Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

I'll go ahead and call to order the July 14th Plan Commission meeting. Can we have a roll call, please?

Here.

Here.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. I can confirm that we do have a quorum.

You should have all had access to the minutes from the June 9th, 2026 meeting. Any comments, questions? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to approve. Second.

Have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Any questions about the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Is there any need to modify the agenda? Nope, no need. Old business, we have nothing underneath old business. Under new business, we have two items. The first being a rezoning. This is for 608 South Main Street. It's a rezoning PC zoning 2026-5. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing and turn it over to the staff for the staff report.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm the Planning Administrator. We're representing Northeastern Group Realty on behalf of property owner Michael Stafford's requesting to amend the official zoning map for the city of Auburn by reclassifying the zoning of the property located at 608 South Main Street from traditional residential district to institutional district. A legal notice of the public hearing appeared in the Star on June 23rd, 2026. for adjacent property owners were sent notice by first class us mail on june 17 2026. here you can see on the south side of this property it is already it is currently zone institutional and then on the west side of the property across south main street that also is zone institutional The proposed reclassification of zoning is consistent with the future land use plan of the Auburn 2040 plan. Here we have some site photographs. The first one's the view from Main Street looking east.

The next one's the view from 13th Street looking north.

Then we have a view from 13th Street looking northwest. Here we have aerial photograph.

Staff did not receive any public input as a result of the adjacent property owner notices or legal notices.

Public notice yard sign was posted on the property on June 19th, 2026.

The property was most recently utilized as a single family residence. has an offer to purchase the property with the intent of locating a real estate office into the building.

The adjacent properties that contain the Siner Center for the Community Foundation of DeKalb County and Auburn Presbyterian Church are zoned institutional.

Other nearby properties zoned institutional include the recently rezoned property at 703 South Main Street for Eric Weber,

our genealogy Center in the Auburn teen library in Eckerd public library a real estate office is permitted use with institutional zoning district and is a use consistent with the 2040 plan future land use map again that designated property in the urban edge designated areas

Any use of the property for an institutional use, including a real estate office, will require off-street parking to be available.

The applicant submitted a conceptual plan that indicates off-street parking spaces and will be provided in the rear yard area. The requested reclassification of zoning extends the existing institutional zoning designation of property from the west, from the south.

The reclassification of zoning is a reasonable

and is consistent with the future land use designation for the property as established in the Auburn 2040 plan. Our staff does recommend the plan

Thank you very much. Is there any questions from the plan commission for staff?

So you said the parking was planned for behind. Would there be, is there room for sufficient parking? I mean, I'm just, it doesn't look like it's very large lot and the house is pretty much in right in that area.

Yeah. Are those spaces accessed off of an alleyway?

so there'd be a new access i'm sorry any other questions for staff

So do they have to put that in if they, like, add occupancy? I don't know how that works.

Yeah, well, it states that they will require off-street parking. It is required.

Do we need to add that as a condition at the end?

Sure. Let's see the diagram. Is that what you want?

It's in the application. It's in the application.

That handicap spot's not like an easement, or it is an easement.

i'm sorry jim's not here i don't assume he would have thoroughly went through all this and it would have been noted if he would have determined vietnamese gotcha Should we require, like, actual drawings of it?

So what are we approving today? Are we doing just the zoning change? Are we doing a site plan or use? Just the zoning change. Okay, so that'll come back for the use?

No, because it's approved to use. So... We probably should put it in the convention.

Yeah. Just to make sure.

I might lean on our assistant attorney as maybe some verbiage to put in.

So it wouldn't hurt to have it, but it's not necessary.

Okay. Any other further questions for the staff? Thank you. We may call you back up. Would anybody on behalf of the petitioner like to come and speak to the project? Please come up, state your name. Sure.

Okay. Our lease is coming up soon, and we were looking at just opportunities to bring people to the downtown, and just be more a part of the community, since that's what we're trying to do. And they did have, I had done, these are just AI renderings that I've done, because we haven't actually purchased the property yet. We have had inspections, and we have called a local architect to work with him as well, but until we actually go through the acquisition phase, But that was just kind of like an AI rendering of the front. I don't know that it's going to look exactly like that, but our intent is to make it look residential, not make it look like a office.

