back later.
Mr. McPhail said I guess I’m a little confused. What do they need to get a BZA variance for?
Mr. Higbee said there are a whole bunch of variances. I believe the variances are lesser in degree than what was recently denied. But on page 2 near the bottom there is a list of items one through seven. It is essentially in a nutshell reductions in landscaping and reductions in some of the setbacks. And then they are placing a dumpster in front of the building. But again even though there are a lot of variances several of the variances are smaller in degree than the original request.
Mr. McPhail said this is a unique site plan. You have two roads.
Mr. Higbee said this has three fronts on it unfortunately.
Mr. Haase said I had conversations with Mr. Belcher. I don’t know what your conclusion was about closing the old State Road 40, which actually it looks like he owns. If you look at one of the renderings, he actually owns that corner of SR40, he being Mr. Sodrel. His property line goes to the north side on U.S. 40. That is his property line. Mr. Belcher I guess it wasn’t anything that the Council wanted to do?
Mr. Belcher said I didn’t bring it forward because mainly the north/south corridor plans are actually showing cutting off Six Points at U.S. 40, the current Six Points Road. There is a potential problem there that I didn’t anticipate. There could be ways to solve that but it would involve other property owners down CR251. If we could get another street punched through there somewhere, it would solve that problem. I think it may be premature. You might want to do that in the future once we see how that project turns out, the north/south corridor. But as it is now, we might cause ourselves real problems with some of the residents in that area.
Mr. Haase said I wouldn’t have anticipated closing Six Points at U.S. 40.
Mr. Belcher said I didn’t either when we talked about it before. I think that is something that they are still working on. The plans I have now show it basically being a guardrail across there.
Mr. Haase said it is just too close to the north/south corridor and U.S. 40 interchange.
Mr. Belcher said I think that is it. So, that changes the dynamics of the whole area.
Mr. McPhail asked, are they going to wipe out old U.S. 40 too? Is it going to dead end?
Mr. Belcher said there is a utility there. It turns south along Six Points and then it goes way south to get back onto the corridor north.
Mr. Haase asked, does the plans show Six Points also being closed on the north side of U.S. 40?
Mr. Belcher said yes.
Mr. Carlucci said that may or may not stay that way.
Mr. Belcher said maybe they put that on there as the most restrictive approach just to see how it would be received and then they may change it. At the last meeting that we had they stopped the north/south corridor at the south side of U.S. 40. We advised them and the State basically said, no we aren’t going to do that. You have to punch it through U.S. 40 and make a complete intersection on both sides and then tie it back in north of U.S. 40 to Six Points. So, that is a big improvement. So, maybe when they get done with that, it will change but I don’t have those plans.
Mr. Haase said I appreciate you checking into it.
Mr. Carlucci said basically you have a remnant piece of road right-of-way. I’m assuming that the tract runs right down the middle of that grassy area where the building was at one time. That is what they are trying to put a building back on is on that remnant piece of old railroad right-of-way. Thus the nature of all of the waivers and variances that they are going to need to make it work, at a minimum make it work.
Mr. Haase said if a waiver was not something that we were willing to grant on the building materials on the west end, would that section of the motion be left unstated?
Mr. Higbee said yes. You could just strike all of that language. There are findings at the end for a waiver at the very bottom. You could just strike those. At the top of your motion where it refers to the plans you would probably say something about the materials, that you are not maybe specifically granting a waiver, just to be clear.
Mr. Haase said I don’t know that is going to happen but that may be something that the board wants to look at. Is there anything the petitioner would like to add?
The petitioner said no.
Mr. Haase asked, when is this going to the BZA?
Mr. Higbee said coming up at the next hearing.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone in the audience that would care to speak on this matter? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing. If there are any questions from the board members, please state them. If not, the chair would accept a motion to act on this public hearing.
Mr. Cavanaugh said on the note that Mr. Higbee referred to regarding the dumpster enclosure plan it also noted the lighting plan. I don’t believe that we have received the lighting plan have we?
Mr. Higbee said no we have not.
Mr. Carlucci asked, would they have to come back here for that?
Mr. Higbee said probably not back here but they would need to before they put any lighting in amend their plan to include that. I could probably do that administratively depending on what level of lighting we are talking about. I would not anticipate a lot of lighting for a site this size. So, it should be administrative.
Mr. Haase asked, do you know the percentage of brick on the west end or EIFS?
Mr. Higbee said a lot of times we do ask them to provide a calculation and we didn’t do that in this case. I think we just kind of eyeballed it. I think it is probably not very close to the 60% requirement.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are you talking about just the west facing ones? You aren’t talking about the north/south walls of that, is that correct?
Mr. Higbee said we are talking about anything that you would see as you stand on the west side of the building and look straight on. So, it would include the garage, the west facade of the garage. But it wouldn’t include the north, south or east facades of the building.
Mr. Carlucci asked, does the BZA have to make a determination or vote to bring this back within the time frame of when you can reapply for a variance?
Mr. Higbee said they have actually already done that. They have granted the request to come back early at a previous hearing and that is why it was docketed.
Mr. Carlucci asked, if it was substantially different?
Mr. Higbee said right.
Mr. Carlucci said so you made the determination that it was substantially different.
Mr. Higbee said yes.
Mr. McPhail said on the north side of U.S. 40 between Six Points and going east probably 1,000 feet that isn’t a wetland is it? I don’t know if that is a natural wetland or not.
Mr. Haase said I think it is the old railroad swale that has been blocked up by dirt being flattened out in some areas and in some areas the swale still exists. So, it has a lot of water in some of that area actually I guess you would say east of this property line.
Mr. McPhail said it is pretty rough looking.
Mr. Haase said it is very rough looking.
Mr. McPhail said I’m assuming that belongs to the property that frontages on U.S. 40 and backs up to the old U.S. 40.
Mr. Haase said I’m talking on the south side of old U.S. 40 and not on the north side. The north side is not quite as rough. There is an old empty house there.
Mr. McPhail said but it is pretty rough too isn’t it?
Mr. Higbee said the Clover Hotel is up there in that area I believe.
Mr. Haase said the northeast corner of old U.S. 40 and Six Points is pretty rough. I would have to honestly say what he is doing here is going to the nicest looking building out there. There is no question about that. I don’t really believe it would cost him that much or take that much to get that west end up to 60%. I think he is probably about at 45% with that unit setting out there. I don’t think he is that far from it. I would have to say that I would not be in favor of granting the waiver on the building materials in the position that this building is going to set. However that statement would fly the Chair would accept a motion.
Mr. Cavanaugh said I would like to balance that comment. At DRC I think we didn’t do the measurement but visually I don’t think this plan has changed any on the west elevation has it Mr. Higbee?
Mr. Higbee said no it probably is the same. I think they shrunk the elevation a little bit but the proportions all shrunk equivalently so it should be the same.
Mr. Cavanaugh said we were kind of looking at the integration of the two types of building, if you will and that the office building in itself being all EIFS and brick stood alone as a fairly good entity. And the blending of that in with the metal building behind it didn’t necessarily, if we would have requested additional materials on just that facade of the metal building, increase the appearance of the overall structure. For instance, I’m not saying that they should or shouldn’t, but if they, for instance, extended the brick with wainscot across either one of those edges, it would certainly probably bring it in to full compliance. It didn’t in our opinion significantly upgrade that whole metal building there.
