Advisory Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. What happened was we usually have it at 6:30 and of course I was All right, we'll go ahead and call to order the advisory planning commission for March 24th. Um, please join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Amen. Okay, we'll do uh roll call. I'll note Wayne is not here yet. Uh Marty Clark here. Harold Good here. Brian Hester here. Daisy Lucio here. John Palmer here. Okay. Um we do have a quorum. Um next thing on the next um item on the list, approval of agenda. Uh can I get a motion? So move. A second. Okay. Um motion made by Brian Hester will give a second. All in favor say I. I. Okay. The eyes have it. Um minutes. We didn't have any minutes this time. We'll wait until the next meeting. Okay. So, we'll skip over approval minutes. Um hey, is there any public comment? Now, this would be other than for the the hearing. This just be for something

else other than the hearing. So I think most everybody here is adjoining property owners. So yes. Okay, that's all right. Okay. So no uh no no public comment. Okay. Look like there's no old business. All right. Um moving on to new business. Uh we got the zoning map change request uh from a single to a multifamily at 910 Thompson Street. Um, somebody here to speak on that come and address. Good evening everyone. I'm Derek Holmes at 10:15 Water Street, Charleston, Indiana. You want to stick with your intentions? Yes. So, I own the property at 910 Thompson Street. I've owned it for 7 years and um I'm looking to develop that and requesting a zoning map change from single family to multif family for um some town homes. Okay. And you've been provided a copy of the site plan and welcome to answer any questions you have. So, you're building two twotory town homes, correct? Total of four units. Yes. Derek, I know you're saying 910, but it's going to be more than it's more than one lot, isn't it? Part of that is taking property up at 934 Thomas Street, which I also own as well. Okay. So, do we have to have that in there, too, or not? No. No. He splits that itself. I thought we would just do it on 910, but

off streetet parking. What are you going to have a off streetet parking? There should be three three parking spots per u I mean off streetet parking would be I guess the same as everywhere else down the street. Um I mean I'm not going to promote off or on street parking. Are you asking on street or off street? How much off street parking have? I'm sorry. Uh there'll be uh one in the park in the garage and then two in the driveway. So it'll be three off street parking per unit. Per unit. How many bedrooms are there? Three bedroom. Is is it going to be on a slab? Unsure at this time it's going to be a slab or a crawl space. The reason I'm asking is the drainage is really a lot of runoff. It's on a pretty good hill there. Yeah. So, if it's on a slab, have you took in consideration that water's going to come into the bottom floor? Yes, I'm I'm aware of the drainage and have a drainage plan. How far between the the two or houses? Uh there's 20 between the um the two um buildings there, there's uh 20 ft. is 10 ft from the um property line to the side of each building. Okay. And then closest fire hydrant. Uh I believe there's one one on main cross. Yeah, there's one there on the corner of Harrison and um Thompson and not sure if there's one down at main cross or not. There is. I had to get a guy for parking next to one. Okay. And is this in the historical district? No, we don't have it's not downtown historic. It's in the residential

district. Okay. The historical district goes up to main crosses back around. So about how far is from the front to the street? Approximately 25 ft. Okay. They look really close. It's It's in line with what the existing house there 934 is. Okay. Is it going to be a sighting all the way around brick or anything like that? Uh flat on brick all the way around. Okay. The picture that you provide was just a conceptual So then I'm assuming these are rentals. They are rentals. Okay. So does multi-dwelling does that affect does it affect taxes for people that have single dwelling? I mean, how does that fall on taxes putting a condo in next to single? I mean, is there going to be a because I mean, I already I mean, I can kind of assume on the value of the house, but I didn't know how it would work on taxes. Yeah, it's it's going to it's going to increase the property values around there in my opinion. I mean, it's been um which will increase the um over time what their taxes are going to be. um it'll increase the property value just based on the fact it's an empty lot. That's what I've had over the last few years. People telling me since empty lots

Does anyone have any more questions? How many other multifamily units are there in that district? How many what other multifamily units that's been put in? What do you consider? What do you consider the district? We have um not on that road but um between Oak Street out Monroe and Levelville and on Monroe Street. We had two other multif family or family already owns and I know there's one other on Monroe Street. Then you got the ones on Level Street over by where um front of um the car wash down on the other end where they were approved in where they were approved um previously for additional count. All right. Any more questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, now we'll open the floor for uh any remostes. Good afternoon. My name is Kenneth Eldridge. I live on 475 Harrison Street. My property is in line with where he is positioning to build those. So my backyard will be looking at two block walls right in my yard. My backyard will become almost un excuse me I get upset. Um looking it takes all my privacy away.

My son says we're cloud watchers. Uh there will be nothing for us to look out of our backyard anymore. Uh I live around rental people. I have no problem with that whatsoever. It is what it is taking away from us. My house is small and I do believe that with that maybe the property values will go down. They may stay up. I don't know. But me myself personally, I wouldn't want to buy one small house looking at that out of a backyard. I have nothing to offer if I went to sell, you know, other than a street view. That is all I would have. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Carolyn Henderson. I live at 1011 Thompson Street and I'm not far putting in two twostory town houses cuz you know each family usually has two vehicles per family. So each unit there's going to be probably four vehicles per unit. That's eight more vehicles right there on the street. Then his sister is building the house on the end. It's not just going to be the two twostory town houses. There's also going to be a house on that end. And ours has been a nice old neighborhood all these years where we're like family our neighborhood and we've got so many apartments already. I think we have enough without adding any more in town.

And I think it will be valued by property. And I would like to see our neighborhood kept residential. If he wants to put three houses there, I'm fine. If they're not the big twostory houses or twostory apartments. I live in a twostory house. What Derek told me. You live in a twostory house. and I do, but there's nobody crammed up right around me that they can't see out or see the view. And ours is a older neighborhood. It's not historical, but it's old. And we have a lot of pride in our neighborhood, and I would like to see it kept residential, please. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? Is he getting on the street? If he's I'll go after him. I'll go after her. Hello, my name is Lincoln Crumb. I live at 314 Main Cross Street suite two right up there next door. And I spend a lot of time on in this corridor and my office is next door and I live upstairs. I have 35 years real estate experience in this community. I can tell you this is not going to have a negative impact on the value of property there. First, second, there is a huge demand for nice rental single family or residential that's not 400 units in a complex in downtown Charle Town. There's a need for now from a residential standpoint. And there's also quite a few empty uh vacant lots that are here in the downtown Charletown area that I can assure you they call

those infill lots. Those will get units on them too within the next 3 to 5 years. With this push of residential that's coming to this part of the county, we can't deny it. It's going to happen. So, we might as well build good things. And Derek has a reputation of building good things in our downtown community. increases our tax base for our schools and is um also provides a rental option. It's not a sale option, but it's a rental for somebody like myself. I rent my space that I don't need to buy anything. I would rather rent there and live there than live in a big megaplex. And um as far as infill, that just happens with these small two to four unit uh buildings. So, I'm in favor of the project. My name is Angela Coleman and I'm the one that's going to live on the other end of the property. So, we're not going to just let someone come in and trash it up or, you know, we are we require very clean, you know, clean yards. I'm living right there. I'm not going to allow someone Derek lives around the corner. We are on top of, you know, all of our properties and and I'm just not neither one of us will allow someone to come in and have loud cars or, you know, let their trash flow around the street or not cut their grass. Um, and we will be on top of that. living right next door. I don't want my property to be, you know, any less because of Thank you.

Hi, my name is Don Meyer. I live at 1035 Thompson, which is a half a block away from this proposed uh reszoning. And I'm very much against it. I don't think 30 people on that one plot of land right there can enrich our neighborhood. That's 30 people where, you know, we have a neighborhood of two or three, four people in a single family home on Thompson Street, on Harrison, on Monroe. I can only speak to that this neighborhood. So, I I just can't see how it's going to positively affect our neighborhood. It's uncertain at best. We don't we don't really know and I'm against it. Our property taxes have gone up substantially. I don't want them to go up anymore. That's not what we came to Charles Town for. We, you know, affordable living, single family homes. We already got 500 units being built on 62. Uh, you know, we got the ones that are a little north of Valero and then we have the ones that are behind Hooks. That's 500 units. Let's just say two people per unit. There's 1,000 people right there. I I don't I'm not for it. And I have other issues that we're uh if if our home is next to a multifamily project, its value could take a bigger hit. For example, a multi-unit apartment

building overshadowing Ken's backyard. Ken right there. overshadowing his backyard might deter buyers who would otherwise pay a premium for privacy. Real estate agents often cite proximity stigma as a factor in such cases. Multifamily reszoning often brings more housing units to the market. If supply outpaces demand, it could soften prices across the board, including for and existing single family homes in our neighborhood, negatively impacting our historical character. Maybe it's not on a historical register form formally, but my home was built in 1880. All right? All those homes were about built in the 70s, the 80s or earlier. You know, I don't see how uh Mr. Derek is going to fit, you know, historical aesthetic that we already existed in the neighborhood. I don't know that I have anything. I tried to take some notes so I could be quick, but um I'm going to say that I don't approve of the way that Mr. Derek took care of his property when a house trailer was sitting on it. I don't know that this isn't going to be too much for the family and too much for our neighborhood. You can see all our neighbors are sitting here. John, you know all these people. All right, that's

all I have to say. I believe it's going to negatively impact our neighborhood. Thank you. Okay. How y'all doing? My name is Jason Thomas. I live at 550 Harrison Street. My wife Mindy and I'm neighbors to Dawn, Miss Caroline, everybody else. you know, we look out our front door, we see the proposed property. We're not opposed to a single family homes being built on that property, but he's talking multiple family homes. He's saying that there's a car, one car. The the parking situation, one in the garage, two in the driveway, and then they got friends coming over. You know, there's the street parking's the streets are not that quiet. I mean, what you got from the wall to about halfway there? Why? I mean, I take that way from when I back out my driveway, I make a ride on Thompson, send out to me to go to work. Every day I come home the same way. I mean, it's just asking for trouble. And what Miss Dawn just said, she said it all for real. I mean, I can't I agree with her 100%. You know, so we're against it. We, you know, if it was single family homes, go for it. But not multif family. It's just not enough room. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Aldridge 475 Harrison Street. I just want to say it's going to be a lot when they start building that's going to take off our water pressure. It's going to mess with our sewer lines and like everyone else, a couple regular homes, not anything big that's going to

bring too many people in. That's all we're asking. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Hi. Um, I'm Tori Shepard. I'm at 911 Thompson Street. So, we will be directly across from where these are being built. Um, we are not too happy about it. A big perk of buying our home is that, you know, we've got lots of space around us. We don't have anything huge in front of our house. We've got nice views. And all of that aside, I'm going to have four driveways with multiple cars backing up to my property where we come off of our driveway and we have to, you know, we don't have sidewalks. We walk in the street, it's always been safe. There's not a ton of traffic running through there. I've got her in a stroller. I don't want to have to worry about people backing out, not paying attention, running late to work, running us over. So, I understand they want to, you know, they can take care of the properties, make sure the people take their trash out, don't, you know, mess up the place, but they can't tell me that they're going to tell these people to drive slow and all this stuff. That's a big concern for us is we've got, you know, that street feels very safe and you're bringing a bunch of other people in and we're going to, you know, we're going to be the ones that are paying for it because we're, like I said, directly across from them. So, that's a big concern for us. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Hi, I'm Ann Good. I live at 1014 Thompson Street and the proposed property is across the street. The front of my house faces Thompson. Um, but the proposed properties on the side of me. So

again, I agree with everything that everybody else has said and not to mention the excess traffic, the speed that people go up and down that street. They disregard the stop time. Now there's going to be even more people doing that. And with all the other apartments and all the people been flexing into Charles Town, I think it's just getting a little much. And for our little neighborhood, we don't want that. We want to keep it the way it is. Like they said with just the family single family homes, that is absolutely not a problem. that to have this built. No, not not good. I'm against it. Thank you. All right. No other comments. Um, any comment from the board? I like I've seen quite a few homes Derek's built and even multif family ones he's built. He does a really good job. I can relate to a lot of them not wanting this large structure there, but I guess it's part of the coming that's going to be there. I did want to make sure Derek does do builds a nice structure. He built quite a few up in Pleasant Ridge. He's built some out by school, elementary school flats of is it flats of Charleston? Creek flies. Creek flats. It was over structural build. They are like almost what we're looking at here. Two. I did want to bring it up. It is a good building. Can I say something? It's not about the structure he's building. There's no

doubt that the man will build a great one. It's about everything else. It's the traffic. It's the multif family. It's, you know, sure he's I have no doubt that the man builds great places. I don't reason I'm saying that. You know, everybody did say that and I agree with a lot of that, but I wanted also to say that he is a good builder. It wasn't brought out. Everything else has been rolled out about the traffic flow. Well, no, but I don't think anybody here has doubted that he's a good builder. It But it did come out. So, that's I understand. But there's enough. We got enough apartments. I mean, look what's going up around us. I mean, we've already seen traffic and people that we've never seen in our neighborhood just from what's being built around us. Now, you want to build it across the street? I mean, it's crazy. They are empty lots. Derek, would you like to speak? I I would just like to make some comments based on I'm a I'm a neighbor as well. I live in the neighborhood and all all of their concerns are concerns of everyone, even myself, of all the development in the neighborhood. That that doesn't mean that just because I am doing the proposed project on Thompson Street, all that stuff is going to happen regardless. You know, we talk about the town, they they want restaurants, we want shops, want people, you know, development to come to town. It all has to do with population and the number of uh uh people and uh traffic in our in our town and our streets. And we don't get that without um apartments and and and and homes being built. Um, and then you know speaking on the uh concerns of the historic neighborhood, I live in probably the most historic home in the town of Charles Town that is on the National Registry. I restored it. It took 3 years. I'm very passionate about it. I'm not going to build something in

our neighborhood that is going to devalue the property value of my own house that that is on this the next block over that I can also see from my backyard. Thank you. I just wanted to voice my concern as well. Thank you. I I just wanted to add I mean as far as a structure and traffic and stuff I mean all of y'all probably noticed I I've been here for over 10 years. But I've noticed when we moved here I didn't hear ambulances every day. Right. I do now. You know why? because more traffic, more people, more violence, more crimes. Just just putting that out there. Thank you. And I don't care if we have a big town. We moved here 30 years ago because it was a small town. It is a homey feeling town. And I know it's going to progress, but it's not something I like. I would like it to stay a small town. So worrying about all the stores and all this coming in, I don't care about any of that. I like the small town atmosphere. All right. Thank Thank you to everyone who uh shared tonight. Can I say something? I live across the street from Derek's stuff. And Derek takes care of his stuff immaculately. It is always nice. It's always neat and he does a great job. But being said, I would like to keep that residential instead of multif family. And I would be blessed if Derek would build a house there because he does great work. But I just don't know if I'd like multif family there. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. That's all we're asking. All right. So, we'll

go ahead and uh call for a vote from the board um for the zoning map change request from single to multifamily at 910 Thompson Street. All in favor? Um or let's make a motion first. Let's make a motion first. I'm getting ahead of myself here. All right. So, this is a motion. Whatever happens here gets a gets sent gets a it's a recommendation to the city council. So, this will be at the next city council meeting whether it's four or none. All right. So, um I need a motion to move this forward. Um I get a motion. I'll make that motion. Okay. Motion by Daisy. I'll second. Okay. Second by Marty. All in favor say I. I. Oppos. All right. Thank you. Okay. So, against all against 33 up to you. Okay. So, um at this time taking in consideration of all of the uh concerns um I will have to vote against. Thank you. Recommendation to the city council was against um Yeah. So, I'll vote um against moving this on to the city council for recommendation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, uh nothing else. Motion to adjurnn. All right. So, I need a motion to adjurnn. Harold. Okay. Second. Second. Ryan. All right. All in favor say I. We are journalism.