Okay. How many employees do you have that would be parking there?

So realtors, you know, don't come to the office all the time.

Right.

So we probably have a few more staff over at our space station. But there's only a few. and so we have five or two two five regular that would work in and out of the office come and go um but then we also have to wait for the Ohio group to come southwest in this area so they would drop in occasionally but I mean we have a lot of 14,000 square

Any other questions? Thank you. Any further questions? Thank you. We may call you back up. Would anybody from the public like to come and speak to the project? Anybody like to come speak from the public? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing and turn it over to final discussion amongst plant commission members. Is there any further discussion?

So I guess kind of, if there would not be enough room for parking in the back, like I guess I'm pulling up Beacon and it looks pretty small. If it is rezoned, then it could not be, it'd have to be rezoned again back to residential for anyone to live in there, correct? Is that a? And I really, I mean, I just don't have the measurements, you know, how much, how large is parking lot need to be and, Yeah, that that right there is my concern right now. And we make a decision to rezone it. And I mean, yes, it perfectly fits within that, if there would be enough parking. And you know, from what you're saying, you would need five or six probably.

How many spaces do you need Ryan?

All it says is the number of parking spaces will be determined. Right. I don't think any of us heard the real occupancy number yet. So at this point in time, it's pretty much impossible to determine how many parking spaces will be needed.

It looks like there's plenty of front yard, too. Yeah. It's just where the house was placed on that lot.

Right in the middle where it makes it hard to put parking in front or back.

That is my only struggle. Because I'd hate to do something and it not work out and then... Any further discussion?

OK, so at this point, I'm going to check with the city attorney. We do need to make for this on the council. It needs to go to council. So we can either pass it with a favorable recommendation, forward it, I should say forward it with a favorable recommendation, forward it with no recommendation, or forward it with unfavorable. I mean, I guess unfavorable would be the language. now here's the thing if they can come back with renderings to the council then even if it's unfavorable but it looks like it works i mean we just did do the weber to the southwest corner of that same address if they could come back with something that would show council might lean toward approving it then if It pays off even if we give an unfavorable because they could go against. Obviously, they did last time when we had one that was favorable and they voted against it. So the other could work out that way as well. I'll be talking about that one on the other one later, too. So you need.

Are they able to table it as well? We table this for the next meeting.

I mean, that's another option with rendering. It's another option that they're willing to. come back and get a rendering. I know that's added cost, but I mean, you hear the way, I don't know that we can get parking back there or not.

I'm a Joe and I think it's a good use. I like this use. I think it's great for that area, but I don't want to approve something and then find out that you can't actually do it because of parking. And so then we have to come back and redo zoning again and move back to the traditional way.

We'll have to re we'll, we'll have to research that. Um,

and here's the other issue with that so you said the 14th

So the first council meeting that it would be able to, correct, would be able to hear it would be the August 4th meeting because we've already missed the file deadline for next Tuesday's meeting. And then the following meeting would be August 4th. So that's kind of pushing it close. I guess you could still.

But I would certainly be willing to get the drawing. There's a, Right.

Jim.

The city player. When I talked to him, he said, well, worst case scenario, we would pull in straight and have two cars next to each other and two cars behind each other. And then, you know, if someone needed to leave, they just had to back out and let someone else get going. So when I talked to him, he acted like if he couldn't come in and turn like I wanted to do, and if you look at the property right next door, they do that right now. They pull several cars. I don't know if you have it on your screen or not.

Yeah, the residential right there.

The people here, the residential right here, they definitely pull in here. You can easily get four cars in there. And so my shed and my tree were

So are we to assume that the rear parking is for staff? Yes. Street parking is for clients, correct? So I do have a question for the board. When we rezoned the Eric Weber Law Office institutional, did the parking issue come up? Because I'm pretty familiar.

Yeah, there was plenty of parking in the back there.

How many parking spaces do you believe?

Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, there was several in the back. There was a lot more room in the back. Like I said, my only concern is where that house is placed within that lot. Okay. and then the small amount of room in the back.

They're real comparable.

And my other concern is, you know, I would hate to try to go to get a variance about parking because now you remove that more or less going forward for anybody else. You know, you don't have to maintain that parking kind of because we've already set a precedence more or less in my mind.

We don't want to do it.

things that will need to be looked into. Obviously, you're going to need a surveyor or some kind of site designer to do what we're talking about. You're going to need to know the boundaries and what kind of side restrictions there might be from the property line to the edge of the parking lot. I don't know. Can it be right on the prop line or is there going to need to be five feet You know, that's something that we're going to have to, as a city, look into.

I believe I just found our answer. Okay. Under the parking standards, three parking spaces required. He's got noted. He's got, there's a chart in our UDO, 5.58, one space per 300 square foot of floor area. This is a 912 foot or 912, yeah, square foot. So that's why he's got three parking spaces. They're showing four plus one handicap, correct?

Those four, I don't know if you can access them.

They're really deep. If you look at the overhead shots, the size of the cars on the street and how much room is there, it looks like enough room to me.

Looks like you got 20 feet from the back of the lot to the sidewalk. So that would be enough of two parking spaces. Unless you can double, Ryan, do you know, can you double them up? I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, I didn't work on this. But I mean, looking at this drawing, I believe that you pull in on the east side. I think those parking spaces are very deep.

I think there's room to pull in behind each car and pull into the space.

I think those white lines are drawn very long. compared to the length of a car.

Once if you look at the car down below.

Yeah.

Where is it at?

Oh, up here, right here. Here? And then go back.

34 feet, roughly.

that's probably enough the ada ramp is most likely going to have to be in the front as opposed to that so this because the only access to there would be

So I just used beacon and did the ruler. Thank you. Uh, so it's like 35 feet, just a quick drop to the property line on beacon from the house, the property line.

Yeah.

Not the sidewalk. Okay.

So clear.

Yeah, so you're probably 30 feet. Yeah.

I feel like instead of us just trying to eyeball it, they should go through an engineer or something. I don't know.

I mean, it'd be for them to make sure that they can supply three parking spaces. They have to, correct? Correct.

The fear I have is setting the precedent that we're allowing people to do things without having site plans done that may not actually be legal to do. I think that's where you're at, Joe, isn't it? Yeah. Because we're creating a situation where they're going to have to go require a variance on it.

Well, and also, you know, if something were to happen and you couldn't do it, I guess if you got the approval... but then you wouldn't be able to use it if you couldn't put in the parking spaces to sell it. You'd almost have to come back. Trust me, I'll never get back anymore.

We were willing to pay for it because of the location. Right, right.

I just would like to reiterate that I'm pretty confident that we're supporting this. Because it indicates there's four parking spaces plus one handicap. And our UDO requires there to be at least three. I think it meets that.

But that's not the right. The sizing is off. On Beacon, that's like half the.

And if I'm not mistaken, you had stated this was just an AI quick drop-in photo, right? Yeah.

Right. We should just go through an engineer or something.

It's the will of the commission. I mean, what do we want to do? I mean, we need a consensus. I know she's got a closing day, but she said they could push it back.

I'd like, first I'd like to table this and have them come back with a drawing showing how it lays out with the parking spaces. So we know that this is a legal use. That's what I would prefer. Because I like the zoning, I like the use. I mean, it's a great use for it.

So then there are four options. We can either motion to table Motion with a favorable recommendation, motion with an unfavorable, or a motion with no recommendation to council.

So if it was a motion with no recommendation, the council would then have to hear it and make that decision, correct?

If it's favorable, unfavorable, or no recommendation, the council would do that. Table is the only one that would make it come back here.

And if it's... My own preference would be no recommendation. That way you're able to continue to move forward, get information, go to the council with your information.

They have the same information we do.

Then they could override whatever we would decide. But I wouldn't want to say unfavorable because we all, it sounds like a lot of us agree that this is a good use. But I don't want to say favorable because I'm not sure about the parking.