Mr. Haase said not a lot and I agree and considered that but the only reason that I was saying what I was saying is we do have those rules in place at the Town. It’s not that big of deal to do this so to further make sure that those policies are followed in the Town for him to put that brick there would bring it that much closer to what the Town is really striving for in their ordinances.
Mr. Cavanaugh said I agree. I think there are limitations on this site to make it very difficult to develop that are outside the developer’s control. This is not one of them though.
Mr. Haase said right and he will be going for several variances and if he would spruce up that west end, there would be a little of that give and take.
Mr. McPhail said if I’m looking at this drawing right, it is only 15 feet of each side of the office, is that correct?
Mr. Higbee said I gave you each a packet of the ordinance amendments that we are going to be talking about over the next couple of months. I believe one of the proposed changes in the overall package for Architectural Review would be to reduce the EIFS/brick requirement from 60% to 50% for the future. We have had a lot of instances where people have come up with something close where we have been willing to grant waivers. So, our experience has been that 50% could work pretty well. When we get to discussing ordinance amendments, that might be something that you are going to pass in the near future.
Mr. Cavanaugh said I would like to take a quick response at that idea because many of the ones that we have asked a waiver of the building materials have been fairly close. I think the balance of the decision has been made on would the additional materials enhance the overall appearance of that particular structure? We have seen many varieties and you have seen them also. Sometimes that would be true that the additional materials would enhance it and at other times it wouldn’t. It might actually detract from the balance. So, I think each one stands alone in that respect.
With that said I would move to approve DP-02-027 subject to the following conditions: Please note that this approval does not include an approval of the requested building material waiver.
Substantial compliance with the site and landscape plan file dated 1/23/04.
A complying lighting plan shall be provided to Staff for approval.
A color and materials palette shall be provided to Staff for approval.
This approval will be subject to the approval of the variances from the BZA hearing.
And regarding development within 600 feet of a Gateway Corridor finding that,
The Development Plan will comply with all applicable Development Standards of the district which the site is located.
The Development Plan will comply with all applicable provisions of the Subdivision Control Ordinance for which a waiver has not been granted.
The Development Plan will comply with all applicable provisions for Architectural 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 the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance.
And regarding development within 600 feet of a Residential District that:
The proposed development represents a use of site design features which will enhance the use or value of area properties.
The proposed development is consistent with and compatible with development located in the vicinity and with the use and development of Residential Districts located within six-hundred (600) feet.
The proposed development is consistent with the intent and purpose of the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance.
Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – absent
Mr. Matrana – absent
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Cavanaugh – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 2-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Haase said the next item would be ILP-03-068 for Premier Properties.
Mr. Higbee said this is an Architectural Review request for a sign that has been existing on Main Street in front of what was formerly called the Plainfield Shops. It is now called Metropolis, which you might have noticed has already been redesigned or developed into another sign for J.C. Penney. This one also had been to the Board of Zoning Appeals at the last hearing and was granted several variances in order to permit the sign.
Mr. Haase said it was a temporary variance with a two-year time limit on it.
Mr. Higbee said that is right and that is stated on page 2 of your Staff Report through 12/31/05. Several variances were granted. The reason being because this was an older sign that existed before the 8
ordinance. It didn’t meet all of the requirements in today’s ordinance. That’s number one and number two there is another wrinkle that arised from the fact that when Plainfield Shops was torn down, that sign was standing there without any building associated with it. Our Zoning Ordinance has a clause in it that says when you tear down a primary building, the signs for that have to be torn down with it. So, that gave rise to a variance right there all by itself. Even if it wasn’t too large and didn’t have any of the other issues that it had, there would have been that variance request. So, they went to the BZA and requested variances for size and for setback and landscape area and also for the fact that it’s not even supposed to exist because it should have been torn down. So, that is all talked about in your Staff Report.
The Design Review Committee looked at the sign and recommended approval as a temporary sign and also commented that this design would not be what they would anticipate for this mall. There was always an understanding that the Metropolis PUD, which originally went in as the Plainfield Marketplace, would have a uniformed sign package for the entire PUD. It would come in maybe in the second phase of the PUD, which we haven’t seen yet. So, this sign kind of snuck in there by itself. So, what DRC said is that we encourage the filing of the overall sign package as soon as possible. The BZA was silent on whether or not that sign package has to be filed. They simply said we will let you have the sign temporarily until the end of 2005.
The motion at the end of your Staff Report more reflects the kind of philosophy that DRC said because DRC is the recommending body to the Plan Commission. That is all that I have.
Mr. Haase asked, does the petitioner have anything to add?
The petitioner said I have nothing further to add.
Mr. Haase asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to speak on this matter? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing. If there is any discussion among the board members, please state those at this time. If not, we will accept a motion.
Mr. McPhail said I have a procedural question. If they have the BZA approval and the sign can be there for two years, why are we looking at it?
Mr. Higbee said because all new signs require Architectural Review approval under the ordinance. And the fact that this sign isn’t supposed to exist in the first place makes it a new sign as far as I’m concerned. So, it still requires Architectural Review. It is no different than if Andy Mohr Chevrolet came in for a pole sign, which isn’t permitted. He would require both Architectural Review as a new sign and it would require a variance because a pole sign is not permitted. This requires both Architectural Review and some variances because it in effect is a new sign since it was supposed to have been torn down and they came in and remodeled it.
Mr. Haase said I think it is since it went with the strip of buildings that was torn down.
Mr. McPhail said I understand that.
Mr. Carlucci said the BZA isn’t concerned with the Architectural Review part because that’s not for them to decide.
Mr. McPhail said so they just gave them a variance to put a sign there.
Mr. Carlucci said they didn’t want the Design Review Committee’s input on it either because that is not a variance to them. So, technically the BZA could approve the variance and you could deny it just like you could with Mr. Sodrel. You could deny his development plan approval just like you could deny this.
Mr. McPhail said whatever we approve it’s only good for two years, is that correct?
Mr. Brandgard said yes.
Mr. Cavanaugh asked, Mr. Higbee do you have any indication on when they might have the overall PUD sign package available?
Mr. Higbee said no. They have been rather quiet on that recently so I’m not sure where that is.
Mr. Haase said I think they said at the BZA meeting that it has been put on the backburner because of the development and who is coming in. They haven’t quite tied those down with leases yet. So, I think they are waiting for another anchor to be signed before they kind of come forth with the sign package. I don’t want to speak for the petitioner but he is out there shaking his head up and down.
Mr. Cavanaugh said we are asked to provide a timeframe for the overall PUD submittal for signage and I’m thinking that we might want to have some discussion on that. If this sign is allowed right now has a two-year life span with the variance and with the challenges that the developer is going to have to get everything populated out there perhaps to have that second anchor that fosters the development of the overall plan, I would not be opposed to having the two-year time limit set up for the overall submittal. It seems awfully long.
Mr. Haase said I would probably shorten that to 18 months total so that the sign package can come in before the variance runs out. That still seems like plenty of time. So, I agree with your statement.
Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to approve ILP-03-068 subject to the following conditions:
Substantial compliance with the site plan, sign location, sign landscape plan and sign elevation and rendering submitted file dated 12/5/03.
