Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

becomes the official residential trash collection provider for every home in our city. To make this move strong, the city has rolled out 10 brand new trucks and trained 14 new drivers ready to serve our neighborhoods with pride. Here's what you need to know as we step into this next chapter together. Your pickup day stays the same. Every household will receive a new black GSD trash can in December. Your monthly service rate remains $24.15. And remember, GSD will only collect trash from the black GSD issued cans. Need a second can? It's $10 a month plus a $25 delivery fee. Just call 2198831027. Large item pickup happens during the first week of each month. One item per household. With a valid Gary ID, you can drop off a large item once a month at 3600 West 3rd Avenue. Electronics, TVs, fridges, anything with a cord must be taken to the e-waste center at 900 Madison Street. And don't forget, label your new can. You're responsible for it. Old cans will be collected during your final pickup of the year. This is more than trash collection. This is about keeping our city clean, keeping our service local, and keeping our promise to one another. Gary Strong, our city, our service.

Our city, our service. Every block cleaner city our pride we deserve stronger city.

Starting January 1st, 2026, the Gary Sanitary District becomes the official residential trash collection provider for every home in our city. To make this move strong, the city has rolled out 10 brand new trucks and trained 14 new drivers ready to serve our neighborhoods with pride. Here's what you need to know as we step into this next chapter together. Your pickup day stays the same. Every household will receive a new black GSD trash can in December. Your monthly service rate remains $24.15. And remember, GSD will only collect trash from the black GSD issued cans. Need a second can? It's $10 a month plus a $25 delivery fee. Just call 219-88831027. Large item pickup happens during the first week of each month, one item per household. With a valid Gary ID, you can drop off a large item once a month at 3600 West 3rd Avenue. Electronics, TVs, fridges, anything with a cord must be taken to the E-Way Center at 900 Madison Street. And don't forget, label your new can. You're responsible for it. Old cans will be collected during your final pickup of the year. This is more than trash collection. This is about keeping our city clean, keeping our service local, and keeping our promise to one another. Gary strong. Our city our service. Our city, our pride, we deserve it. Gary, our city, our service. Every block clean.

Starting January 1st, 2026, the Gary Sanitary District becomes the official residential trash collection provider for every home in our city. To make this move strong, the city has rolled out 10 brand new trucks and trained 14 new drivers ready to serve our neighborhoods with pride. Here's what you need to know as we step into this next chapter together. Your pickup day stays the same. Every household will receive a new black GSD trash can in December. Your monthly service rate remains $24.15. And remember, GSD will only collect trash from the black GSD issued cans. Need a second can? It's $10 a month plus a $25 delivery fee. Just call 219-88831027. Large item pickup happens during the first week of each month, one item per household. With a valid Gary ID, you can drop off a large item once a month at 3600 West 3rd Avenue. Electronics, TVs, fridges, anything with a cord must be taken to the e-waste center at 900 Madison Street. And don't forget, label your new can. You're responsible for it. Old cans will be collected during your final pickup of the year. This is more than trash collection. This is about keeping our city clean, keeping our service local, and keeping our promise to one another. Gary strong. Our city our service. Our city, our pride, we deserve it. Our city block.

Starting January 1st, 2026, the Gary Sanitary District becomes the official residential trash collection provider for every home in our city. To make this move strong, the city has rolled out 10 brand new trucks and trained 14 new drivers ready to serve our neighborhoods with pride. Here's what you need to know as we step into this next chapter together. Your pickup day stays the same. Every household will receive a new black GSD trash can in December. Your monthly service rate remains $24.15. And remember, GSD will only collect trash from the black GSD issued cans. Need a second can? It's $10 a month plus a $25 delivery fee. Just call 2198831027.

Okay. Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the uh January 14th, 2026 City of Gary Plan Commission meeting. Uh it's 3:30 or so. Uh we're going to call this meeting to order. Uh council, may we have roll call, please? Yes, sir. Uh Tom Sarah, present. Jeremiah King, Adam Hall here, Bill Cook, Willie Miller here, Ellen Harrell, Darren Washington, Sherman Wilson here. William Allen present. So we'll show with five members present. We do have a quorum to conduct business. Jeremiah just walked in. We'll show with six members present.

Jeremiah Kang. Jeremiah King present. There you go. All right, we do have six members uh uh so we can conduct business today. Thank you. Okay, next item is approval of the minutes and agenda from uh approval of the minutes from December 18th and approval of this agenda for today's meeting. I have a motion to approve. So move. Second. Any discussion? Motion. Any no discussion? No corrections? All in favor? I that's all we need for that.