With favorable work with the condition. That they show actual renderings of the parking lots, parking spaces being physically able to be fit. So positive with a condition.

With the condition that it is legal enough legal spaces.

Yeah. I don't know if that would. All right. I guess I got to figure out which one it is. Oh, you're looking for that. Yeah, I'm looking for the title. I'll make a motion for PC Zoning 2026-005 to send a neutral recommendation to the city council. No recommendation. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second that.

I have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion in which we could then put the condition if we still want to put the condition prior to voting on that?

Again, my opinion is the council should have some idea of why we're saying no condition, no recommendation. The no recommendation is just based on the parking, not anything else. So that's why I think the condition should. making a motion to put in the condition yes i'm making a motion to put in the condition that the physical uh application of the parking spaces is possible and is going to go in i'll second it we have a motion a second any further discussion so but you are just adding the condition to the no recommendation

So more or less you're completely killing the first motion, correct?

No, it's adding the wording to the staff report. First, I didn't say that, but I knew that's what we're doing. We're not voting on the whole thing right now. We're voting just on the condition being added. That's the only thing we're voting on. We still need to vote on the other one. Okay. Any further discussion on the condition going in? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. That motion carried. Still on the unfavorable. I'm kind of with you. I don't like that unfavorable anymore. I'd rather have a favorable. I know. I would rather have an unfavorable or a favorable. I understand the neutral. It's just, yeah. But at least adding in the condition puts it in there as to what we're looking at, which I would have mentioned anyway.

That makes it cleaner, I think. Okay.

So is there any further discussion on the vote sending it with a neutral or no recommendation to counsel?

Is he able to withdraw that?

No, it doesn't need to. We've added the condition already.

But his motion is neutral. And so what we're saying is if we're going to add the condition, we want to say... Well, neutral or no is what we're voting on, right?

That's still the way we're voting. What are you saying?

I'm saying with the condition in place, should we, would it be make more sense to say we favorable with this condition?

That's the further discussion. The motion is still the other way, but is that.

And that's what I'm asking. Can you withdraw that motion? Didn't go over the other one. What's that? I'll withdraw my second.

And then I will withdraw the first motion.

Okay. Okay.

We still have the condition in place.

Jim, can we have more conversation? Yes.

Because now everything's dead. That way we can go back and do anything we want. So yes, further discussion.

I understand you guys have a timeline, a purchase agreement, dah, dah, dah, dah. You know, those can be modified. You do it all the time. I think if you could come back with an actual two scale plot plan, site plan, that prove to us that a parking lot with three or four spaces could be done, I think we'd be happy. Yes.

Prove to us or prove to council?

What's that?

Prove to us or prove to council?

Prove to us in order to give them a favorable. That's up to you.

You guys are on a timeline, but... Obviously, I'd like to see it go to council and have me prove to council because that's just my fault.

That's not my fault.

but I don't think we can give a favorable recommendation without that. That's just me.

I'm with you. I'm with you.

Cause that rendering, which is pretty as it is, it doesn't look to scale to me. Um, it just doesn't, something doesn't look right to me. And I question throwing in the ADA and, ramp or whatever you need to do, plus three or four parking spaces. I think it's going to be a challenge. In the front of the house? I got you. I got you.

It's got to go in the front.

And again, I've mentioned setback restrictions. I don't know what that is. That's something that'll need to be looked at. You know, if it is something like a five foot, that's going to make that available real estate even smaller. Hopefully they can put it within a foot of the property line, you know. Can you?

Right. So if I'm understanding this, the only situation on the floor right now is the condition. We haven't voted on the motion yet as to favorable, unfavorable table or anything like that, correct?

Correct. Okay. We need to redo a motion because they backed up the motion. Right. Now we need to, it's still one of those four things, either table it, favorable recommendation, unfavorable recommendation, or no recommendation to counsel.

