Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Yes, that too. Welcome to the Cal County Board of Zoning Appeals. We have a large audience tonight. Uh, roll call. Yes. Frank Palver here. Roy Walker here. Andrew Proines here. Wayne Funk. Jason Carneahan here. Andrew Cruz here. Chris Galmer here. Meredith Wright here. Okay. Approval of minutes of November 10th, 2025. All in favor? I'll move to approve.

All in favor? I keep changing the rules on me. Uh, old business. None. New business. Petition 25-24. 25-14. No, that too.

Added a two. Uh this is a petition of Wester LLC requesting a development standards variance uh to allow for a gateway sign um and for a larger sign. This was allowed by ordinance in article 5.49B1 uh properties located on the west side of County Road that should be 17, right? Yeah, my bad. Approximately one quarter mile north of the intersection of County Road 17 and County Road 66 in Auburn and is zoned re rule state. Um, in your packets is the uh proposed sign, proposed location. Uh, this is right across the street from Rotundo Estates. Wester purchased that 10 years ago. I don't know, something like that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. 25 years ago. and um got that as you all have seen over the the years built out and um purchased the property across the street. Um developed it into a 14 lot subdivision. Um probably smaller lots than what San Giovani is, but um the same uh type of of development. Um upper class homes, very nice lots, very nice homes. Um I think it was mentioned at the commissioner's meeting that there are a million million and a half dollar homes. So, um, a nice a nice development. Um, our ordinance, um, doesn't allow for a gateway sign if there's no more than 20 or sorry, if there's, yeah, if there's not more than 20 lots um, in a single family development. This only has 14. So, they're requesting to have a a gateway sign. And then, um, if you do have a gateway sign, it can't be larger than 40 square feet in size. uh they are um looking to have that sign be 331.20 square feet. So the variance would be for 291.2 uh square feet. Uh you can see on the if you drove out to the site, you saw where the entrance um is located. Well, maybe I don't know with the snow on the ground. Um, where the entrance is located uh with a split um entrance divided by a median. So this is where the sign would be located. Um in your packet shows that proposed sign um probably similar in size h smaller than what San Giovani is um overall heightwise but um same style of of development. So with that in your packets is also the proposed location. Um it's set back uh about 30 feet from uh or sorry 35

feet from the right of way. So far enough back um not be impeding any line of sight with entrances or exits out onto County Road 17. Um was approved by the county highway department. It is outside of the ride ofway but was approved by the uh county highway department. With that I'd be happy to take any questions you have. Again, Brian Rothgab, who you all met, is um in the audience um here for any questions you have. Maybe he'll punt it to his kids so they can get some public speaking experience. Good idea. Sure. Please. Yeah. Please come up. State your name and address. If you want to add anything to this as well, that'd be great.

That on the button.

Now it is. My name is Brian Rothkib. Uh, my address is 1822 San Giovani Court, Auburn, Indiana 46706. Um, I live in San Giovani Estates, right across the street from Rotando Estates. I helped actually was the one that purchased San Giovani Estates from Wester LLC and then redeveloped and and got those u homes inside San Giovani and got the subdivision developed. and then helped Wester LLC develop Ratando Estates. And what we're looking for is an entrance sign that's going to look nice uh for the classness of the subdivision. The houses, like Chris said, are going to be probably anywhere between, I would say, the house itself builds probably anywhere between 800 and $ 1.5 million homes. Add the lot cost on top of that, you're talking between one and $1.7 million homes, probably somewhere in that range. U we're looking for a nice sign so that way that the subdivision it really is nice for the subdivision. The sign we feel like is um represents um the the subdivision in itself because it's um it takes on the form from from Ratando is comes from San Giovani Ratando which is where uh Padre Peio St. Padre Pio is from originally that's where the name comes from. So that's why the the sign looks similar to like a church with um backlit um backlit uh

stained glass. Stained glass. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah.

Um it it is not the same size as if you've ever been to San Giovani Estates. The the entrance structure out there is massive, right? It goes up 30 feet in the air um with a like a bell tower 30t in the air. But the front sign that actually announces San Giovania Estates, it's very similar to that. Now, it's narrower than that, like a narrower width. Uh, and it's a just a little bit taller than that sign. So, uh, the actual name plate sign of San Giovani Estates is almost a similar size as what we're asking for, requesting from Ratando Estates. It is, like Chris said, we feel like it's set back far enough. We were out there with the highway department and uh I was out there with the designer as well to make sure that line of sight was accurate and it's safe uh for folks coming in and out of the subdivision. It will be placed in between the two entrance/exits of Ratando Estates and again placed back further away out of the rightway of the county. But I like Chris said uh Mr. Parker did say give the thumbs up for the sign. What questions do you have for me? I'm obviously here advocating for the sign.

The U is this going to be a boulevard or is this going to be a two-way on both of those streets in and out? So, we'll have an entrance on the right hand side like you would normally drive on the right and an exit um on the if you're facing the entrance of the Okay. the subdivision. So, we'll have an entrance on one side, an exit on the other. Okay. Mhm. And it's the the road has already been named. It's called Padre Pio Drive is the uh road that comes into San or into Ratando Estates. What other questions do you have for me?

The a question for you. The the size the sizes of the sign 173 in um by what's the length? 50 no 276 in does that fall within our existing is the only problem here is the fact that we don't have enough lots in this development correct and then if they would size in this size right too this is 300 and some square feet larger 290 square foot larger than what's

40 foot 40 square foot sign were allowed which honestly I kind of thought that was kind of small in general That seems tiny. I would think a lot of people would have to get a variance for this for any addition. Most of the time the signs signs seem bigger, but this one's much larger than what we allow. Is it correct me if I'm wrong, isn't it, Chris that this sign is larger for what you allow for a less than 20 lot subdivision? If it's more than 20 lots or more, then the sign uh can be larger, I think. I think because 40 square feet is pretty small sign. Yeah. So, yeah, we don't have anything for large. Yeah. We don't have anything allowed for 20 or less and then if it's 20 or more lots. Okay.

Be 40 feet. This is not a two things to have a sign at all because it's less than 20 and to be bigger than what we allow on anything. Right. Sounds like it. Yeah.

So, two different things. But we feel as though that you know this is not going to first it's not going to be a safety concern and it's to me it's not uh a concern for the neighborhood. I mean all of our neighbors know that we're going to have Raton or Ratando estates across the street. We had already had been through the process to be approved for the subdivision because we did have to change the zoning for that to be approved um into a residential subdivision. Um and and the fact that San Giovani right across the street is a massive entrance structure which is much larger than what this structure will be. How far back from the road is this sign?

Uh I don't have the the document in front of me. I think Chris, it's marked on your on your guys' package. 50 foot, isn't it? From the from the pavement would probably be about 50 or 60 feet. Um but from the the ride ofway, it looks like it's about 30 35 ft. It's far enough off the road for a line of sight.

It's two car lengths. We measured about two car lengths. We wanted at least a couple car lengths to be able so that way if someone pulled up into the road, they would be able to see past the um past the mound area. It's set back behind uh the back level part of where you would see the mound area for the common area. It's on the back side of that. So, you would actually have to pull out further to see because of the mound. Not because of the sign and it honestly still looks diagram. What's that? It looks small on the diagram anyways. I mean it's not It seems appropriate for the

Yeah, we're not it's it's not going to be like we're not asking for San Giovani. That's for sure. That's which is like a castle for an olive garden or something. Yeah, something. It does look like that. something out of Italy. Very nice though. I like I mean I like it. I've driven up there. People People love to come by and see and take pictures of it. That's for sure. So I was when I was going door to door, I drove by and I was like oh very impressive. Very impressive. Very impressive. It looks a lot better now that there's not graffiti all over it. Busted up. That was That's how it was. Yeah. Four years ago. So what other questions do you have for me? This is I'm new to this process. So, anybody else um have questions for him?

Thank you. Thank you very much. Turn the mic off. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Any more questions from anyone? Pretty pretty. Okay, over to you. All right, ready for the findings here tonight. Uh, these findings are proposed and they're not final until it's voted on, of course, but we'll go through the proposed findings. Jurisdictional findings first. Application completed and filed on November 7th. Yes. Legal notice published in the Star on November 28th with publishers affidavit and receipt received.

Yes. Certificate of mailing notices sent and receipts given to staff. Yes. Letter from the county board of health dated December 8th. Yes. Letter from the county highway department dated November 12th. Yes. Letter from the soil and water conservation district dated November 7th. Yes. Letter from the county surveyor or drainage board dated November 10th. Yes.

And the letter from the Dow County Airport Authority is not applicable. Now the proposed findings of fact. There's three questions and anyone can answer um or go one at a time, however you uh prefer to do that. I'll start out with the first question. Will the approval of the variance request be injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and general welfare of the community? The proposed sign is larger is larger than allowed by ordinance, but will not be injurous to the public. Uh the county all the county departments have looked at it without objection.

All right. Number two, will the use and value of the area adjacent to the property included in the variance request be affected in a substantially adverse manner? It will not be affected in an adverse manner. It actually makes sense with the housing development in the general what that area is like. It will make sense with that. And number three, will the strict application of the terms of the unified development ordinance result in practical difficulties in the use of the property? Yes, the proposed increase in sign size will allow for the same presence as the adjacent development has.

All right, so we have some conditions of approval. Staff is recommending approval and is recommending the following conditions, most of which are standard conditions. Number one, the board retains continuing jurisdiction of this from development standard variance to asssure compliance with all terms and conditions and/or impose additional conditions deemed necessary for health and safety. Number two, a variance to allow for a gateway sign and for a larger sign than allowed by ordinance is allowed. Number three, comply with any applicable environmental standards as required in article 5.11 EN-01 in the unified development ordinance. Number four, no off-site drainage crossing over said real estate should be obstructed by any development on the site. And number five, no certificate of occupancy or certificate of completion shall be issued until the applicant files written evidence of compliance with any conditions of the Dow County Board of Health, Highway Department, drainage board, surveyor, airport, soil and water conservation district, or other agency is applicable. And further, where applicable file written evidence of compliance with federal or state agencies were identified in the findings or conditions, and the zoning administrator to determine when conditions have been met. Did I say back to you, Frank?

I I was waiting for that. I thought he was waiting for that. It's like It's like the nightly news here. Yes. Yeah. Well, okay. We got all the information. I'll make a motion to approve petition 2514 for both the ability to put a sign out there as well as an increase in size of the sign. Second. We got We got a proposal and a second. Roy Walker, yes. Andrew Proines, yes. Jason Carneahan, yes. Frank Palver,

yes. Thank you guys.

Thank you all. You're welcome. Thank you.

Merry Christmas. The only other thing is that gave you 2026 calendar.

Yep. We need to have an official motion and approval for those. No, no, because it's already in the bylaws of when they are. We just do this so you have it. You can mark your calendars or whatever you're doing with it. But so far, nothing for January. January. Looking at you like I would. It sounds really technical there. That's all I got. Okay. Nothing else.