The approval is for a temporary sign. The sign shall be replaced with the overall sign package for the PUD.
Filing of the overall sign package for the PUD shall occur no later than 07/01/05.
Finding that:
The proposed sign would meet the development standards of the Plainfield Marketplace PUD now known as Metropolis.
Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – absent
Mr. Matrana – absent
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Cavanaugh – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 2-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Haase said next we will go on with ILP-03-070, Stoops Buick.
Mr. Higbee said this is a site on SR267 that requires Architectural Review for a new freestanding sign, in this case a pylon sign. It is actually a good answer to Mr. McPhail’s earlier question. It also requires variances and Architectural Review just like the previous sign did. The Stoops Buick site down on SR267 is a little over six acres but it is an area that was platted as a series of outlots. So, the Stoops Buick site would be considered a large outlot of the subdivision out there. The Zoning Ordinance has different sign allowances for outlots verses what we call a single use site. Single use sites generally speaking allow slightly larger bigger and sometimes different types of signs than are permitted on an outlot.
If you go to table “A” on page 2 of your Staff Report, it shows that an outlot is permitted a 48 square foot ground sign and six foot in height where what is being proposed, and you have in your packages a colored rendering, a 100 square foot pylon sign and 20 feet in height. That sign would be oriented to SR267. Again, because it is an outlot that does require variances and it will go before the BZA for those. Having said that some of the car dealers in Town on Main Street have pole signs and they had to get variances in order to have those pole signs.
The Design Review Committee reviewed this and there were two different types of signs shown. One of them is the pedestal style sign that you have in your packet and the other was a more just of a rectangular pylon going straight down to the ground. But the problem with the second design, the rectangular pylon, is that it was too large. It exceeds even what would normally be permitted if a pylon sign was permitted on a single use site. DRC recommended approval of only the pedestal style sign that you have in your packet. I think the petitioner is fine with that because they didn’t show up for the hearing tonight. DRC recommended approval of the sign before knowing that variances would be required.
I also pointed out that wall signs had not been approved yet for the site. They showed us conceptually when they came in for the Stoops Buick building what some of the wall signs could look like and how many facades might have signs, etc. But they had not shown us freestanding signs at that point and time.
One of the ordinance requirements for an outlot is if you have a freestanding sign on an outlot, only two building facades can have wall signs, maximum. Their plan has building wall signs on three facades currently conceptually although they have not actually turned in a request for it. So, they are now mulling over whether they want to eliminate a wall sign on one facade or they want to add to their variance request that they are going to have to have for their freestanding sign anyway. So, I have made that clear to them.
Mr. Carlucci said when the Ford dealership went in, the BZA did agree to put that out there because there were signs that would come down in other places. They had two signs on their property taken down in exchange for a different sign. The BZA thought that was a good idea. Is there anything on the existing Stoops’ property that they could trade?
Mr. Higbee said I know that there is at least one freestanding sign there today if not two. I don’t recall whether there is a second one. They are pole signs. I don’t know if the square footage was larger than that or not but I know that there is at least one pole sign, if not two, on the East Main Street site. And there is nothing in this report that refers to that but there have been cases where you have done a tradeoff and said we will do a one for one or two for one or something like that.
Mr. Carlucci said well you don’t get too much for a one for one. Ford got rid of not only the sign where their old Ford sign was at but the billboard sign, which was a “V” shape sign that they took down. So, it was a two for one trade. A one for one trade doesn’t gain you much. That ought to be a big consideration for allowing that corridor, the SR267 corridor, to have a sign that size. As we go forward with the variance, I know it is going to be an issue that something be traded off. Again, the hardest thing for Staff is they bring one sign in but they still have their wall package. This keeps bopping back and forth and back and forth. I don’t think this building is going to be up tomorrow. So, this is another situation where they come in for Development Plan approval when they really ought to be getting the variance first before this board even looks at it. Maybe at that time they can make some decisions on their wall signs. I think they are getting the cart before the horse again. I’m not asking the Plan Commission to do anything. I just think it is easier to go to the BZA and then maybe the Plan Commission has an easier decision to make if they know there was some trade made on a couple of their signs. It may influence whether you decide to do this or not later. You are giving Development Plan approval for a sign that you don’t know if there is any trade to be had later on.
Mr. Haase said that is a good point but I also think the entire sign package for this building is probably something that is more appropriate to look at than just one sign.
Mr. Carlucci said it just makes more hearings and more Staff time for everybody.
Mr. McPhail said I’m concerned about setting a precedent along this corridor. And I’m not at all convinced that this big sign is going to make any difference. You are going to see the building. You are going to see the lights. You are going to see that dealership before you ever see this sign anyway. I’m really concerned that if we allow this huge sign to go in along that corridor, are we going to set a precedent of what we are going to approve in the future for other types of businesses? I don’t know that we have anything but monument signs up through there since this ordinance has been adopted.
Mr. Carlucci said Lincoln Bank has a sign issue coming up diagonally across the street. So, what you do here is going to have an impact on how you do the rest of that corridor.
Mr. Brandgard said even with the monument sign with the name of Airwest is a ground sign and not anything up in the air. I think that was part of the consideration that we were doing along there at the time even with the developer.
Mr. Haase said Mr. McNaught worked long and hard to figure out a sign to put there. I remember he had several renditions. It took a couple of years to get what he wanted there. I know that all of the preexisting major line of automobile dealers in the Town of Plainfield have been granted variances to have their pole signs. Ford took the one down at the Ford dealership and put one up and the Chrysler dealership did also. Some of these dealers tell you that General Motors actually owns that sign and not the dealer. I don’t know what the issue is here.
Mr. Brandgard said in that regard even at that they will design a sign to fit the ordinance and we were lied to on the one side.
Mr. Haase said my point about who owns it goes back to the Buick people may not have any control about taking that sign down at its current location because they may not own that sign. They may merely own the face panels in that sign and the landowner, which they lease off of, owns that sign.
Mr. Brandgard said that could be.
Mr. Haase said so they may not have any control over that sign. I understand that Ford owns the Ford’s signs and the Chrysler dealer owns both his parcels so he did have control over that. So, the Buick dealership may not have any control over those signs.
Mr. Carlucci asked, is that still owned by Tom Costin?
Mr. Haase said yes.
Mr. Brandgard said my understanding is when the Buick dealer moves from that site, the Mazda dealer, who is the old Ford dealership, is going to move to that site.
Mr. Haase said I have a question for Mr. Cavanaugh. Did you sit in on the DRC on this?
Mr. Cavanaugh said yes.
Mr. Haase said with everything to do with signs the only question that I can ask is why did the DRC recommend approval of this?
Mr. Cavanaugh said we thought with the overall aesthetic quality of the sign advertising Stoops Buick that it was an appropriate sign design wise, color wise, illumination, landscaping plan, location on the site plan, that it was an appropriate sign. We are aware of the variance issues but as we had some discussion on two distinct issues, architecturally and aesthetically, we thought the sign is acceptable. Not making a statement about size, which requires a variance and so forth, it does have to be fairly detailed in how you approach it because we know it is a sign that doesn’t meet the ordinance. But if it would be allowed to have a variance, then we were a little bit ahead of the game. We felt architecturally and aesthetically it is an appropriate sign for the area. It is simple. It advertises what is there so we didn’t have a problem with it aesthetically.
Mr. Kirchoff said the two thoughts that I would have is we have other dealerships that have signs. To be fair to a dealer who is building a new building we need to give him some way to have advertising there. With that said I think Mr. Carlucci makes a good point. I would like to see the total sign package for the site before signing off on a sign.
Mr. Haase said I think that is paramount.
Mr. Brandgard said just as a thought in regard to what the other dealerships have that is somewhat important but in this case it is not because this is not on the same row and does not compete. It competes with them but it doesn’t compete directly because they are not next door to each other. So, the signage being the same doesn’t have any real bearing.
Mr. Kirchoff said if I was in his shoes, I would say Andy Mohr gets a sign, etc.
Mr. Haase said Andy Mohr has a sign; the Chrysler people have a sign and the question comes up when you say Andy Mohr, is there going to be a request for a Chevy sign?
Mr. Higbee said they have never told us. I’m kind of surprised that we haven’t heard anything yet on that.
Mr. Carlucci said I imagine they will be in here. It is just logical. Why wouldn’t they?
Mr. Higbee said they have a single use site so they can have somewhat of a larger sign than an outlot can but still my guess is they will come in for a variance.
Mr. Haase said I would think that we should probably continue this as opposed to denying it. If I was going to continue it, I would probably continue it to the April or May meeting and give everybody plenty of time.
Mr. Carlucci said you might want to include seeing the whole sign package.
Mr. Brandgard said relative to the whole sign package, as I recall, the approval on that the building had numerous signs indicating what it was but it is an integrated thing.
Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to continue ILP-03-070 to the May meeting of the Plainfield Plan Commission.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do we want to put any conditions on that?
Mr. Haase said I don’t personally think we probably should myself. I think we just should continue what we have here but I think we need to talk to Staff with what we are looking for. Second by Mr. Kirchoff.
Mr. McPhail asked, would you restate the motion?
Mr. Haase said the motion is to continue ILP-03-070 to the May meeting of the Plainfield Plan Commission. We had a motion and a second. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Thibo – absent
Mr. Matrana – absent
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Cavanaugh – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Haase – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 2-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Cavanaugh said since that part is finished I think you raised an excellent point there. We are setting a precedent for development out here on the Gateway Corridor because this is one of the first ones that we are really going to have that has requested this type of
signage. So, I think it is important that we all pay close attention to them coming back with an overall package. I hope people do that.
Mr. Kirchoff said I assume that we will advise Staff to work with them.
OLD BUSINESS/NEW BUSINESS
MINOR AMENDMENT
Mr. Higbee said I’m passing around a minor amendment approval for First National Bank of Cloverdale. They are proposing to add an ATM drive-thru to the rear of the building, which has been approved previously and is now under construction. You will recall on the south end of the site there is an existing ATM facility that had been there from the time that it was Bank One. And that continued to operate after First National Bank of Cloverdale put a temporary trailer on the site. Their new plan is to completely demolish the existing ATM facility on the south end and then attach something similar to the actual building, which is actually what we wanted when they first came in. We suggested why not put the ATM on the back of the building? At that time they didn’t want to do that and then they changed their mind and they are back with a request.
As the memo states, I’m permitted to authorize and approve a minor amendment and just report it to you. It doesn’t require any action by you unless you have a desire to appeal my approval. So, the approval is effective as of today and then I put two conditions on the approval. One, that they would provide a landscape plan and the second that they would stay out of the alley. I will show you what alley I’m talking about. You will see part of a site plan. I couldn’t get it all in your packet but there is a copy of the site plan and you have about 80% or 90% of it on your copy. There is the north/south alley that comes down from Main Street going to the south. We have talked through the Town Center planning process that this area here would probably be a pedestrian access back in there to get people to the parking area. We are doing that in other areas of the Town Center along Main Street as well to really go with the idea that parking eventually probably won’t continue on Main Street. So, we are wanting people to have a really good access back into these areas. But what you see here is the drive-thru access. This is the canopy that I’m talking about. They have two ways to getting to it. They can come into the site off of Vine Street and come up here through the interior or swing out into this alley and come over. My question to them was do you really need to be in this alley because you have effectively taken over a public right-of-way and made it part of your internal site development. I didn’t think that was appropriate especially with the discussions that we had with the Town Center Plan. I mentioned it to their engineer and he felt comfortable telling me that he would be willing to accept a minor amendment approval, which eliminates that and just requires them to go through there.
Mr. Haase asked, can you make those terms?
Mr. Higbee said the engineer seems to think that you can because I discussed it with him. He did want to reserve the right to come back later and discuss it with us but if the Town ever wanted to allow this as an amendment to this approval, I would come back with another minor amendment approval at that point probably. I really did not feel comfortable making a minor amendment approval that gives somebody permission to operate in the Town right-of-way. So, I said eliminate that and I will approve it.
Mr. Brandgard said just as a thought along there the former bank that operated there when they just had the drive-up in the back, that alley was the exit, the only way to exit.
Mr. Higbee said maybe I’m wrong but ingress/egress from a public right-of-way obviously is a requirement of any site. But this is the interior operations of the site. It seemed a little different to me than using it as an exit or entrance.
Mr. Haase said the original bank had two drive-up windows attached to the bank.
Mr. Brandgard said at one time.
Mr. Haase said and you exited right out and that was in a tighter confine than what this will be.
Mr. Brandgard said I think even at that time they used the alley as part of that also.
Mr. Haase said the east/west alley was used to enter on. Those alleys have always been opened and used.
Mr. Brandgard said right even the north/south. That’s what I’m saying.
Mr. Haase said but the east/west alley was used to enter and then you turned into the bank. Which the one drive-up was there on the southeast corner and the other one was on a side when they took over the Lincoln Federal building that was beside them.
Mr. Brandgard said my concern with it is the wear and tear on the alley. That alley is usually not built like a street is and if you remember, when the drive-up that is there today was being used, that alley was in pretty poor condition because of the use.
Mr. Carlucci said some of those turns were tough. Taking a left and then taking a right to back to Center Street was not the best turn.
Mr. Brandgard said the only way that I would say to use that is they would have to agree to maintain that alley properly. But if what he is showing here will work, that is the way to go.
Mr. Haase said the part that you say you are concerned with is in the initial block where the bank building is and not the alleyway back by the parking area.
Mr. Higbee said no because this simply operates like it always has as an alley that people can come and go. They are not limited in any way. But when you get up here, we have stated in the beginning through the Town Center that we don’t want vehicles coming down here. It is going to be a pedestrian access so I was concerned about the conflict between pedestrians and vehicles coming in. Secondly, I was concerned about the precedent that we set when we say you can use an alley as part of your interior site development. If this guy can do that, we are effectively vacating part of that alley in his favor and what does everybody else in Town say when we let somebody use an alley in that fashion was my concern.
Mr. McPhail asked, the original site plan approval was that to use that alley to access parking spots?
Mr. Higbee said yes but that is different than this. You are going to have more of a high intensity traffic flow going through that drive-thru. Again, it is common to use alleys just like streets for ingress/egress. It is a little different when you are using them to use a substantial portion of your traffic thru a drive-thru window.