All right, I'm going to give myself, and I know it's a little bit tough, but since it seems like the consensus of the board is that we're okay in the zoning, parking is the issue. So keeping the condition, I'm saying let's give a favorable recommendation on the rezoning of PC 2026-005 with the condition of proving the parking space availability.

We have a motion to approve with a favorable recommendation or forward with a favorable recommendation to council. Do we have a second?

I second.

We have a second. Any further discussion on forwarding it to council with a favorable recommendation? Any more discussion?

With the condition.

With the condition, correct. Seeing none, let's try this just voice vote. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. So is that two? And then the rest were favorable? So motion carried. Okay. Thank you very much. So it won't be until the August 4th meeting that that will come up before council. So we'll see you there. Okay, thank you. All right.

All right. Yeah.

The next thing on the agenda underneath new business is a request for a public hearing. I'll turn this over to staff for a description of what's going on.

Yeah, staff's requesting the Planning Commission to schedule a public hearing for August 11, 2026, a Planning Commission meeting to review the Unified Development Ordinance and any zoning regulations and land development rules with the goal of increasing housing development as required by Indiana Code 36-7-4.3 in the House Enrollment Act 1001.

So any questions for the staff on this?

This is new, just added this year. We haven't had to do this before. But again, we just need to have a public hearing for the public to review any potential questions or issues seen with the UDO as it pertains to trying to increase housing.

As I understand it, this is required.

This is required. It's got to be done by December or January 1st, 2027.

So I need a motion to approve the request for public hearing. Yep, that's what I need.

We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor of holding a public hearing at the, no, I lost the date. August 11, 2026 plan commission meeting. Signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Thank you. Any address report?

No.

We have no address report. Anything from board members? I have one item. So unfortunately, our rezoning of 1000 West Auburn Street, where we sent the favorable recommendation to go to the institutional, failed at the council. It got voted down four to three. It's the first time I've seen the council vote against a favorable recommendation from the plan commission before. Hopefully, it's not something that continues to happen that frequently. I thank the staff for all the work they put in on it, and I'm sorry it didn't pass.

What's the reasoning behind that? Do you know? What could we have done differently? How should we look at it?

The neighbors don't want industrial there. They would prefer commercial. Actually, they want nothing there. But it was discussed about having a buffer with the commercial there versus industrial. The problem is residential can't go there. And agriculture can't go there.

And what kind of a buffer are we looking at?

COMMERCIAL. COMMERCIAL INSTEAD OF INDUSTRIAL.

LESS RESTRICTIVE.

MORE TRAFFIC. OTHER THAN TRUCK TRAFFIC. ANYTHING ELSE FROM THE BOARD MEMBERS? CITY COUNTY LIAISON?

WE HAD WE APPROVED A CHICKEN FARM FOR 80,000 CHICKENS. on 4023 County Road 53 Butler that does that is under the auspices of the And so they have reviewed and approved everything.

I know.

So all of that was proved. It's it's I think they call them friars. They only have them for like three months. Yeah. So so but it sounded good. I mean, you know, they're the big problem in some of these things is like the manure storage and it's covered. Right. It's concrete and it's covered. So the rain's not going to wash it out. So also Lakewood Park Baptist Church wanted to do a zone. They wanted to amend the zoning of residential properties around there that they've been buying up over the years. They want it to be all institutional so they can put more another driveway in and other soccer fields, things like that, that got approved. And that makes sense. Tomorrow we are having a meeting at 530 in the evening. That's early. It's a special presentation. from some data center expert who's coming to just, I guess it is open to the public. So they said 5.30 to maybe eight or something. So if anybody's interested in that and hearing facts about them, that's available.

They don't have any proposed sites yet. They just are fact-finding.

No, it's not even fact-finding. Yeah, the plan commission is just fact-finding, and that's who's coming to give a presentation. And people can come and ask questions and all of that. Okay.

What's that location?

In the commissioner's court at the courthouse, 530. Okay.

Thank you very much for the report. Project Advisory Committee. Do we have one? I can't answer that. I'm sorry. That's okay. Anything else from city staff? No. City attorney? No. Anything from the public? All right. Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to adjourn.

Second. We have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried.