City Council - Regular Meeting

To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nationy andice for all. Welcome to the May 21st city council meeting for Fischers, Indiana. I want to make I've got one of my council people online, so we're going to have to make sure we give him, you know, enough time to also chime in when it's necessary. I do want to make one uh movement here. I'm going to move item number where are we? 17 to item eight. So, it'll be 8A. If I can have a motion and a second. Okay. I got a motion by Todd and a second by Selena. All in favor of moving that one item up on the agenda, please say I. John. Okay. So, we'll go ahead and get started. Uh it doesn't look like there's any announcements or proclamations. It looks like we've got a couple presentations. Mr. Mayor, yes. I'd like to ask uh first the 2025 Indiana Classic Quiz Bowl state champions from Fischer High School to come forward. I think they're in the hallway. So, I'm going to go round them up. Here they come. The Fischers High School. Yep. We apologize for having such a big crowd tonight, but uh fortunately our schools keep succeeding in a variety of fronts and filled our agenda. So I was going to say, do we have some kind of movie opening tonight that every see I sadly tell you that there's no movie opening

tonight. So uh maybe if we could have the um Fischer High School team just talk a little bit about what they've accomplished and uh we'd appreciate to hear from you. Hello, I'm Chase Frank. I've been part of the Fischer High School Quiz Bowl team for all four years along with Mrs. Hagerty who's been the coach since I've been starting and Lee who's also been part of it all four years. So, we've been uh this year is actually one of the first years where we've actually won the state competition for Quizbull, which is a really big accomplishment for us. Um and so I just like to thank our coach for putting up with a lot of yelling and screaming every practice. um our teammates who made a lot of long bus rides feel a lot shorter and Lee who was our captain for this year and he was an excellent captain and a great friend of mine. So, and I'd also like to thank all the people at school at the administration at Fischer High School. We've received so much support from our principal, Mr. Goodwin, different assistant principles throughout the year and staff. We always have our annual teachers versus students game and teachers are always excited to show up and the support is always incredible and we always really appreciate it. So you have got great staff down at Fischer High School who are supporting great programs like Quiz Bowl. Well to the teacher and the students, thank you so much for your accomplishments and the next time I go to Trivial Pursuit at the restaurant, every one of you guys are coming with me. All right. Uh with that, Pete, you want to come down and we'll hand out some certificates? Congratulations. Congratulations. Congratulations.

Thank you guys. Uh, next, Council President Peterson, we have the HIJH, also known as the Hijge. Uh, they have their 2025 Science Bowl State Champions. So, could the team please come forward? They back in the green room. Yeah. [Laughter] All right. Yeah. It took a pause. Holy cow. Did Did you drive him here? [Laughter] Well, uh maybe teacher uh if you could talk a little bit about their accomplishment. While you do that, maybe Pete and I could start handing out the uh the boards. Well, first of all, thank you for having us here. This is an honor uh to

celebrate this wonderful group of 35 students, one of my largest uh teams I've ever had for the state science bowl. Um it's been a wonderful year. We had uh physical science was our topic and we studied for eight hours. Basically, we had eight class sessions. So, we had to fit in almost a quarter's work of material into eight hours. And they went home, they studied. Thanks to their parents support and uh their efforts here at school uh they won the state championship of Indiana for the blue class which is the big class. [Music] Oh, yeah. Well, and they even learned how to balance chemical equations. And I don't know, that's one thing I had to refresh myself on this year, too. So, they did a great job. We used candy, so that was fun. That was a motivator. Oh, yeah. Might as well. Do you need to stand up? We can squeeze in if you want us to squeeze. You might have You might have to. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Stand on the chair. Okay. This is awesome. All right. I think got it. I think we managed to get everybody. Thank you. You can tell if the parents are allowed to go if they want to. Yeah, that'll

probably Yeah. Right. Well, that's terrific by both of our schools. It just kind of gives you a lot of hope and solace that we're actually raising some good kids here in Fisers that can achieve accomplishments like these young adults have done and young individuals have done. So, we have absolutely terrific. We actually have one more. Oh, we have one more. We have one more. You're You're hiding something on me. Yeah, we'll let these kids filter out. Maybe some of the parents uh filter out as well. Yeah, you're welcome to stay. Yeah. Not recommending it, but you're welcome. Ashley, you want to start bringing them forward? Okay. I don't know. It's not science, but it's just confusing. So, it says elementary. Oh, got the state. Yeah. Now, I'm excited to introduce uh cuz my boys go there, the Southeastern Elementary Science State Champions. [Applause] All right. Same thing. If we could have our teacher come talk a little bit about this accomplishment as we hand these out, that'd be great. All right. Good evening. Um, so beginning in the middle of November, we had the privileges of working with 22 amazing fourth graders to prepare for this year's science bowl. Competition is held virtually over a 4-day window in January, and this year's focus was chemistry. In preparation, our team dove into a wide range of chemistry concepts,

some even aligned with up to seventh grade standards. The competition itself consisted of three parts. The individual round featured four outstanding participants. Abu Hudson, Ana, and Arya. The experiment round which involved the rest of our team focused on the law of conservation of mass. Students investigated what happened when baking soda and vinegar are combined in a closed environment, carefully measuring the mass of all products before and after the reaction. Lastly, our students join forces for the team round answering chemistry based questions together. Mrs. Jones and I could not be more proud of this year's team. Their enthusiasm, teamwork, and curiosity made this a memorable memorable experience for everyone involved. In fact, the students were so engaged and knowledgeable, they often corrected us when we made mistakes, something we were very happy to see. We are so grateful to have had this opportunity to work with such a dedicated group of young scientists. Thank you for your continued support of programs like the Science School that help our students explore and grow beyond the classroom. [Applause] Third round, guys. One, two, three. Awesome. All right.

And again, absolutely terrific. I mean, you have high school, junior high, and elementary school. It just gives you a lot of pride to know that our schools are turning out some really, really great individual kids. So, having that done, and I'll let those guys filter out here. I do not believe we have a finance committee report. Is that correct? Okay. Uh department reports. The health report is online. If everyone would like to read that, you can go to the city website and go to the health department report and see update in the health department. I now move on to item number seven, the consent agenda. Do I have a I have a motion by Todd? Second. Second by Cecilia. Uh all those in favor, please say I. I. Motion carries. Now we're I'm to item number 17. So, I think that's why most of you folks are probably still here. So, let me let me just kind of make a couple quick statements so everybody understands what we're doing here. Number one, there's no statutory requirement for a public hearing when we introduce an ordinance like this. However, being that obviously it's been a hot topic for well, for us for almost two years now. Okay. Um, I'm going to go ahead and allow some public comment. I'm going to make it equal to what we do at the end of the meeting, which is a total of 30 minutes. Each person will have a maximum of three minutes in which to speak. I will call you can come up to the podium. You can line up. You can do whatever you want. You need to state your name and address for the record. I'd like to also understand if you're representing yourself as a homeowner, you're representing yourself as a realer or you're representing yourself as a party that is part of the institutional group which is part of this ordinance. So, we just need to have an understanding everybody speaking. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Mayor Fness. Thank you, Council President uh Peterson. For the record, Scott Fattis, mayor of City of Fisers. Uh two and a half years ago roughly, I stood before a

large crowd of Fischers residents, including many of you at a state of the city and I talked about the historic amount of investments and momentum in our community and how nationally we were being recognized time and time again as a community that is desirable and a place that people want to live. the question posed to you at the time and the question that we've been wrestling with since it's one thing to build a great city, it's quite another thing to maintain a great city. That it's not just a snapshot in time, but it lives on not just today, tomorrow, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years into the future. I think that's incumbent upon us as elected officials to think about it from that framework. What are we doing to ensure the long-term sustainability of our city? Another commitment that we've all been aligned in and made over the years is that we were going to ensure that every corner of our community, all four corners were going to remain vibrant. And so when we did our housing study a number of years ago, we started to see that a significant number of homes were becoming for rent instead of being sold to new homeowners. For me personally, there's two issues I take with that. One is a philosophical issue. If we create this environment where people who want to buy starter homes are not available available to do so or able to do so, what does that mean for the long-term viability of those young families to acrue wealth? I don't know about many of you, but the only wealth my family's ever been able to generate over the years is to save up their life savings, purchase a home, take care of that home, be invested in their community to ensure that neighborhood is vibrant, that community stays sustainable. hope that that home either holds its value or appreciates and then at whatever appropriate time sell that asset and transfer that wealth onto future generations. Today that concept is under a lot of pressure and so I think we have an opportunity here to create an environment where we still can have for