Mr. McPhail asked, how are you going to keep them from driving over there?
Mr. Higbee said there would have to be some kind of inhibiting element right here.
Mr. Haase said in this portion right here he is going to have to have something. There is going to have to be some kind of wall or something to keep people off of that alley. I guess you could just put grass in it.
Mr. Higbee said I think these people need to do what they are already doing coming off of this site. So, they may need to turn out here.
Mr. Brandgard said I think the point of all of this is if we are going to consider that as a path system, you are not going to have it opened to traffic from U.S. 40.
Mr. Haase said or any other way.
Mr. Brandgard said if it is going to be a walk system, the bank can’t use it as part of their access. It has to be a green system all the way down.
Mr. Haase said like Mr. McPhail said there is something that is going to have to inhibit cars from getting over on that.
Mr. Brandgard said you would have to put a curb system in or just grass it.
Mr. Haase said you would have to curb it because that wouldn’t keep them off.
Mr. Higbee said our streetscape plan probably will give us the opportunity to visit what we do up here on this piece. So, they could do something temporarily to inhibit what is happening until we do our permanent improvements.
Mr. Haase said but where you are pointing to they can put whatever they want to there but if they drive through there to go through the drive-thru, they will swing out into that area.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think that is an awful tight turning radius.
Mr. Cavanaugh said I think we are probably saying that nobody has a problem with them using the southern half of that alleyway.
Mr. Haase said I think you are right.
Mr. Cavanaugh asked, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to put them in a position where they request a vacation of that so that they have the recognized right to use that for the use of their business in some way?
Mr. Brandgard said there is a big gas line under there.
Mr. Cavanaugh said there is the utility easement.
Mr. Higbee said that has been operating that way for years as a public alleyway. I don’t think that is really necessary. It really doesn’t gain us anything to vacate it.
Mr. Cavanaugh said to alleviate the problem that we are all predicting for the traffic there wouldn’t it be appropriate to request them to come up with something that actually has a firm traffic control to the curb system that is going to direct traffic the way that it needs to go? And not establish any use habit.
Mr. Higbee said I’m sure they would be willing to do that. They might have to redesign it.
Mr. Haase said we are really talking about the north part of that alley.
Mr. McPhail asked, where do they come in off of Vine Street?
Mr. Higbee said here and here mainly.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is this grass here then?
Mr. Higbee said that is all grass or landscaping.
Mr. Carlucci said the north blue line coming in is where we have an easement.
Mr. Higbee said that was the part that I was worried about.
Mr. Kirchoff said Mr. Whetstone talked to us one night at a Town meeting. He said we might have to ask for a vacation but I thought it was, as Mr. Cavanaugh indicated, the south portion didn’t seem to be a major problem because it has been used that way anyway. I didn’t think anything about the north end.
Mr. McPhail said my question is if you go on the north side, and say okay you can’t use that, that is pedestrian traffic. But what is 16
pedestrian traffic going to do when they get to that intersection there?
Mr. Haase said it would be just like being in a parking lot.
Mr. McPhail said there is the corner of the building. If you keep that alley opened and say they can’t use that alley, they are going to and you have a pedestrian walkway. What is going to happen when pedestrian traffic is right there?
Mr. Kirchoff said there will be some kind of barriers or something to direct them.
Mr. Higbee said he can keep going.
Mr. McPhail said then he is into a full fledge traffic flow.
Mr. Haase said he is just into a parking lot just like you are at Wal-Mart or Kroger. There will be slow traffic too. They won’t be building up any speed in there.
Mr. McPhail said I don’t see the issue north of there if you are walking him into an alley when you get him there.
Mr. Higbee said there is going to be more traffic going through here than there would normally be in an alley.
Mr. Carlucci said we all do this now when we go to the movie theater. We either are going to go around to Center Street or we are going to cut across up there. The idea is if people are parking back there more, the more likelihood that people are going to park back here and just want to walk in that little path up to U.S. 40.
Mr. McPhail said I understand that.
Mr. Carlucci said but I don’t think there is any reason for people going back there unless they have a car back there.
Mr. Kirchoff said if I parked in that lot and I’m walking north and if somebody pulls in behind me, that is the safety issue.
Mr. Brandgard said you have two parking lots back there.
Mr. Haase said the other issue is that area back of the building north is where the stacking is going to occur. Cars are going to be permanently in line there whereas if you alleviate that problem, then you get them back to the parking lot.
Mr. Cavanaugh said it seems like we are saying that we should be able to allow people to walk down this alleyway and then make a move one way or another this way. They could say enter the bank parking area. Maybe they parked over here or they are going to the bank. So, are we saying that we should allow them to walk this way? Because I see what Mr. McPhail is saying. If they say come down here and cross traffic, what is the difference if they do it there or whether they do it there?
Mr. Brandgard said I think the difference is that is a stacking area and they are going to have to be walking amongst the cars.
Mr. Cavanaugh said so you are saying to give them clear access through this length of the alleyway as much as possible. And then we probably need to do something to require the bank to set up a permanent traffic barrier that moves people over here and keeps them on their property and it gives them a way to get over.
Mr. Higbee said he seems to think that he can do this.
Mr. Cavanaugh said they need to do something like that because this one island is too close. It is a pitch point right there unless they want to move that back and then right now we are showing two-way traffic. But I think if we set it up the way that we are talking about, maybe it should be one-way traffic with two lanes one way. You could have a lane going this way up into the bank and you could have a lane coming up here and make a little turn going into the bank. Or you could access all of that parking.
Mr. Higbee said there is nothing wrong with that except I have to wonder why the engineer thinks you can make this turn. I have to think he has already looked at this radius. He thinks you can do this.
Mr. Haase said I think with what Mr. Cavanaugh is showing you he wants to help stop traffic from going north into that area.
Mr. Cavanaugh said if we let them come in this way and make a transition somewhere in this area. And transition into what I will call the bank property proper, have some way to transition in there and we could still keep access around there for pedestrian traffic.
Mr. Brandgard said one way of doing it is that alley that is still opened for traffic is a one-way south and it ought to be one-way anyway because it is not wide enough to go two directions.
Mr. Haase said they have it as one-way on here. Mr. Cavanaugh is saying take it north.
Mr. Cavanaugh said it is not south Mr. Brandgard.
Mr. Brandgard asked, what?
Mr. Cavanaugh said if the alleyway is one way south, then it really serves no purpose for them to get to the drive-thru except for people that are coming through right on their property.
Mr. Brandgard said that’s what I’m saying but right now the alley functions as a one way to the south.
Mr. Carlucci said if you remember Mr. Church and the Town and the easement that one-way alley, south alley, doesn’t that hurt Mr. Church and those two parking lots? If you make it one way south, I think that is going to be a problem.
Mr. Higbee said I know he has already talked to Mr. Church about this so apparently Mr. Church is okay with this design.
Mr. Carlucci said our easement is coming across and going up and getting back to our alley. I give Mr. Higbee credit for bringing this and trying to get this worked out but this is really something that we ought to turn over to Mr. McGillem.
Mr. Brandgard said I was going to say that we can’t engineer this. We defined the problem and we need to turn it over to Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem to work out.
Mr. McPhail asked, is that a 15-foot alley?
Mr. Higbee said typically they are but I don’t know if that one is.
Mr. McPhail said if he has a turning radius problem, do we need 15 feet for pedestrian right-of-way?
Mr. Higbee asked, am I hearing an appeal?
Mr. Haase said I think we are.
Mr. McPhail said we need to make this work.
Mr. Kirchoff said his suggestion is moving in the right direction.
Mr. Haase said we just need to take time to look from the Town’s angle.
Mr. Brandgard said the first question was can you make that radius without using the alley?
Mr. Haase said you can because we used to do it when the old bank was there.
Mr. Brandgard said there were two drive-thru windows there.
Mr. Haase said in a lesser area that this bank has right there so I’m sure you can make it.
Mr. Higbee said I will let them know that we need to have another meeting before I can bring back a minor amendment.
PROGRESS REPORT
There are a couple of other items. I gave you a progress report on Certificate of Occupancies. I don’t know if you want to have any discussions on that or not. It is just to show you mainly that we have made a lot of progress. The majority of our items are either complete or the formerly backlog items are either complete or close to complete. So, I feel that the Certificate of Occupancies, which have been a big challenge for the past couple of years, are under control.
We have some other issues that I mentioned on that memo with some other types of backlogs, the biggest one being the single-family permits that we have been reviewing since the Residential Design Guideline process got started. We have actually got about 195 that we have reviewed in less than a year’s time that have never been inspected for compliance review. Then also we have some other types of miscellaneous inspections that have never been done that have been backlogged, i.e., freestanding signs or other miscellaneous types of improvements around Town. So, I wanted to quantify for you the types of backlogs that we have been having the progress that we are making. So, at the next meeting I will probably bring you the miscellaneous inspection list and the single-family compliance list. I have spreadsheets that show you exactly what those items are that I’m talking about.
PLANNING DEPARTMENT
I’m going to hand out a letter that Mr. Haase handed me at the beginning of the hearing tonight. But you can go ahead and read this letter.
Mr. Brandgard said just as a quick comment the Town Council and Staff had budget hearings and have covered this with a lot of discussion.
Mr. Higbee has been challenged to come back with a plan of how to do that and what needs to be looked at. I think we understand that we need to consider funding and how to do it but there are more ways than just adding people to get there.
Mr. Haase said I understand that but I just know from prior years of sitting on this board that the Plan Commission can hire anybody they want to but they just can’t pay them. We can’t spend any money so we have to go through the Town Council. I know there have been a couple of times that we had issues at the Plan Commission level. And Mr. Brandgard’s indication was to get something formal to the Town Council and that is what this letter is an attempt to do. It is just to get all of the Town Council members, not only the ones on this board, but the other two that don’t come to these meetings or don’t sit on the board here to be aware that we have some constraints within the Planning Department due to all of the obvious problems that are going on in the Town. I’m sure that the Council is addressing those issues as we speak.
Mr. Kirchoff said it was very well discussed at budget time. In a meeting or two ago we asked Mr. Higbee the same thing, give us a sense of where you are so we can decide what direction we are going.
Mr. Higbee said I will feed you that information and I have what my recommendations will be because they are pretty clear in my mind. But different people have different opinions than I do so you are going to have to hear my recommendations and then maybe what the recommendations of some other people are on our ordinance committee, for instance. We have had discussions about this because we can’t make these major ordinance changes with changes to the administrative process and so forth without thinking about who is the Staff that is going to do this? There has been a lot of discussion at the ordinance committee meetings as well and I will bring you up to speed on that. It really comes down to two alternatives. You either out source some of this and, for instance, we use more of Gene Valanzano and people like him or we use some part-time support. I kind of left off the table the possibility of it being any full-time Staff. I still think
we ought to be able to discuss the possibility of part-time Staff as part of the solution. We just have to decide where we want to go with that.
Mr. Brandgard said that is part of the things that we have to look at because we know there is a lot of good talent within the Town that we could probably utilize on a part-time basis to do some of this. There is also some electronic needs in getting this done quicker than what we are doing.
RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES
Mr. Carlucci said I do want to pass on a quick comment. Mr. Dick Whicker from the Hendricks County Plan Commission called and he was asking me about our Residential Design Guidelines. I talked to him as long as he wanted to keep talking. I always found him very open minded. We had given Mr. Terry Jones a copy of those guidelines and I indicated that they were on the website. Apparently at their last plan commission meeting they brought a copy of those out and they looked at them. What I discussed with Mr. Whicker is I realize that you are trying to do this on one PUD basis to another. That you are trying to come up with these design guidelines as you go. At some point you need to codify these and make your job easier. They looked at our guidelines and they want to compliment the Town on those guidelines and the adoption of those. That was real positive. We just don’t get to talk to their plan commission members very often. I wanted to pass it along because that came through Mr. Tim Jackson who sits on the Hendricks County Plan Commission right now. So, I just thought that I would mention that.
Mr. Brandgard said thank you that is good news.
Mr. McPhail said I might add another comment to that from my position with the chamber we get a lot of residential activity right now looking at pieces of property. In almost every case those developers are asking for some interpretation to kind of go through this thing and understand it. Mr. Higbee has been very gracious to allow his time in all of the requests that I have made. I think we need to have him available up front to be able to walk these people through this thing before they bring a bunch of stuff to the planning process and get it thrown out. So, I think there is going to be some demand on his time from a consulting basis early in the process. To me I think that is positive that we can get him in early on the process because I can’t interpret this stuff from the chamber’s standpoint. I can orchestrate and bring people together but I don’t want to be speaking for the Planning Department. But I think it is very positive because people are asking about what does this really mean? It is not easy to explain.
Mr. Higbee said I’m glad to hear some of the developers say that recently because I’m always pointing that out to our consultant. To be fair to him it is not easy to codify this stuff either and write it and get it right so that it actually does what you want it to do. But it is not easy for most people to understand. We need somebody here that can explain what it means and how they need to go through the process. We have been trying to encourage more and more of what we call a pre-filing review where they come in and sit down with us probably two to six weeks before they are ever ready to file anything. So, that they have time to react to this information before they file with the Town. We don’t want to be trying to hash this all out with them during the 30-day approval process. We need to give them some light before they go into the process.
PARKS DISTRICT DRAFT
Mr. Higbee said the last issue that I wanted to bring up is a request that was made at a recent Town Council meeting to make sure that I brought you the parks district that is being drafted as part of the current ordinance amendment. I know Mr. Gaddie was interested in it. He is not here at the moment but I did call him and let him know that it was going to be discussed at tonight’s meeting. I also let the Parks Director know and gave them both copies of this. You will recall probably the general premise was to create a parks district instead of requiring all kinds of improvements in a park to go through the special exception process at the Board of Zoning Appeals. It will now have its own zoning district should someone decide to rezone the park to the parks district. And then it would go through the Plan Commission. If they create a master plan for what exists in the park in any major future plan improvements, as long as they do things in accordance with the master plan, they can do those improvements without coming back on every little item, i.e., every shelter that goes up, etc. Right now it has to go through the BZA as a special exception. So, we are trying to simply that.
We also added some flexibility for banner signs and temporary signs. While not allowing them to be anywhere on the site or unlimited we specified some opportunities that could be had within the parks for those types of signs to try to meet some of the needs that were being expressed.