Okay. So, uh Marco, I'm turning it back over to you uh for the next item on our agenda, which is elections for the year.

Okay. So, the essentially we have u a president uh a vice president and a secretary. Uh and those are year-to-year positions. And so this being our first meeting is our organizational meeting and we need to set forth um who will be elected for those positions. So I'll handle this part uh as we go forward. Um do we have any nominations uh for the office of presidency for the 2026 calendar year uh for the plan commission? I'd like to nominate Tom Sarah for president.

One nomination. Any other nominations? That nomination is second. Are there any other nominations? oppos. Okay. I'd like to nominate uh um Adam hearing n motion. What's it? Is he? No, he's moving on to vice president. Oh, you're moving on. Yeah. I'm sorry. So So we'll vote on Okay. So So yes, we'll close the nominations for presidency then. Uh and then we'll take Were you going to nominate someone else for president? It's just Yeah. Um

I was I was going to nominate u William Allen. Okay. Which I apologize. And one thing I forgot, we should have asked uh Tom if he accepts the nomination, at least the nomination. Thank you. I do accept the Okay. Uh Mr. Allen, do you accept the nomination also for uh same position as president? Uh I do not accept a nomination per president. Okay. Um any other nominations? Okay. Um there being no other nominations, uh at this time we'll uh do a roll call uh for vote on Tom Sarah uh as president of the planning commission for 2026. Jeremiah King, yes. Adam Hall, yes. Willie Miller,

yes. William Allen, yes. And then Sherman Wilson, yes. All right. And then Tom doesn't get a vote because it's so we'll show by by a vote of five to zero. Uh Tom Sarah has been named uh the president for the 2026 year. Um I will now accept any nominations for the office of vice president of the plan commission. I'd like to nominate uh Adam Hall for vice president. Okay. Is there a second? A second. There's a second and an acceptance by Mr. Hall. Yes. Are there any other nominations? Okay, there being none, uh, we'll close the nominations for vice president. Um, and do roll call. Uh, Mr. Sarah,

yes. Mr. King, yes. Mr. Miller, yes. Mr. Wilson, yes. Mr. Ellen, yes. And then Mr. Hall uh will abain. U so we'll show that by a vote of five to zero uh with one of U. Mr. Hall is the vice president. Uh, may I have any nomination for secretary of the bank? Excuse me. Any volunteers? Secretary said, you know what I'm saying? I'd like to nominate uh Bill Cook for secretary. Bill Cook is not present. Yeah, I would like to nominate William Allen,

secretary. Okay, you've been nominated. Uh, we swap, right? Do you accept the nomination? Uh, I accept. Okay. Uh, do we have a second? A second. Okay. Okay. So, we have one nomination for uh that's been seconded for Mr. Ellen. Uh, any other nominations? You you sure I can't nominate Bill? Yeah, he he's not president. He's got his number. No, that's fine. All right. Uh there being no further nominations uh for the office of secretary uh we'll do a roll call. Mr. Sarah, yes. Mr. King, yes. Mr. Hall, yes. Mr. Miller,

yes. Mr. Wilson, yes. And Mr. Ellen abstains. Abstain. There will be a vote of five to zero with one abstension in favor of Mr. Ellen as secretary of the plan commission. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, with that, uh, now that we have elected officers, I will turn the meeting back over, uh, to the president, uh, Mr. Sarah. Thank you, Marco. Appreciate that. It's a new year, new officers. You're not.

All right. Uh, item number five on the agenda is a public hearing for PCBO. Uh, this, uh, public hearing was left open at our last meeting. Um, so it's remains open. So, is there anybody here that would like to speak or against PC UDO? Seeing none, hearing none. I think it's time to close the uh unless we have to reopen it when after Should we continue to leave it open? That's up to you. Um

would you like me to give an overview? Um yeah, I'm going to hold the public hearing open for now uh uh with the uh staff uh overview and then we'll make a decision after that. Okay. Good afternoon, commissioners. Uh so

the reason why we gave pause to whether closing or keeping the uh public hearing open is because um we have had a recent conversation with the airport and they would like to make further amendments to the our airport district code to um bring their regulations up to speed as well. So things that they look for are associated with the FAA and they look at height regulations, but they also do look at land use. For instance, they brought up one topic like um land use that um collects rodents also then collects ravenous birds and those big birds are um dangerous to airplanes. And so something like a junkyard wouldn't be permitted within a certain proximity of a runway. That's one example that they gave that currently is not in our code today. Uh they also have a breakdown of their new runway expansions that have happened since the last time we adopted a code. So their footprint and the type of airplanes that come in and out of that airport have changed. Back in two 2023 they worked on updating the that um code. It did not go anywhere and it's just by a series of delays that they are just now um providing us that feedback. But they have hired an independent consultant to create an airport overlay district uh and update our our code and we will insert that whole chapter that they provide us after our review into that district. So if you're willing, I would suggest holding the hearing open.