rent product in our community but we can ensure that we also have a viable stock of housing that is uh approachable and attainable by individuals who want to own their own homes as a starter home. Along with that uh I could show you email after email after email. You know, I think we're all well aware of the fact that a number of special interest groups paid for advertising to go out and try to stir up opposition to this particular uh legislation. I don't criticize them for that. I mean, that is the intent of the special interest is to protect the current market system that they have. But what actually occurred and what I think you saw in all of your inboxes was a flood of residents saying, "Do this. We need this." story after story, anecdotal story after anecdotal story about the challenges that they found in their own neighborhoods. People who have lived here 10, 20, 30 years having to be forced to think about moving out of their neighborhood. These are the real realizations that we're dealing with uh today. We as a group have always weighed individual liberties. We have always tried to air on the side of making sure that people had the freedoms and autonomy that they deserve. But we also in a theater like this every month get together and weigh what is in the best interest for the long term for our community. And so tonight, I'm not going to belver the points of the ordinance. You've all heard them. We've been diligent. We started talking about this two and a half years ago. I want to thank Jordan Alexander, my chief of staff, Lindseay Bennett, our attorney, Chris Gryel from Barnes & Thornberg. The reason we didn't rush to a policy two years ago when we identified this as a challenge is we wanted to make sure we had the underlying infrastructure in place to make this as easy as possible for everyone involved. Believe it or not, we spent an awful lot of time

thinking to ourselves, if I were a realtor and I had to uh act in this market, how could we create a bureaucratic process that is as simple and as efficient as possible so they can still do their job? It took us a year and a half to get that right, to feel a level of confidence that we could stand here tonight before you and propose this legislation. So, we do not take any of this lightly. Now, tonight, I anticipate a spirited discussion from a variety of different stakeholders. Those who are vested in the particular market system that we have today, I understand their motivations. I really do. And we're going to probably hear from residents that are supportive of this legislation. But all I ask of the nine of you, and it's an unenviable position, is to filter all that and do what is in the best interests of this city. Not just today, tomorrow, but 10, 20, 30 years from now. So that Fisers isn't just a a flash in the pan, a one-time wonder, and then quickly decline, but rather 20 or 30 years from now, the people sitting in this room will realize that we acted with a great deal of foresight and insight about what it takes to remain a sustainable and desirable community. With that, I'd like to ask Jordan Alexander, my chief of staff, to just run through the logistics of what slight changes have occurred from uh the previous meeting to tonight and then we'll turn it over to you, Council President Peterson. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Um so, yeah, not much has changed substance-wise since the first reading. I did just want to call out two kind of clarifying changes that we made. Um, so first and foremost on the permit criteria, so the criteria for which we issue permits, we did add that the applicant or owner must be in compliance with their HOA covenants as well. So as we were talking to a lot of HOAs that have more restrictive covenants, so 5% or even 0% rentals, we didn't want to un

unintentionally undermine those covenants by issuing a permit based on our 10% when an HOA might have 5%. So um, to be compliance with our permit that we're issuing, the owner would also have to be in compliance with those HOA covenants. So, we added that. Um, the other point was just clarifying some of the legacy rental language. Um, as it was written previously, it suggested that we were wanting an additional 10% on top of those legacy rentals that are being grandfathered in. Um, that is not the case. So, as you know, legacy rentals are any rentals existing prior to December 31st of this year. Um, so if you're in a neighborhood or subdivision with 15%, that full 15% will be grandfathered in through this provision. However, no additional permits will be issued within those subdivisions until that total percentage gets below 10%. So, we just wanted to clarify um some of that language as well. But those were the two main changes that we made. So with that, if council has any questions, I'm happy to answer. Any questions for Jordan? Thanks, Jordan. Thank you. Again, I'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing. I gave you guys the rules. What I'd like to see also if there's a speaker up there to report to avoid repeating if it's something that you actually agree with if you raise your hand when the speaker is done so we understand where the positions are for everyone here because again I'm limiting the time to do this. Everybody has a minute a maximum of three minutes to come up and talk but I'm going to limit it to 30 minutes just like we do the end of council agenda. So, if you want to go ahead and come up to the podium one at a time and you can line up accordingly, that would be terrific. But again, I would like to not get a lot of repeats if I can.

Hi, my name is Joanne McCandless. You want my address, please? 11649 Solomon's Court. I'm representing myself. I'm not representing any sort of group. I am an attorney. I've been rep I have been um practicing in real estate in this sort of area for the past 25 years. Um I wanted to I've read your proposed chapter 163 um that you are planning to enact. Um, and I wanted to bring your attention, I'm sure that you've looked at this, uh, that this program unfortunately is in violation of Indiana Code 3231120, which prohibits local units such as the city officials from enacting the program it seeks to create. Um, it also is in violation of 36125. It says that you can have a landlord registry but doesn't it doesn't allow for permits, landlord permits like you are setting up. I uh I want to talk about 3231120 which says that um a unit may not regulate through ordinance or otherwise any of the following aspects of the landlord tenant relationship including the rights of the parties to a lease and it says that any ordinance or regulation that violates this sub subsection is void and uninforcable. So I want to talk about what that means. I sent you all um this letter on Friday to give you plenty of time to look at this. So I I want to actually address this group so that the city of Fisers, the the residents of Fisers understand that if this goes through that what's going to happen is there will be tests of this ordinance through litigation and through class action. Uh

that's going to happen. And who's going to foot that bill? that's going to be us, the citizens of Fisers. [Music] So, it's my understanding that what's happening here is that you've probably been told that it's a police power that gives you the ability to do this. Municipalities have the ability to to enact things through they have police powers necessary for the development and operation to get things going. However, you can't do anything that's a violation of a statute. And that's where you have the the two things clashing here. And what we are telling you is that we the citizens of Fisers don't want to have these this enacted so that our we don't want to foot the bill for the legislation or for the for the litigation that will come forward. So I see I'm out of time here. So thank you. [Applause] I mayor Fis and members of the city council. I've lived in Fisers. What's your name, ma'am? I'm sorry. Stacy Edwards and I'm at 10162 Long Meadow Drive. Okay. I have uh lived in Fisers for 30 years of my life and in Hamilton County for more than 50. I've owned four homes in four neighborhoods in this community with all different range of values. I want to talk about 2018. After a dor divorce, I was a single mom looking for a home for me and my son. My price range was no more than 250,000. I was approved for an FHA loan. My biggest challenge, that FHA mortgage. At the time, corporations were buying up all sorts of real estate with cash and

blocking out these buyers. As Mayor Fatmus mentioned, that was um an offer offer to offer situation for me. And I wrote a letter about how I was a single mom with disability. and that's not allowed anymore. I was still passed over by cash offers on all of these rental properties. So, after six of them being sold, I one night finally found at 900 p.m. a house that was okay for me. And I had my realtor get me in there at 9:00 a.m. the next morning. I put in a a bid and it was 2:25 and I got it. Today, you can't do that. You cannot. It is going to be something you will have to put a bid in and be considered among all others. So, I was extremely lucky. I have a house that was paid for by 225 and the home now appraises for $350,000. Everyone deserves to have a home and build for their financial future. Today, does this happen to you? I get a call every night at 700 p.m. I even have people coming to my door to buy my house. The marketing companies are ridiculous. They'll call and say, "Do you want to set up a meeting with an investor?" It's quick down and dirty cash offer for more Fiser rentals. So, I do have some data. In the last six weeks in my neighborhood of Plantana, um there were four homes sold and they all sold within one week. The first sold was private owner to owner. The second was LLC to LLC. That one sold for $318,000 and is a rental. Another sold from corporate to a private owner. Thank goodness that one's out of the neighborhood. But overall here, we're

still looking at 25% if you look at four homes in the last six weeks. So I want this to pass. I don't need % in my neighborhood. I need 10% or less. Our HOA, which is five neighborhoods, park short, is failed to pass anything to control this situation. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Randy Sbert. I'm at 129 Northland Street. I'm in the Sun Bless Sun subdivision. Uh several of you have received an email from me this last couple of weeks. Um I've lived in Sunbed. I bought that house 41 years ago. Uh I've watched Sunblast, I won't say deteriorate, but certainly in many areas come down. I don't have numbers on what our percentages are. I'm guessing they are well above the 10% range. Uh, I did some research several years ago uh through the title offices and many of the rentals are um corporateowned um financial firms, investment firms, and they're cash buys above market value. They're artificially inflating the houses that we have here. And it it's going to be a problem. I I'm supportive of the cap. I think we need to do something. Uh where I've been, I can I can I walk around the neighborhood a lot and I can almost tell the houses that are their rentals and the person that owns a rental doesn't care about it. Now, there are people that rent that care about their homes and and those properties take them up, but the corporations, the investment firms that are doing this, they don't take care of the homes. So, I I ask you to please support and vote in favor of it. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Good evening. My name is Jennifer Brammer. I am a homeowner. I live at 122000 Royalwood Court. I have been a proud Fischer resident since the late 1900s. And for 16 years, I've called Royalwood subdivision my home. It's not just where I live. It's where I've raised my son, where I've watched my neighbors kids grow up, and where I once had the honor of serving as our HOA president. This neighborhood to me is more than a place. It's a community I've been proud to be part of. Royal Wood is an ideal location. We're within walking distance of top rated schools, a stones throw from Gist Reservoir, and just steps away from the Gist Greenway Trails. We even have our own neighborhood pool, which is a rear gym that brings neighbors together each summer. By all accounts, it should be one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Fisers. But something's changed over time. I've over time I've watched the feel and fabric of the neighborhoods slowly begin to unravel. Today over 25% of the homes in Royalwood are rentals. Many of them, not all, but too many are not being maintained the way they should be. I live next door to one of those properties. It is locally owned and yet it only sees maintenance after I've exhausted my own efforts and had to contact the city. We've tried, we have truly tried to address this from within. Our HOA has made multiple attempts to implement a rental cap. The majority of residents who live here fall short of the 75% quorum needed to put in the effort. It's like watching something you love slip through your fingers, knowing you're doing everything you can, and it's still not enough. Last summer, a neighbor of mine put her home up for sale. It was well-kept and moving ready, but her street had the highest concentration of rentals, and the feedback from potential buyers was the same over and over. The neighborhood just doesn't feel the same. The offers were few and far between, and eventually

she sold to an investor at a price well below asking. That home became yet another rental, and another piece of our neighborhood shifted. And she isn't the only one. I've had countless conversations with longtime homeowners who are thinking about leaving or already have. They talk about how the sense of stability is fading. How the pride that once defined Royal Wood is getting harder to hold on to. Even local realtors, many of whom are residents themselves, are hearing the same thing from buyers and sellers alike. But here's what you might not see from the outside. Our neighborhood is still full of people who care deeply. We have police officers, nurses, teachers, business owners, people who work hard to take care of their homes and look out for their neighbors. And they want to preserve that what makes this place feel like home. Royalwood deserves a fighting chance. Communities like mine deserve the tools to preserve their character, protect property values, and provide stability for the families who love them. A citywide rental cap could be that tool, not to punish investors, but to ensure balance and to help neighborhoods like ours thrive and not just survive. Thank you, ma'am. Good evening. My name is James Steley, 11:30 Shosonyi Drive of Carmel. I'm res representing my son who owns a house at 8049 Atwood Court, Fischers, Indiana. Uh I don't disagree with item one and two on your proposed ordinance. Uh what I disagree with is the number three which allows violation notice to be posted in the yard which I think's totally unfair and not reasonable. Our son bought this house the idea of living here. He worked for Salesforce his job got him transferred to California where it is now where he cannot afford to buy a home as you all probably know if you have people you know in California. A house here that sells for six or six or

800 is three million out there. So he rents. So he owns this house with the idea that he wants to move back to Indiana and and and bring his family back here and live here. And the house is big enough for his family to ask. And what I worry about is like we got a couple notices. One was the mailbox needed attention. We took care right away. I disagree with the previous uh speaker that says all landlords don't take care of their property. That is not true. My wife and I have owned nine rentals, not in Fisers. Our son owns this house, Allen El Ste, atwood Drive. We got a couple notices in the city that that things that need to be taken care of. We live in Caramel. I had no idea. I took care of it within four days, you know, both times just as a mailbox one time and and and a a neighbor parked in the driveway and they sent me a letter that that I need to do something about this guy that was parked in the driveway. So, but again, we were notified and to for the council and I know you got a tough job and I admire what you do, but for the council to not to put this third phase in there about no written notice, I think it's unfair, unconstitutional, and just bad business because everybody's not a dead beat landlord. My son's not a dead beat. I'm not a dead beat. And we just want a fair notice that something needs to be corrected because we'll take care of it. I know you got corporate people, but you you got people like my son that's got a responsible job writing software and he will take care of things and we will take care as long as I'm alive. So I want the council to to weigh this because I think that's a forgotten part

about your ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Good evening. My name is Tony Osler. I'm a realtor and a local uh property manager. Uh I manage currently 160 homes in the Indianapolis area uh including some right here in Fisers. So I represent 15378 Tatter Sales Lane. Uh so it's with that that I I come before the council. So I want to make a statement for every one bad renter, there are five bad homeowners. um to single out rental homes uh as the problem is is borderline uh discriminatory at best. Um so what I want to make uh a statement on is restricting or outlawing rental homes can have unintended consequences for prospective homeowners. Uh and what I mean by that during times of a bad market when the economy is bad, the market is bad like we just went through about 10 years ago and we can't sell our home. Um, lack of time or longevity in the house leads to little equity. Uh, also um certain loan programs like 0% down, 100% financing, these can all lead to little e little equity in the home. And during times of of bad economy, it's hard to sell. Uh, if you can't sell and you can't rent, the only thing that leads to is foreclosure, which I think we can all agree is bad for the city of Fisers and for every community in them. Um, so I want to make a recommendation to the council. Instead of restricting or outlawing rentals altogether, I I recommend that you consider to partnership with local property management companies. These companies that can vet properly vet prospective tenants, not only for their creditworthiness, their backgrounds, their incomes, and their level of responsibility. That is by far the number one step in renting any home is putting a responsible resident into the home. Um, so we need somebody that can be a local source of communication,

somebody that can give these prospective tenants copies of the CCRs of these communities so they know the rules moving into these communities so they understand the rules. Most of these tenants want to do well, they just need to be informed. Okay. Lastly, I'd like to just end um that um rental properties, you know, already are taxed at a 2% rate without having the homestead exemption. And by putting more fees and more restrictions just causes more un more burden on on the homeowners. That's all I want to say. Thank you. Thank you, sir. [Applause] Good evening. Um, my name is Roy Mikish. I live at 9560 Clover Leafly Lane Fisers. It's the Country Fields Condo Association. I moved in there initially when the association was developed 28 years ago and it's 118 units and I've avoided the presidency of the HOA all these years, but I got stuck. Um, but I wanted to thank the mayor uh and his staff for uh having the courage to uh put an ordinance like this forward. Uh it is needed in Fisers. Our community went through a period of time when half almost half of our units were rental units. They were purchased sight unseen by investment companies and realtors. And uh I'll tell you what, we went through the experience of having those renters in our community. And I'm not saying renters are bad, but we experienced a period of time where uh they did not abide by all the bylaws and the restrictions and the rules that we had in the community and our community started to look pretty bad. Um I wish the council had done this years ago because we had to uh to get our bylaws changed for the cap that we

have now, which is 20 units. That's the limit that we allow is 20 units. Uh, but we had to get the 75% approval from our owners and that was tough, but we got it. But we even went one step further. We added a clause in there where all uh sold condos and units had to be owner occupied for one year before they could be leased. Guess what happened to the investment companies and the people that wanted to buy just investment properties? They didn't buy in there anymore. And that was good. Today we're down to about three units in the entire property that are rented. So we're very happy about that. Um so as you can tell I support this wholeheartedly. Uh this is going to be a good thing. Uh I wish you would have gone to maybe 8% instead of 10%. Certainly would have supported that as well. But um you know I'm hearing comments up here about uh you know homeowners are as bad as renters as far as keeping property up. But uh when you have to go through it and you have to put up with uh half of your community renters uh violating the laws and the rules of the community all the time, it's not a good thing. So, um I just wanted to thank the mayor again and I urge the council to pass this ordinance. Um thank you for your time today. Thank you, sir. I'm Jeff Goodwin and my address is 12569 Largo Drive and I have everybody's favorite position. I'm president of our HOA for Great Eagle and we have 661 homes. We've had a 5% cap since 1998. So, this is not something new. Sometimes it's referred to as something new. There's nothing new about this. Uh we're in favor of this. We don't have any idea how many rentals we have. It's hard to determine just by looking at who the owners are. There's a handful of corporations. One of them we found out was LLC, but it was somebody that lived there that owned another business. So,

there's some other ways of doing this. So, we're in favor of this if for nothing else for the registration aspect of this so we can find out how many we do have. The it would be nice if the enforcement level match the HOA. We talked to Jordan about this the HOA meeting. At least getting recognition that giving permits when you're above a certain HOA's number would be a problem for us. But um because enforcement for us really gets down to what the first speaker said basically going into a lawsuit with an institutional advisor. It's not something that my residents would probably be in favor of. We really don't have a lot of enforcement action because the state took away the ability for HOAs to find people. So we can't level fines, which I understand you have no control over that, but we really don't have a lot of options. But at least we would know how many uh rental homes we did have in our neighborhood. So, I will yield back all my time because there's a lot of people standing behind me. Thank you, sir. You're welcome. Hi, I'm George Luks. I'm a resident uh of Fisers. Um retired. I have no other influence to the real companies or anything else. I live at 12071 Saleplace Drive. Uh, I come here as concerned to understand what is in this. Um, I've talked to a couple of you to try and get a little background. I looked at the last thing was on the video, but um, I'm concerned what the background is and I think we've got to publicize where you came up with what you came up with is I understand it that no other city or municipality within Indiana has this this sort of a run limit. My question would be does any other state have it? In other words, what was the background and how you developed the detail to come up with the limits and the wording that you have? I think we as citizens of fisers need to understand that so we can understand what it is. I

heard the earlier speaker say there was a a couple laws that are being quote maybe being violated. Also, I read someplace that title 36 we're probably not in agreement with. So, once again, we got to make sure that we're somewhat covered so we don't end up having to pay a lot of legal fees to get it straightened out. I don't know what data you really have. In the paper, it said today that the 50 HOAs are over 10%. 17 HOAs are 20 to 29%. Nine HOAs are over 30%. We have 240 HOAs. So what is the data? How did you pick the level of 10%. What made 10% based on what you have? I know we say we have 8% overall. If you have all that data, then you know how much of each of the HOAs, but I think we need to explain that. Um, I was told that the ability to work with local HOAs to help get them to put the rules in, uh, is is impossible to do. Um, understand we all bought houses. We do we those of us who live in HOAs knew what bylaws are, knew what the changes are, knew what the rules are. I live in a very conservative area. we have a 10% limit but at the same time the board can approve a deviation for what logical reason there may be like the gentleman talked about sales force and stuff like that there was a there's a way to handle it such that you don't put it at a limit I know you have about four or five exceptions listed but it's not as easy to do as we could do in the HOA based on what the argument may be of the ownership I think that's something that's got to be looked at Um, so I think we need to work more to help the other HOAs how to communicate and some

of this background may would help with it. Thank you, George. And then I would throw it out. Maybe we already have all the citizens. George, we're done. Thank you. Good evening, council members. Uh, my name is Chris Prior. I serve as the chief advocacy officer for the Maybore Realtor Association. We're located at 1912 North Meridian Street in Indianapolis. I want to thank you for the opportunity to share some public comment on this proposal tonight. My has always been a collaborative community partner with the city of Fisers, but we are strongly opposed the proposed rental cap that's before you tonight. These measures represent a serious overreach, placing broad restrictions on property owners, directly infringing on private property rights by limiting what property owners can do with their property and who they might sell to. This proposal also limits much needed housing options at a time when affordability is already out of reach for many. It directly interferes with the free market, drives up cost, and reduces opportunities for residents who rely on rental housing to live in the community they work in and support. If we truly want to address the challenges with affordability and access, this is the wrong approach. The city needs to focus on ways to provide more housing supply, not limit options. It is not surprising to hear the concerns expressed about potential impact of institutional investors on our neighborhoods. But as I we have shown all of you with the data, the market conditions have changed. And in recent years, institutional investors have sold more properties over the past two years than they have purchased. This this is a trend likely to continue. But if this proposal is adopted, why would an institutional investor ever consider selling another property? Existing institutional

investors are grandfathered, so it's unlikely that we will ever see a reduction in the number of rental properties owned by institutional investors. Finally, the stated objective of this proposal says that it's to ensure code compliance. Certainly, the upkeep of property is an important component in maintaining vibrant neighborhoods, but the city already has a property maintenance ordinance that was specifically created to address the issues for all properties, regardless of whether they're rentals or owner occupied. The city should enforce its already existing tools before adopting duplicative policies. While we appreciate the city's engagement throughout this process, we urge this council to reject this ordinance. My board remains ready and willing to collaborate on thoughtful solutions that protect neighborhoods while preserving property rights and housing choice. Thank you. Thank you, Jess. [Applause] My name is Jennifer Rice. I'm a realtor 9783 East 116th Street. So, I'm going to keep this very short and sweet. Um, I do support uh this ban. And for years, we've seen corporate investors come into Fisers, Noblesville, Carmel, and scoop up homes. And my job as a realtor is to sell homes to people who want to buy homes in our community. So, as we all know, when a when a neighborhood crosses a certain threshold of rental home properties, that neighborhood, whether we like it or not, starts to become more undesirable. Um, and I've had buyers tell me this, and and let me say, unless you are out there in the field, per se, selling, you you may not know this, but

you know, you have to actually be in the field to know this. And honestly, this is where when those neighborhoods are filled with these corporate investors, you know, the code violations increase. Um, honestly, crime rates, um, yeah, we don't think of Hamilton County like that, but crime rates increase. You know, the the communities totally change. And the person who talked about Sunless, absolutely, that neighborhood has changed. So, I do support this cap and I appreciate your time. Thank you, ma'am. Hello, my name is Marty Brown. I live at 12116 Cobblestone Drive in Sandstone, which we have a lot of rentals. Um, I also come from the real estate community. I I did mortgages for eight years. I watched many very valuable home buyers lose out on homes to these investors. However, I don't believe in this. It is not your right to tell me 11 years divorced trying to come back as a mom and make it as a homeowner. My father taught me do not have debt and buy a house and buy your car cash. And that is what I did. and for you potentially, respectfully, to say that I can't move next year after my twin boys graduate from HSSE and rent my house so that I can pay for their college is baloney. It is unamerican. is un is

absolutely not okay. And I have several friends that serve on this board. I have my ex-husband who serves for your city and I love all of you, but I do not and I very graciously disagree with this. You cannot tell me that when my twins graduate next year and go hopefully to West Point or wherever they're going to go that I can't turn around and rent this house and create generational wealth for my children. I have not and I will take the whole minute. I have not worked my ass off in 11 years since being divorced. To turn around and say, "Oops, guess I shouldn't have bought a house. I guess I should have rented for the last 11 years." It's not okay. And I'm not saying I disagree with you. I feel like there's a middle point. I don't feel like people in New York with suits on can come in and buy our properties. But I also don't feel like you can tell me that as an American citizen who has paid for 11 years on my mortgage that I can't rent is absolutely the most thing that is non-American. Whatever I I give my 10 seconds. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to I want to point out to the audience we've got enough for two more speakers if they take up to three minutes FYI because I'm shutting it off at the 30 minutes. All right. Um thank you council. My name is Jack Russell and I proudly serve as the president and CEO of the one zone chamber. We proudly serve more than 12,200 businesses across Hamilton County and for the past 10

years are proudly have called the city of Fisers our corporate headquarters. On behalf of our organization, the business community we serve, we want to express our strong support for the proposed ordinance establishing a rental registration and permitting program for long-term single family rentals in the city of Fisers. As our cont as our community continues to grow, it is vital that we take proactive steps to preserve a long-term vibrancy, stability, and quality of our neighborhoods. We believe this ordinance is a necessary measure to ensure that our housing stock remains well-maintained and is accessible to families who want to call Fisers home. This proposal is not about restricting investment. It's about creating balance by establishing a clear inventory of rental properties, promoting accountability for code compliance, and preserving opportunities for home ownership. The ordinance lays out thoughtful guidelines that support economic development and strong neighborhood integrity. The inclusion of the 10% cap per subdivision with reasonable grandfathering provisions represents a fair and forward-thinking solution. Fisers is known for qu innovation, quality of life, and responsible growth. This ordinance helps ensure Fisers remains a thriving, highquality community for all who live here now and in the future. We appreciate the city of Fischer's leadership on the issue and encourage adoption of this ordinance as a step forward towards continued community and economic strength. Thank you. Thank you, Jack. Yes, ma'am. You and you will be our last speaker. My name is Bushbar Khan and my address is 9877 Vading Green Avenue and I'm official resident for 15 years. Um, and I'm just serving I'm just speaking as a concerned um community member. Our vibrant community is all inclusive community that is not restricted to people who can only own a house but also who are able to rent. As a physician working in a nearby clinic, I am often told by my recruitment team that they

are often unable to hire medical assistants or other staff groups because there is not enough renting options available in fisers and people have to drive all the way from Indianapolis for which they have to pay gas and etc. And this make us wishes this make wishes less likely place for people like staff uh people who are working at a level of like support staff like medical assistants front desk and um for for them to be able to afford rent and to be able to uh come all the way from Indianapolis where rent is more affordable to furers. So restricting is going to make uh small business owners difficult time to find um like employers um and if renters are not maintaining home solution is making HOA stronger and more implementing versus just trying to make it more a restrictive community. This ordinance is going to adversely affect our business owners and other like health care um options as well because people won't be able to rent if they cannot own a house. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. I want to I want to close the public hearing. I want to thank everybody for bringing their spirited comments to this conversation. I believe everybody was well represented and got a number of points across and that we're very appreciative of that. Mayor Fabnes, does the staff have any things they want to go ahead and state? Uh we have no further uh comments unless there's questions from the council. Is there any questions from council? Brad, I I'd just like to make some comments. Uh, first of all, first of all, I'd like to thank the Indiana Homeowners Alliance for sending out all these emails and texts at your cost to my constituents so I didn't have to pay to find out what my constituents wanted. And I appreciate you including my email. The super majority that answered your emails to me were for Yes.

[Music] And my wife even got the emails. I was elected here in Fiser as a city councilman to represent the residents, not to represent other situations. And the residents in my district have told me to vote yes. And I thank them for taking the time to call me, text me, run me down in the grocery store and send me emails and I represent the residents and I will be a yes vote tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Brad. Anyone else? Selena. Yeah, I want to say, you know, this issue, as Mayor Fnus stated, is something that we've been working on for a long time. In my last campaign, I knocked on so many doors. There were two issues the community asked me for. One was trash. Thank you, Mayor Fesnus, and his team. We got it done. The second was to do something about the rentals and it was a large voice especially as some has noted within some bless. What I like about what mayor Fadnus has done as an investment banker and a landlord I reached out to Wall Street economist and I said this is what we're doing. tell me the ups, the downs, and I got lots of comments. I took those comments. I went back to the staff that listened. We put many measures in place to handle market swings, to handle financial situations, to handle family situations, some of

which have been measured here tonight. I would encourage you to learn about this ordinance. There has been so much misinformation put out about this. I know the staff tried to do a great job at correcting some of those falsehoods that had been put out. The ordinance takes into consideration many of your life situations that have been in place. As a landlord, I don't own properties within this community. I do others. And I'm working with those communities with their landlords uh registrations that we have to have. And I want to say just some of this, you know, my constituents, I'm like Brad. My constituents overwhelmingly reached out and asked for me to pass this. Whether I was walking in the park, talking to neighbors, it didn't matter if they were Democrat, Republican, or independent. Most of my neighbors wanted this put into place. And I will be voting for Todd. Oh, wait. Tiffany, I just wanted to say that um I'm a local realtor. The people have reached out to me that I work with, the realtors that I know, they are pretty much in favor of this. Um, one of the things about Fisers I too saw during my campaign was that um Fisers is a very special place. It's one of the top places to live in the United States. And sometimes you have to do things differently to protect and preserve what we have. I when you knock on doors and you meet people who've lived here for 30 years and they have seen their lives and their neighborhoods change, it touches your heart in a very special way. Some of the neighborhoods in our communities do not have HOAs to protect them. And it and we are where we

are right now. I will be a yes vote because I believe in supporting um our homeowners. I believe in preserving Fisers. It's a wonderful community and I think we have to do what we can to preserve what we [Music] have. So, I appreciate everyone's comments, both sides. Uh, I have tried my best to get put out stuff online, met with people that oppose and support, tried to listen to every voice that's out there. You know, as I coach in the community, I'm involved in a lot of different things. So, I encounter a lot of different families. I mean, hundreds, if not thousands of families, and a lot of them don't want anything to do with any of these processes. They just don't stay away from the political side. And I understand that every day more and more. I understand that. Um, I never ever ever want to do something that we can't measure and watch for unintended consequences. And so with this, while I am very supportive of this, I understand because we're humans, there can be unintended consequences. And we hear some of those that are potential here in the in the audience. And I'm hearing your voices. I'm not discarding your voices. I'm just asking for the staff, Mayor Fadnus to find a way, a mechanism to be able to track and watch the progress of this over the next year or two to make sure that those things that if they are if there are things that rise up and there's situations where I feel stuck in my home, here's what's going on. You know, we have these caps, we have this situation, but this is my situation. I'm stuck. That we can adjust and adapt to those things. Um the big point I have for this is as a nation if we don't if somebody doesn't take a stand who will and it is not

about I want to make this very clear and all investors are not bad actors. Okay. Virtually all renters are not bad actors. We all I've had to rent several times. I believe you know I would speak that majority of people have had to rent at some point or choose to rent based on their situations in life. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. And I don't want this to come across as from this body saying we think renters are bad people. That is not the message that we're trying to get across. But at some point someone has to take a stand. When there's land being bought up by foreign and domestic entities that are taking away the livelihood and opportunities for people to build their wealth within their homes, within their families, somebody has to take a stand. And during that stand, and during that stand, this is not to speak against realators. This is not to speak against my board. This is not to speak against those investors that are in the community. That's not what this is about. This is about a much larger issue that at some point we got to do something and I feel like the time is right to do that. I also want us to possibly explore as we look into reinvesting our communities down payment assistance, first-time home buyer opportunities because we want to put into action talk is cheap. We want new home buyers. We want families that have can't do it to find a way to be able to do this to create home ownership to create wealth within their within their families. So I am very supportive of this. Um I just want I but I want to reiterate that these are things that please look at this on a broader perspective as a nation. Look at this as what's going on in our nation. Do

research. Please research. try to take away from your individual situation and go look as what look what's happening when farmland's being bought up when homes are being bought up by foreign entities and by outofstate investors that are taking hold and potentially taking hostage our nation. Thank you very much. Uh I also just want to thank everyone that reached out, sent emails. Um, you know, obviously this issue has come up and it's been it's been something the city's been working on for two and a half years. Um, and it was not something that, you know, you turn around the next day and implement an ordinance. Um, it's a lot of discussion. It's a lot of feedback. It's a lot of research. And, uh, we don't take this this vote lightly. Um, you know, it what we want is the best for our community. We want to continue to be one of the best places to live. Um, and I think this is also an issue that obviously it's not just a Fisers issue, but it's it's affecting other communities as well, other cities. We've we've had a lot of people reaching out saying, you know, we're experiencing the same thing. And so, um, I agree with with a lot of what my colleagues have have stated today. And, um, I think it's also something where, um, this is what we do and why we're elected. We, you know, the city evolves. It changes. um we we need to, you know, look at what what we have and um adapt and make and make hard decisions sometimes based on what's what's going on and the feedback we're

getting from residents. So, um I will be supportive today also of this Bill. Uh thank you. Um, well, my district has been no different in the amount of communication from constituents and like everyone else's district, it has been overwhelming and as a counselor representative, I have to pay attention to that. Um, but I'm also mindful that my district, the Southwest District, has the most rental units in the city. And I'll say this to those renters, they that I value them and I'm glad they're here. Um, we have five or six projects currently under construction that are rental units in my district and they're wonderful projects and I'm hoping that um all those people that rent in my district um if they want to will become home buyers. And so I just want to I agree with you um Councilman Zimmerman that um this is not against renters um because s clearly the growth pattern since 20 even 2023 when I got elected we've had five um rental multifamily rental units being built under construction now but I want to say that like any piece of legislation Um, this one isn't perfect and I think everyone in this room knows that we're on the cutting edge, that we're first and we've got to keep talking. We got to keep talking to opponents of the ordinance. We got to keep talking to supporters of the ordinance um to make it better. And I would concur with you that I would be

for a um some type of homeowner down payment assistance to try to get some of our renters if they want to into home ownership in Fisers. So, um because of the overwhelming um amount of input from my constituents, I'll be voting yes. Thank you, Bill. John who's online or John Deluchia didn't say anything. Yeah, John online do you want to make any comments? Yeah, very briefly. Sorry I couldn't be with everybody tonight. Um obviously celebrating a little bit post April 15th but what I do as a career take a little time off but wanted to be a part of this meeting because it's very important. Um I represent thing I want to make sure I represent my district. I don't represent a group. I don't represent people that that I've met before that are hard. And to be clear, I represent unions like Bagel Alamir and many others. And in my campaign visit with all and what's right for my right. Okay. Thanks, John. I think I think he's done. I'm not sure. I can't tell. Might need a transcript. Yeah, John Deluchia. I'm good. Are you good? Okay. So, I'll just kind of make some some brief comments. Myself and John are probably the two senior folks that they're here on council. And, you know, I've had the the pleasure of serving in this community, you know, both with Mayor Fis as a as a deputy town manager, then town manager's mayor. And I can't tell you how lucky we are to have the administration we have to build the community that we built here in

Fischers because you can look out here and our fingerprints are all over what's going out here. The accolades continue to come. They continue to come. The people continue to come. Why? Because we're a vibrant community because we don't do things without thinking them through. We don't make just slack decisions off the cuff and run down away just bursting ourselves into a wall. That's not the way we do things here. They are very well thought out. The one thing which I've always complimented Mayor Fatness on is his ability to hire topnotch staff. Our staff I'll put up against anybody in the state, probably anybody across the United States as these guys do their job impeccably. I trust them intrinsically with what they say. That includes my attorneys who may not agree with other attorneys as to their interpretation of laws. Okay? So, I'm going to let you attorneys fight all that out. Okay? I will tell you that at the end of the day, it is our job here and I've had to make a lot of tough decisions and I've told my other council members when they come on here. Sometimes we're kind of served up, you know, a couple decisions you have to make that are tough to make. You've got got to make the best out of a bad situation. I'm not calling this a bad situation. What I'm saying is this isn't the easiest decision to make. We have to make it for constituents and for everybody. But I will also point out when we have made mistakes in the past, we haven't made many really. And I'll just give a a tiny microcosm. A year or so ago, we put a $50 parking charge on the new Gist Park. We figured out that that was a bad idea, right? We came right back and and redid it and lowered it again down to what was then a reasonable level because we figured we overshot again. This is not written on the grail tablets. Okay, this can be overturned if it doesn't work. You need five council people to get this back to a reasonable place if it doesn't work. And like Todd and my other folks have talked about, we are going to measure this thing. Okay? We are the first. We know it. By the way, for anybody who didn't get to speak tonight, you go to

council meeting over in Carmel next time because they introduced the ordinance tonight. Okay? So you don't you didn't lose your chance. Okay? But I will tell you that at the end of the day from everything that I've heard my constituents on a vast majority 80% at least and if it's not 80% it's high70s have asked me to pass this. So with that I'm going to thank all my my council people for their comments. I'm going to thank the public for their engaged conversation and I'm going to ask and Brad and one looking for the last word Brad. Yeah. One correction please. Yep. You said that you and John were senior on the concert. Well, I didn't talk about age. I didn't I didn't I didn't talk about age. I was going to say that. So, anyway, and you're closer. Anyway, doesn't matter. I'm going to go ahead and ask for a motion on this. I got I got a motion from Todd. I have a second from Selena or Tiffany. Tiffany. Okay. We have to do a roll call vote because John's online. I also point out after this vote, I'm sending John back on vacation, so he's not going to be around for the rest of the meeting. So, Pete Peterson, yes. John Deluchia, yes. John Weingart, yes. Cecilia Cobalt, yes. Brad Durmer, yes. Selena Stoler, yes. Todd Zimmerman, yes. Tiffany Douglas, yes. Bill Stewart, yes. The motion passes. Motion carries. Nine hour. I want to thank everybody for today. And now we'll move back to item number eight on the agenda. And if everybody could be quiet as they're leaving so we can continue with our meeting, I'd appreciate it. Item 80 in the agenda. Who's up?

Johnny, you taking off? Take care. We'll see you. All right, buddy. Thank you. trying to take this personally. Do you want me to go ahead and start? Well, all right. So, I'll talk about items eight and nine together. So, items eight and nine are the second readings of the bonds for the Union and Crossing and then for the Andretti project. These are substantial and similar in form to what you saw last month for the terms of the project agreement. There were some minor changes to the union related to some terms and some name definitions, but nothing to the size of the bonds. Happy to answer any questions. Uh, I don't have any questions. Any question for councel? Okay. If not, I'll take another motion to approve. Motion by Todd, second by Tiffany. And John is offline now, Jen, so we don't need you a roll call anymore. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Do we need to do a separate vote? No, we don't need We need to do a separate vote on number nine. So, I'll take a motion on item nine. Motion approved. Motion by Todd. Second by Tiffany. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstains? Motion carries. Item 10. Uh item 10 uh relates to the Union Crossing Project. And so this is to include a parcel called lot three that was not included when we originally set up the economic development area and allocation area. So this was previously approved at plan commission and meets the definition of what we want for that area. So this is just to include that lot in the area. Happy to answer any question. Any questions for staff? Motion by Selena. Second by John

Deluchia. All those in favor please say I. I. Any any opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Item number 11. Good evening. For the record, Megan Bombgartner, director of community and economic development. Tonight is another version of the amended and restated project agreement for the union. Um, again, the changing times, capital markets, um, and looking at finances for some of the projects is just getting a little bit tighter for us to be able to help, um, great projects and developments move forward. So, in this amended and restated um this is aligning the $500,000 of additional increment that was committed to the project from a variety of different sources. So, if you'll recall from the beginning um there is additional increment that's being generated outside of what's being utilized with the um bond payments um through minimum taxpayer agreements uh for the yard project. And so we had committed um council had committed up to $500,000 total of um additional increment that comes from that development plus the additional allocation areas within the crossing development. Um upon reviewing that and looking at appeals that are happening also on these projects. Um we to maintain our commitment of up to $500,000 for that commitment of additional increment. We're now also including the station's development. So the development immediately to the east of there um which has a an office building, hotel and retail pad. Um so this is now again just an alignment of the commitment that we had made um can be met and um to allow for the closing to take place May 8th is what's currently being targeted. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions for Megan? I'll entertain a motion.

Motion. Motion by Selena. Second. Second by Tiffany. All those in favor, please say I. Any opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Item number 12. Uh, good evening. Uh Kevin Rafine with the city's planning department, assistant director of the department. Uh presenting item 12, ordinance 02242 5F, which is a text amendment to the unified development ordinance, which includes chapters 1, 3, 5, and 12. Um I will summarize the updates. You saw these before um back in February for first reading. And I will also note that this item is being presented um parallel with the next item on the agenda which includes amendments to chapters four, six, and eight. So I'll start with chapter one. Um our introductory provisions. Uh the main changes include additional language uh within the purpose and intent section. Um also we are relocating provisions that deal with development standards over to chapter six just to be more consistent with the UDO. um structure within chapter three, the zoning district's chapter, we have included a reduction for front uh setbacks uh just to match the last decade of developments that have come

before the city. Um also parcels adjacent to Gist uh reservoir will be allowed a higher impervious surface coverage. Uh this is a reaction to over 10 years of BCA cases regarding uh lot coverage along Gist. Um we've also added specific language uh for buffer requirements for infill developments as you can see in the screen. Uh within chapter five our use regulations chapters uh we've added a section for accessory and temporary uses which were previously located elsewhere. Uh we've also added uh definitions and expanded the definitions of senior living to include assisted living and independent living. We've added EV charging stations as an accessory use. Uh this came out of the FISER uh comprehensive plan. Um also we provided standards for solar and wind energy systems. We've removed uh vehicle fuel cells from C2 and C3 commercial districts now only permitted by right and I1. And likewise for um car washes, we've also uh limited them by right to I1 districts. Uh we've also added a new category for agricultural and animal use categories. Uh for chapter 12, we've added 56 new definitions to further clarify the standards. Uh similarly, we edited 19 definitions to align them with the new standards and we've removed 12 definitions that were either repetitive or no longer necessary. Um this item received unanimous uh favorable recommendation at the April 2nd, 2025 plan commission. Uh staff recommends approval of ordinance 022425F. Uh, with that I'll conclude my presentation and I'm available and happy to answer any questions if you have any. And this has gone through planning

commission obviously with favorable recommendation. Any questions for Kevin or staff? I have a motion by Selena. Second. Second by Cecilia. All those in favor, please say I. Any oppose or abstain? Motion carries. Did you do both of them, Kevin? No, I'll move on to item number 13. Okay. Um, item number 13 is ordinance 031725C. Um, as I mentioned earlier, this is a text amendment for chapters 4, 6, and 8. Uh, within chapter 4, we've amended um, excuse me, we've updated the I69 overlay district to allow institutional uses as a secondary use. Uh within chapter six, we've made a number of different recom uh different changes to the development standards uh including uh the relocation of some of those standards from chapter 1. Uh we've updated the requirements for trash enclosures. We've updated roof standards for residential structures. Uh we've provided additional information on low impact development standards. Uh we included standards for tree canopy coverage for commercial and multifamily uh developments. We've also updated our landscape standards, our parking standards, and some of our signage standards. And lastly, within chapter 8, um the subdivision and plan unit development design standards, we've increase the required buffer yards and uh we've also provided guidance on the design of required open space within those developments. Um likewise, this item received a unanimous uh recommendation uh of approval from the plan commission on April 2nd, 2025. Uh staff is recommending approval of these ordinance and I'm also happy to answer any questions if you have any. Any questions for Kevin or staff? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. I

got a motion from John, second from Tiffany. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Thanks, Kevin. Moving on to annexations. All right. Um, our first annexation is ordinance 042125A. Um, this is a request to approve a voluntary annexation for a property known as the Shipment property. Uh, property is located at 100056 East 126th Street uh, and is a one in 1.35 acres in size. Uh, this item does require a public hearing. Uh, with that I'll conclude my presentation. Okay. I'll open the public hearing for anyone wishing to speak on this topic. Please step to the microphone, state your name and address for the record. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. Do we have any questions for Kevin? Well, I don't think we can approve on this one. I think it's first reading. Just first reading. So, I just need to have a first reading. Is that first reading then? The rules. No rules on the No, you can't suspend it. You got to bring it back. Yeah, we can't suspend it. It's against the law. So, we'll go ahead and have first reading. So, we're on to item 15. All right. Item 15 is another annexation. This is ordinance 042125B. Excuse me. Um, this is a U request to approve another voluntary annexation known as the 116th Street Place property. Um the property is located at 13042 East 116th Street and it's 0 51 acres in size. It is a voluntary annexation and staff uh anticipates this item to return to council in May uh with a proposed reszone as well. Uh this item also requires a public hearing for first reading. Thank you. Any questions for Kevin? I have one. What do they want to

bring it back for reason for? Looks like there's a house on there. So, this is one of the CEO uh low impact commercial properties within the overlay and they're seeking uh reszone into that district. Okay. For an office use. All right. Um I'll take a motion. First reading. First reading. Sorry. Yeah. Todd says give it first reading. I'm going tohead and open it for a public hearing. Anyone who wishes to speak on this topic, please step forward, state your name and address of the record. Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. No, go ahead and do the first reading. Okay, Todd gave it first reading. Moving on to item 16. All right, thank you. This is another annexation. Uh, for the record, Kevin Martinez, assistant director of planning and zoning. This is ordinance 042125C and it is a request a for a voluntary annexation for a property known as the Gerard property. The property is located at 11052 uh Cumberland Road. um and it is 9.15 acres in size. Uh staff also anticipates this item to return to council in May with a proposed reszone at that time as well. Any questions for Kevin? I'll go ahead and open it up to the public for anyone wish to speak on this topic. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record. And you'll be given three minutes in which to speak. Abraham Wonder Jim, 16113 Lar Valley Drive. I believe this is brought to council this evening from the plan commission without recommendation uh for for against it. I'm here this evening to support councelor Dreamer's position in the aspect that I believe that the zoning ordinances should be followed. So let me just ask a quick question. You're not opposing the annexation? No. Okay. So I will tell you that this item has been pulled from the agenda will not be on the agenda tonight. So I you can finish your comments which you're able to do or you can save your

breath and bring it back to the next council meeting where they'll be actually coming back with a project to talk. We'll see you at the next council meeting. Perfect. Thank you sir. Anyone else wishing to speak on this topic and again I this this item is not on our agenda tonight. So this is about the annexation. Um Adrianne Powell uh 9967 at Gian Road Fisheries Indiana. I don't know what a voluntary annexation is, but I feel like I should. I just have not come across it in reading before. So, I didn't know if I could ask upon who benefits from it, how is it work right now or is that something I should go read later, come back and understand, or I didn't know if someone who obviously does know what they're talking about can fill me in. Yeah, I mean it's a very simple process here in Indiana is you can do both involuntary and voluntary annexations which I know a lot about considering that's where I got my start in this particular business. So there's a lot of Swiss cheese holes that that exist still here in Fisers. You can look at a map and you can see all sorts of holes. Those are all unincorporated townships now. They're belong there. So they're not part of the city. They're not paying city taxes although they're being surrounded by city. So when they go for redevelopment and they want to hook on to the city's utilities, okay, we don't allow them to hook on to utilities without annexing themselves into town. So the easiest way to do that is to voluntarily annex yourself, but there's still a statutory process you need to go through. And this is it. We have a first reading, you have a public hearing, then there's a financial package that goes along with it, then you do a final hearing to let them into the city. One of the uh points of confusion tonight is the annexation would likely not continue if for whatever reason the council voted down the zoning. So although we're moving it along the process, it's safe to assume that if for whatever reason this project doesn't go forward, the annexation would stop as well. Right. I would I would think that is very true. So thank you, mayor. Uh can I get a

first reading on this one? Yes. Was there anybody else who wanted to speak? By the way, I didn't shut it off. So, okay, we're done. Okay, Selena gave it first reading. So, now we're moving on to We already did 17. Thank God. Um, we're going to go to item 18. Do it again. I I don't want to do it again, Dod. No. Yeah. No, I don't. Good evening. Spencer Martin, environmental health inspector for Fischer Health Department here requesting an update to the fee schedule in order to offer certified pool operator courses uh which is in accordance with our municipal ordinance uh requirements for our pool operators which was passed in 2020. Uh the fee of $350 is the minimum we can charge uh uh according to the program parameters. Um we're requesting a suspension of a second read and approval at this meeting and I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions for staff? I just really want to give a shout out to the public health team and their water quality group. Uh they've done an extraordinary job getting out and and really educating the public and uh really building a really award-winning program in a short period of time and it's off of efforts like this gentleman here tonight. So, I just again want to thank the public health department for the work that they're doing. people don't think about water quality or pools necessarily in that uh vein, but uh they're out there getting a lot of good work done. I actually um spoke to some folks from the school about this and they were very thankful that we're able to do the training locally said that they usually have to go out to playing field and it's a whole day maybe two of training. So, it's really nice to be able to bring that service to Fiser. So, thank you guys so much for pursuing um the ability to do the licensing here. So, thank you so much. Any other comments? Do we need to suspend? Yeah. So, if we're going to move forward, we need to suspend the rules. I make a motion to

suspend the rules. Motion by Todd. Second. Second by Cecilia. All those in favor of suspending the rules, say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Now, I have a motion to approve. A second by Second Cecilia. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed or abstain? Motion carries. Thank you, sir. All right. We're going any unfinished or any other new business? No. Okay. I'm going to open it up for community comment. It stands still here. Three minutes. State your name and address for the record. You have three minutes to talk about whatever topic you would like. Are we good? Again, Adrianne Powell 9967 at Gian Road. Uh I think district one. Um thank you. You all have a very difficult job. I have not been back to a city council meeting in like a minute, like a hot sec. And I really appreciate all the things you have to do and like tonight was hard. Um, I just want to say because I think it's important to when I hear all this discourse about keeping our community vibrant, keeping our community like the quality of like housing this and it's like really hard and nuanced discourse. I just hope that we Remember that a vibrant community and a thriving community does not mean a white community only. And that is something that I want to ensure that people that we're vibrant, that means we're diverse. And that means more than just different cultures. It also means different economic states as well. And I don't want legislation to hurt only a targeted people, whether that's anything that is a descriptor of them, including income or if they can afford to rent or buy. So, I think you guys are doing a really good job at listening to everything and

being conscious about what you're doing here. And I'm really excited to have seen that process again after not being able to attend for a while. But I just hope that it also means protections like Councilman Zimmerman said where we can help people become buyers instead of renters. I am 30 years old. I've lived in Fischers my whole life. I do not rent or buy because I live with my mother still because I cannot afford any to type of housing outside of helping my mom keep up our house. I don't get to have a generational wealth. She won't let me take on the debt of her 9967 because I can't afford it. I just got let go from my job that I only got a year before after being let go again. Neither of which were at fault of my own. It's really hard out here, guys. It's really hard. And you all look so amazing and successful and you know how to buy property and do business stuff. I have a graphic design degree. It's hard out here. So, I thank you so much for looking out for people who don't know all the facts and that need you to help protect them and lift them up. But if my mother died tomorrow, I'd be living out of my car and I couldn't afford to be a part of this vibrant community anymore. And that sucks because I graduated from HSSE and I went and did the thing my parents wanted, which is to go pursue a degree and I got it. And then CO happened and my dad died and now I'm the only sister left that is still here with my mom and I have no prospects for an income that can get me into any of these houses, rent or buy. So, this is scary to come up here and talk to you, but I appreciate everything you guys do for people. So, thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Michael or somebody jumping up behind you, Mike. [Applause]

So, he's normally a lot nimler than this. Good evening, Michael KBY, 7105 Coldike Drive. Hi, guys. Hi, Mike. Haven't seen you in a while. A couple things. I want to thank you for passing the rental cap ordinance. I live in a community that has 298 homes. We changed our covenants a while back. 83% of the home approved a more restrictive uh set of conditions than what you passed tonight. I appreciate you allowing us to do that. Um the other thing is I heard something quick about imperous surface being increased in Gist. When I was on the council, I thought the imperous surface had some impact on storm water fees. So, I'd like to may maybe you guys take a look at that and if there's needs to be an adjustment in that particular area for what they pay for storm water, uh maybe that's a good idea. The other thing is we have a new Kroger over in our community and it seems that blinker fluid is in shortage over there. Uh if you're coming out of Kroger next to Arby, you you oppose Connor Creek, which is the community where my daughter lives, and there's no directional signal or arrows on the pavement as there is on the other side. The right lane, some people go straight across, sometimes they make it right, sometimes they use a blinker, sometimes they don't. So, I'd like to have somebody take a look at that. The other thing is because the increase in traffic, I think you need to adjust the street lights over there because there's a stacking lane as they come out. More people leaving the the Arby's coming south at the Arby's. I mean, not Arby's, Kroger's. And so, they're not getting through the light. And we got people who run the light. Also, when you're coming south on 116th Street, there's a left turn lane. And that left turn lane is beginning to stack into the traffic lane like it does on Allisonville Road heading south. So I

know there's some I know there's some change to do to that. And I just have a kind of a the no parking u sign in front of Kroger's. Is that a suggestion or is it enforcable? because I see uh buses parking up there, lots of cars, and there's a lot of p traffic coming into the Goodwill and and the restaurants over there. So, maybe there's some need to look at that area, and if it is enforceable, maybe it could be enforced. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Hi, everybody. My name is Aaron Y. I live at 502 Connor Creek Drive. So, very good that we uh get into that. So, I live at 116th and um and Connor Drive, which is right on 116th facing the Kroger and all that. So, it is true that we have issues with the stop lightss, people running the lights and so forth, trying to catch from Allisonville going east on 116th. Um the noise is unbelievable and it's not from your normal car. It's from your modified exhaust systems. Every other car now has a modified exhaust system. It's absolutely, excuse me, ridiculous. It's It against state law to modify your existing system. So, why can't we do anything about this? It's disturbing me. I can't sleep. It's Last night it went on till midnight. Yesterday was Easter and we had motorcycles, the crotch rockets running up and down 116th all night, speeding and making noise. I just I I don't know what to do. I need help with this. Um so I've asked and I continue to call the police to report noise ordinance uh nuisances as well as you know writing to the city of Fisers.

We got to do something. We have to have noise cameras, you know, red light cameras and speeding cameras. So I I because we don't have enough cops. That's for sure. And that, you know, when I do talk to the cops on the phone, they tell me that, you know, we don't have enough people. I I manage, you know, all the way from here to all the way to there. So I can't be everywhere at once and we only have a few people, you know, to do what we need to do in the community. And I, you know, don't want to take away for somebody that really needs a police officer. So I think cameras again are a good idea. Um, you know, again, we make people accountable if we get those cameras right. They're going to think more about other people and what they have to do in the community, right? We're allowing and it's all ages. It's, you know, I see it. It's from very young guys to 65, 70 year old guys driving with modified exhaust systems. It's not I've seen women with modified exhaust systems. So, it's not just one group of individuals. It's a whole bunch of people thinking that they got away with modifying their cars and they think they're cool, but I can't sleep and I need your help. So, thank you. Thank you. So, um that one will require a little bit of legal research for us as to what the laws of land on where our local ordinances are and we'll circle back on that. So, thank you for bringing that to our attention. I certainly hear it when I'm on 116th Street as well and I can only imagine what it's like living directly next to it. Yeah. Yeah. I I will take your word for it. Yeah. Um but we'll we'll definitely look into that later. Yep. Yes, sir. Hi, I'm Greg Back. I live at 7599 Timber Springs Drive South. Um this is the first council meeting I've been to. I didn't quite know what I was going to get into, apparently. Um but it was really good. I really just appreciate um all of your comments um mayor and on all council members. Um, it's obvious you all really care about pictures and it's really good to see the um the consideration you put into these things, the effort you put

into it, the research, the willingness to um see the results and like you said, measure it um see what improvements we might need to make, changes to make in the future. Um it's really good to see. Makes me proud of Fischers. Thanks, sir. Anyone else? But come on, you got to end on that. Yeah. Can you come back up when he's done? Let's do just do that again. We got to get this order down, Ryan. Come on. Hey, I'm Ross Rayson 04 Creekide Court. Um, and you know, I I want to thank you all for thinking so deeply about housing, an important issue to our community. Um, clearly you all really care about community, have invested a lot into this. Um, also um there's clearly some pain in the community. you know, we want our future neighbors to be able to come here and be able to find a house and afford a house to live with us. Um, so I had some thoughts on how we can um best make our newly minted uh rental cap succeed because I want to see us succeed. Um, and I I think in order for it to succeed, we're going to need to pair it uh with policies that are going to enable us to increase the supply um of housing um in tandem with uh the rental cap now um so that we don't end up with a situation where we have a rare u commod, you know, a rail grid like the taxi medallions in New York, you know, the value increased incredibly because they were restricted. Well, now that we've got a restriction on rentals, let's make sure that uh we don't end up with a problem on the other side and that we have enough um housing capacity. Um so, uh you know, there's some cities we can look to that have had successful policies that have helped with this. Um such as uh being, you know, reducing zoning restrictions to allow different forms of of housing structure so that you can get more housing on the same land. Um you can uh reduce parking mandates uh so that you don't need as much um impervious parking surface for the construction. It reduces

the cost of construction and makes more land available um for the same area. Um and of course transportation um you know takes up a lot of space at times and if you have too many things in one area the cars can get uh too much. So um looking into more efficient ways of moving people around public transportation, walking, biking to help care with that. I think these policies um you know places like Austin or Minneapolis uh have seen success with being able to keep housing prices from ballooning um while increasing that capacity so everybody can find a house. Um so I would encourage us to to look into that make sure we don't stop with the the the rental cap um but that we consider that on the supply side as well. Um, on a similar note, kind of a quick shift. Um, on the transportation side, uh, one thing that I c that came to my attention is, um, the next level trails grant program, which we've used to be able to fund a lot of really great stuff here in Fischers, um, that I personally has really enriched my life. Um, I've, uh, come to find out that this budget that, um, is being actively worked on right now actually doesn't contain any funding for the next level grant program this year. Um, so I bring that up because obviously you all aren't making the budget for the state. Um, but I think it's really relevant to us in our city, um, and the things that we'll be able to do if we don't have any of that funding. Um, so I know they're actively working on that right now and I want to just make sure that you all aware of that since it's enabled so much in our community. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Alan Borf 10893 Winter Cove Way. I'd like to thank the council for recognizing prize-winning students from this community. I also want to thank you for taking one more factor out of what inhibits young families from coming into

Fisers and producing more students for us of that nature. Thank you for that courageous move tonight. I we appreciate it. Uh I I think I represent several neighbors of mine who also feel the same way. So thanks. Thanks Alan. Thank you. I'm Nancy Gerald. I live at 13895 Meadowgrass Way and her her talking about affordable housing. I'm a court watcher. I go to eviction court. I'm part of a group that mostly is in Marian County, but I go to Hamilton County. Thursday, we have 47 cases. I've looked at the case load. Where do people go? I was at the Noblesville Town Council meeting the other night. They approved two new subdivisions. The lowest, the one that was lower was 400 to $600,000 homes. The other was 6 to $800,000 homes. Where are people going to go when they can't afford? I mean, the eviction court, lots of people are, they're good people, but you break down your car or you have a sick kid and you miss a week of work and you're done. You know, not not to admit, not only the fact that there's no tenant rights in Indiana. You know, if you have no heat or no water, there's nothing you can do. You can go to public health, but as soon as you move because you don't have any heat in the winter, public health drops the case. That's the end of it. These out of town, out of state investors are killing us. But we've got to have someplace for people to go. So, think about new developments. With all the farmland that's around, can't we make more affordable housing? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi there. My name is Jennifer Heavlin and I am um actually a Westfield resident. Um but I'm here because the rental process, the rental state is important to me um as a private property manager. And I think what I'd like to just ask of you because this is going to come to Westville. It's going to come to Caramel. It's going to come to all of our cities here is I understand and I do support the 10% cap for the most part. However, I feel like that's not going to be tenable for everybody in every situation and we need like we need diverse housing. And I guess what I would like to ask is that you would please come and find initiatives to work with those of us that are private property managers, that are citizens and residents of these cities that have a vested interest in making sure our property values do not go down. So, as a private property manager, I go and do walkthroughs of the properties multiple times a year. I drive by them. to make sure that um before I'll work with any owner, they have to agree that any maintenance issue that the that the resident brings up that we address it within 24 hours. That's how I've designed my business because I've seen what these big property management companies have done and how your house has to literally be falling down and your children dying of mold before they will come and do anything at these places. And so I would just like to ask that you would work with those of us that do want to see our community thrive and grow and understand that not everybody either can buy a house right now or wants to buy a house right now. Um and there are people that want to um provide housing for people. Um we also have to do a better job at vetting those that are going to work that are going to live in these houses. Um, I am for as much diversity as possible in these houses. However, if we don't do our due diligence, we end up with people that do not care about the houses. And so, we have to have people that are vested

invested in the city in our communities so that uh we can protect the property values and give people the chance to own homes down the down the road. And um that's really just all I wanted to say is if you would uh consider how you can partner with those of us that are doing what we can to help our community in this way as well. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? One question. Why don't you wait till after we close and we'll answer whatever questions you have. No one else. I'm going to go ahead and close the public hear. I want to thank everybody. Do I have a motion to motion tojourn? We are done.