I included it in your packets so I could hear any comments that you might have tonight and feed them back through the process. This would have to be public noticed at some point to go forward and be adopted by the Plan Commission and Town Council. What I’m hearing is you want to go ahead with this and then we have all of those other things that I handed out to you, which you need to read. Those don’t have to be done as soon as this, if there is a desire to get this done so that by the spring and summer season they are already in place.
Mr. Carlucci said we would like that section to go to a public hearing as soon as possible. There are two reasons. One, they are starting in May with their activities. Secondly, some of this may provide some relief to some of the things that they want. We still have to go through and rezone parks to that parks district. So, your recommendation is to bring this to the Plan Commission meeting in March for a public meeting.
Mr. Higbee said yes. I could notice it for that meeting. You would then make your recommendation to the Town Council and we would go forward.
Mr. Haase said I think that is probably where we need to head.
Mr. Brandgard made a motion to go to a public hearing in our March meeting for our new parks district as presented this evening. Second Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
ZONING ORDINANCE AMENDMENTS
Mr. Haase said since you just handed this other material out people who don’t sit on the committees need some time to look at this.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, have they highlighted the changes?
Mr. Haase said yes. There are different ways that they are highlighted in there but I think most of all of the changes are highlighted.
Mr. Higbee said except for where it is a brand new district. There are a couple of new districts in there.
Mr. Haase said we have gone through quite a bit of effort, Mr. McPhail, myself, Mr. Belcher, Mr. Higbee and Gene Valanzano. Mr. Valanzano is the architect of most all this. He takes our discussions and creates a legal document out of it. I don’t think we will say that everything in here is perfect yet but I think we have made some good changes that will help the planning staff get things done in a more timely manner. And also make more sense to the public.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is there a timeframe on this?
Mr. Higbee said if you look at the front, you have about at least half of it and there are some more articles to come. So, it is not going to be immediately. One thing that we have to decide, and I think Mr. Haase had mentioned this to me, is whether or not we want to try to do this through the regular Plan Commission meetings or whether we are going to need a special meeting. When you are dealing with ordinance amendments, there could be a lot of discussion. I know the March meeting is looking like a pretty meaty meeting. We have the Super Wal-Mart. We have two or three other commercial/industrial projects on that agenda. So, I can’t imagine spending lots of time discussing ordnance changes there at that meeting.
Mr. Brandgard said I think like what we have done in the past this deserves a meeting by itself to go through. It needs to be done separate from the normal Plan Commission business. While we are talking about this, one of our new Council members, either at the last meeting or the first meeting in January, brought up the fact that there are still a lot of problems festering going on in the community over signage whether it is banners or whatever it is. As I explained, we have attempted numerous times to try and get those who are troubled with the Sign Ordinance to come in and sit down with us. Car dealers are probably the biggest area. I would like to see us, and again I’m looking probably to Mr. Higbee to put it together with the help of our consultant, and call it a workshop and go through it with those who are interested in our community who want to come in and review it with us. We can get their comments. I’m looking to see if we can get positive comments and try and work together to craft something that everybody at the least amount understands.
Mr. Haase said we can do that. It is always a good idea to let the public help decide their fate. I don’t want Mr. Higbee to focus on that until we get all of this done and brought to the table because we have some sign changes.
Mr. McPhail said there are a lot of those issues that have been addressed here.
Mr. Brandgard said this is what I mean. We have this in here and when we get this together and ready to come to us, I would like to see us call a formal workshop rather than in the past we have put this out and asked for comments. But go out and say we are going to have a workshop to look at the signs so come join us and let’s go through this and see if the changes fit or if they don’t what are your problems? Not promising that we are going to change them but at least give them a chance to have an understanding. You look at the things that we see as zoning compliance, yes we have some heavy ones, but time and time again it is dealing with signage of one fashion or another. I would like to see us make a real concerted attempt to have a review. I think it takes our consultant to work with us to try to put together a presentation together to do that. I think it is worth the effort.
Mr. Haase said it is always worth the effort. If we have to pull it out of the public hearing of everything else in the timeframe, we need to keep moving on this. There is so much here that we have to get it put to bed.
Mr. Brandgard said there is so much here but maybe we can pull out a Saturday morning or something to pull people in and keep it moving.
COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Mr. Brandgard asked, where are we on the Comprehensive Plan? I haven’t heard anything for months other than the fact that the consultants are working at the County.
Mr. Higbee said by February 28 the goal was set. About December 2 I think we had a meeting here internally. We made some progress on the Thoroughfare Plan, which had some issues. I think they are kind of on the right track with that and we are waiting for a little bit more information. But that was kind of a hold up. They told us at that time that their objective would be by February 28 to have a complete first draft of the Comprehensive Plan available to the steering committee. Then I would anticipate maybe in March we have a steering committee meeting after we have sent that to them and ingest it a little while. And then after the steering committee meeting maybe in late March or early April at the latest a public meeting on the Comprehensive Plan. And then we can decide whether it is in a form that you can go ahead and recommend, as a Plan Commission, to take it onto the Town Council for adoption. In the past couple of weeks they have given me a land use map that is starting to resemble what the final land use map would be. I know that they have talked to Mr. McGillem and Mr. Belcher about the Thoroughfare Plan. They gave me a draft of the housing component, which was a major new component of the plan, which I’m reviewing this week. I’m going to be sending comments back to them. So, they have been bringing together the details and we have gone through a hiatus period here partly because of some issues that we had to work out with the Thoroughfare Plan and partly because of the holidays I think. And then I’m wondering if they have been on some other projects that may have slowed them down a little bit. But they assure us that they are heading toward that February deadline.
Mr. Brandgard said what I would prefer that they do is come back with a schedule to give to us with what is going to happen when. My concern is the Comprehensive Plan needs to be done fairly quickly. I can remember one that took years and years to finally get done. The last one we got done in a year or less and this is stretching out too long especially with no apparent activity.
Mr. Haase said we certainly haven’t seen them. Holidays create a problem but I think that is a good question.
Mr. Higbee said I’m fairly confident that we can get it adopted. We will probably be three months behind our original schedule by the time that we get it done but we will come close.
OTHER COMMENTS
Mr. Brandgard said I want to congratulate Mr. Higbee for making the front page of the Scanning/Planning magazine.
Mr. Higbee said I thank the Town for paying for me to be able to do that. I spent a lot of time really this year, in fact, for about three months all my free time was spent studying for that because I wanted to pass it on the first attempt. The fail rate on that is pretty high and I was lucky. I passed it on the first attempt.
Mr. Haase said that is great.
Mr. Kirchoff said tomorrow night for those of you who are available the County is going to invite all of the town councils and town plan commissions to talk about the north/south corridor. It is at the government center I believe at 7:00 p.m. Basically, HNTB will come in and show you where we are on the study and ask for input. And then Wednesday night we have a task force meeting. It is a chance for you all to see what they are looking at and the way that we are trying to approach this study.
Mr. Haase said I’m going to try to make it because I know three members of the Hendricks County Plan Commission and we have some real good cooperation and communication going on between them and us, which is what we need. So, we want to further that as much as we can.