The airport team is going to be here at the next meeting to present the new chapter. it's in whole and then you could continue your public hearing after that presentation and then close it and if you choose to make a recommendation that day then then you can do that as well. Okay. Yeah. So the entire thing will amount to an overlay. There won't be any changes to our zoning definitions and such.

Not the definitions to my knowledge. Uh they have just talked about adding an overlay. Now in our definitions we um worked hard to say airport at the beginning of something. So airport height restriction or flood plane height restriction. So if there's something a special topic then we've already assigned it. So if we need to make some adjustments there then we can go ahead and and do that. We get a chance to see a snapshot of it before we come to the actual meeting to review it.

Yes, we will be posting it. they have committed to getting us a draft of it by the end of this month. Uh then we will as as a team a staff team review it and then um they will make edits and then we will post it one week prior to the plan commission meeting for public review and your review as well. And it'll also be in your packet information as well. We also will try to make sure that that's out um timely so that you are aware that they're completed. So the week for the week before the week before or the week um

it'll be seven days before. It's required to be seven days before but you normally get your packet a little before then. So um that is uh this is that's his rule. So I have to have it together for him. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Um, one last thing. Um, in our department updates, we're going to share a little bit, Sylvia is going to share a little bit about the land use code, um, or the map itself. This also will allow us over the next month to continue to flush out the map and then perhaps we can have our public hearing on the map as well at the same time, which attorney Molina had been hoping for. Um it would be um my decision to leave this open. Is there any member or commissioner that would be opposed to leaving the public comment period open? No, we I agree. So I make a motion. Okay. A motion.

I have a motion. Make a motion that we do leave the public portion of the hearing open uh at this time until the next meeting at least. Until the next meeting. I'll second. Okay. Roll call. Uh Mr. King. Yes. Mr. Hall, yes. Mr. Miller, yes. Mr. Wilson, yes. Mr. Allen, yes. And Mr. Sarah, yes. So, we'll show by vote of six to zero. Uh, the motion to leave the public comment open uh to the next meeting passes. All right. Thank you. So, uh, thank you for that update. And, uh, now it's time for the, uh, planning department update by staff.

Silia will start and I'll close. I'll come over here because u my ponytail apparently wasn't built for this meeting. Um so as you can see behind you, if you guys want to kind of take a little shift, um this is our citywide reszone. However, it is not on it is on a granular level. It is the land use. It shows where all of the new districts are. It shows the new areas of manufacturing, residential, and the business districts. Um as we go through this next couple of weeks um or over the next couple of months over the next couple of months should I say we will be meeting with different um community groups different community assets to kind of walk through this and during that time we will then break it down to a minute level where we look at the code. So what you see right now is pretty much just whether it's manufacturing, industrial, um, business, destination, and you have your flood overlay. As we know, previously the flood overlay was kind of like a zone, but it is not a zone. It is just overlaid on to that type of use. So we have kind of adjusted and corrected that, but still leaving that overlay. Um and we also have a new district that we're we added which is the RR um which is the railroad because that is significant um to us as a community. So as we move forward we want everyone to take the time the board to look at the uh map that will be sent out to you all. it was just completed today, so you weren't able to get it um ahead of time and piece through it and look at it and think about the the code, right? So, you're going to take your code, you're going to connect it with the map, and then you're going to us as a community, as a public, we will create something unique and dynamic to the city of Gary

and I can answer any questions if anybody has anything pressing right now. Is this available digitally? It will. You will have it digitally. I just completed it. um for land use, but it won't be individualistic. I'm looking for all of us to work together as a board, city, and to pick what's um sufficient for us. Thank you. I appreciate that. The the color and the hard work. Um I was looking I was looking at the key. Will the digital one have the key so we can the color scheme? Oh, yeah. It's it's a lot bigger. is just that this is uh PDF and so it's a 36 by 48. So you

or PDF is shrinking a lot but you know the we will have a printed version of the bigger map um that we will have in hand at our next meetings um as we go out throughout the community and things of that nature. And we contingent upon the areas that we go we want to try to break it down to keep people stagnant in their area. So, we'll do it by neighborhood. We'll do it by district. It just depends on um the way that us as a team come up with the um distribution of each district to try to help us identify the importance.