The only other thing that I want to mention is that Mr. Kirchoff and I sit in on a yellow ribbon task force for the schools. The issue that we are looking at now, and I think Mr. Kirchoff missed that last meeting, is I got to look at the map where the school district has bought 10 acres out of 40 that they are going to purchase. We are talking in the lines of a new high school. I’m confident that we are long overdue on a new high school as far as the Town’s needs. But when you get to looking at the district of the Guilford Township School District, there is not a lot of buildable ground left. So, what we are looking at is they are supposed to be getting back with us, which we have a meeting on Thursday. Maybe a potential total enrollment of a full township build out would be for the high school. And then possibly looking at securing enough land, not a building, but just enough land for that campus. Which this is hard to believe, it was hard for me to believe, but for a new high school for just Plainfield alone, as it is right now, it would take 100 acres for a high school complex.
Mr. Brandgard asked, where are you going to have room for all of the sport fields?
Mr. Haase said that’s where I come from. You have all of the soccer fields and practice fields.
Mr. Kirchoff said we want to centralize everything instead of having it spread out.
Mr. Haase said when you think about it, my first thought is we probably don’t need that much land, not that I know anything about it, but then the next comment I had to myself is but we built the middle school on too small of a property. We certainly don’t want to do that again. So, anyway I’m looking at this as a 20-30 year task force. They have it labeled as 20. I’m looking at 20 or 30. We really need to acquire the land today because land is getting more scare to find that type of acreage.
Mr. Kirchoff said another comment I would add to that is Mr. McGillem and I were talking today. I guess he went to one of the luncheons last week and his point was once we begin to get some sense of where that might be, he certainly needs to be at the table for the impact on transportation. I thought that was a very valid point.
Mr. Haase said the property that they are looking at is on the perimeter roadway.
Mr. Kirchoff said I don’t know that is good with everything else that we are trying to address.
Mr. Haase said it is better that it is not tucked away in a neighborhood that you can’t get to or that it is not over by Quaker Boulevard where all of the morning traffic goes to.
Mr. Kirchoff said it just continues to impact us from a priority setting standpoint.
Mr. Carlucci said for us it becomes the tyranny of the urgent.
Mr. Kirchoff said it depends on when everything else happens.
Mr. Brandgard said or when this is going to happen.
Mr. Kirchoff said I don’t know that is good with everything else that we are trying to address.
Mr. Haase said it is better that it is not tucked away in a neighborhood that you can’t get to or that it is not over by Quaker Boulevard where all of the morning traffic goes to.
Mr. Kirchoff said it just continues to impact us from a priority setting standpoint.
Mr. Carlucci said for us it becomes the tyranny of the urgent.
Mr. Kirchoff said it depends on when everything else happens.
Mr. Brandgard said or when this is going to happen.
Mr. Kirchoff said I attended a public meeting on Thursday night of last week. I was pleased. You know how disappointed we were on our Comprehensive Plan and had six people. They had 40. They broke up into small groups and let people give input. That was encouraging. It looked like a pretty good presentation of parents, etc. I went to get a sense of how many people showed up because we were so disappointed when we had our public meeting.
Mr. McPhail said it seems to me, and I might be misinterpreting that, but it seems to me that there are some small sites around and none of them are big enough to do anything.
Mr. Haase said that was the issue that we came up with about the first meeting. My question was you bought 10 acres out of 40 what were you going to do with the 40? I really think their thought was at the time that they were probably going to build like a 5-6 middle school. That was their thought. And the other parcels are around are barely adequate for elementary. Fifteen acres is average for an elementary school for today. The one back here in Saratoga is 12 acres, which they say is a little small but they could make it fit.
Mr. McPhail said but they need 100 acres for a high school.
Mr. Haase said I think they paired that down to about 80.
Mr. Cavanaugh said in your conversations how does that compare to the new Avon facility?
Gentleman from the audience said the new Avon school is 136 acres.
Mr. Haase said and it’s not too big from my understanding.
Gentleman said they said within five years they are going to be out of room.
Mr. Haase asked, is there any land there to build?
Gentleman said it’s all parking, etc.
Mr. Brandgard said not the way that it is configured. They are talking about another high school.
Mr. Haase said and the price tag on that new high school, both soft and hard cost, was $85,000,000.00. That’s ours if we were to build it today, it would be $85,000,000.00 to do that.
Gentleman said the property around here is getting so scarce that they are looking at building a foundation big enough that it can go up instead of building just a single story.
Mr. Cavanaugh said you could go down a little bit with parking instead of it being one surface. Not having parking garages dotting the landscape but 136 acres is an awesome amount of property to be running out of room so quick.
Mr. Carlucci said I thought the numbers they showed were pretty compelling to us in terms of the capacity. They have just been creeping along at 2.3%; 2.4% per year and eventually it catches up with you. There is absolutely nothing they can do at the high school to expand it with the type of land that they would need. It just won’t work. Even if they took the entire Swinford Park over and bought some more houses, it still doesn’t give them what they need.
Mr. Haase said one of the true problems with the high school is security issues. They have been real apparent and have been pointed out to us. We have so many entrances and exits into that high school. They are fairly secured now but there are so many ways to get in there.
Mr. Carlucci said I looked in there today. They are always propping boxes at the back door of the gym and the main entrance. The wrestlers are always propping chairs in their door. We are really just lucky that nothing ever bad happens but they are always propping doors opened.
Mr. Haase said that is a major point. If you put middle school kids in there, which is what the conversion for the high school has been suggested, then those kids don’t drive. So, your points of access can actually lessen a lot.
Mr. Cavanaugh said interesting is all of the residential development done in the last few years. The school board has always been pretty proactive with us in looking at the large residential developments that we have done. I think they are being pretty proactive and progressive to get this study panel started ahead of time and really look at it instead of coming out with some edict for proclamation some day.
Mr. Kirchoff said we are still digesting data. There has been no decision and no recommendation. I’m still trying to figure out what the problems are.
Mr. McPhail said they have done a good job of going through and renovating and expanding and doing what they could with the current facilities. I think they have done that with every building.
Mr. Haase said the middle school is built out, Central is built out, Van Buren is built out and Brentwood as a small potential.
Mr. Kirchoff said they are all very close to capacity.
Mr. McPhail said but they have done a good job updating them.
Mr. Kirchoff said and keeping them well maintained.
Mr. Carlucci said I have been at the middle school as much as anybody and the middle school every day from day one was built for small people. The classrooms are small, a couple of hundred square feet smaller than they should have been. The kids don’t even use lockers because they were so small. They actually had to add more. The kids never take showers. They just pack up and go home because everything is so small in that building.
Mr. Brandgard said the architects made the building to fit the site.
Mr. Haase said that is just another thing going on in the Town. There are several evenings of meetings.
Mr. Cavanaugh said February 25 there is a meeting.
Mr. Kirchoff said there is a meeting every Thursday at 4:00 at the superintendent’s office where you can stop and give your opinion. Like you said there hasn’t been a recommendation yet. We are still asking for answers to certain questions to formulate what hopefully will be the best site for both the students and the taxpayers.
Mr. Kirchoff said we are still looking at financial aspects.
Mr. Haase said what was interesting was Brownsburg was under the largest highest percentage of taxes on their school facilities, higher than what Avon is. They are also buying new property for a new high school north of I-74.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to adjourn. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
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Mitchell P. Haase, President