Well, we for one, I I really appreciate you all's hard work. All the questions that that I may ask are always focused in the same direction, making sure we handle potential inefficiencies of something we may see because honestly, we we really have to put our best foot forward. And I appreciate where we are and I want to add to it and make sure we're effective and we grow.

I understand. And I would encourage you guys to do a crosswalk. That'll kind of help you understand the dynamic of how it was broken down from the code to the plan because keep in mind the plan govern the plan is the proposed development for the future. The code helps align with that plan to make sure that our future is built to its best ability. So doing a crosswalk of both will help everyone to have this conversation. Would it be possible for you just verbally tell us the legend so we can so we could put it on our maps?

Okay. So you have the blue the blue I don't even you ain't got to zoom in. I worked on this. Um the blue is destination. So that is your parks, your schools, your institutions, your civic areas. Um then you have the yellows that is your residential. Um then you have your purples which is manufacturing or industrial contingent upon how you um resonate with it. And then you have your reds which is uh business and or commercial contingent upon how you um relate to it. Then the bluer watery types of areas are the water bodies and then the stripey blue typey areas those are your flood planes. So, those are areas where that are prone to flooding for periods of time. Um, I think I captured them all, right?

Oh, wait. And it's my favorite. I don't know why it's my favorite, but you have the pink. Now, the pink is broken down into two sections. You have the downtown mixed use um which is a combination of um commercial activities and residential activities into one structure. Um and then you have or one area for downtown, but then you have the neighborhood uh mixed juice which is the upper uh residential and lower business type of entity in in a singleistic structure. And yeah, what color are railroads purple as well?

Railroads are gray. They're the little gray line. Um so they're actual like the roads. Um, and it's also con combined with kind of like the road. So, it's transit and railroad. Um, and it's our goal right now to try to figure out how to um establish them because they are two different type of entities which is a new piece um that uh me and Corey got to talk about that she didn't know. But that's what my next question is for us. But that's pass because that is stagnant. The the roads are going to be the roads. There's no adjusting. Um, it's just how we're going to identify them so people can know what they're looking at.

So that rail you would separate the Southshore from CSX and the other industrial ones. No, those will all be one RR one railroad. But then you have your I90 and then you have, you know, so the difference Oh, the roadways. The roadways. So I'm I have to separate those two out because they're all combined as transportation one crazy. That's a good point though on the different types of rails throughout the city because you have your you know the ones with pedestrians commuter. I know I asked you to that that kind of would be nice to identify you know our maps

and we see the the due diligence that you're putting forth here and u we just want to add to it but this is is good what we're working from. Thank you. And like I said, we we'll break them down on a minute level as we go through before approval because we always have to have that community outreach piece that is you and the public as well um to make sure we are consistent with transparency. Do anybody else have anything else? The stripe blue you said was is it flood plane or Yeah, it's declared

flood plane. Yeah, it's declared flood plane. Um, and that is the most recent overlay um file that um I got from um Noah and Noah most likely got it from EPA. Um but you know, yeah, one one observation um I I think it was some some years ago we had some adjustments right along the right the the uh highway slash Is it little? Not little with the levies.

Yeah. Yeah. And definitely as as we're observing uh a lot of area in here, right real close to the highway and and right on 80 and right off of like our grant and our corridors that definitely is the the most risque areas. Um, is are there any plans uh or have you all discussed uh the the uh area close to the Grant Street uh the rear of close to GP uh public transportation uh corridor office where the buses are that area

and any renovation? I know we're doing something with that, but if you I'll let um Miss Shart tap on that, but I'll give you an overview of the clarity on a higher level that for your per your reasoning is why we make sure that we zone the area and not just singlistically said that it was flood plane because then we have a developmental issue when it comes down to the parcels that exist in those. Um on a minute level, I'll let Miss um Sharp give you a general overview of what um is to be proceeded for that location. Yeah. Excuse me. I want to uh mir mirror u those remarks. Thank you very much for all this work to the whole staff. It's thanks to the whole staff amazing work. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, I'll I'll build on on that. you know, um it's pretty easy to look at this map and just see colors and understand, you know, what the colors mean, but there have been over 500 hours put into this into this map because she has coded it per parcel and there are 567,000 962 parcels

more or less. So, it it's a um it's a huge endeavor to undertake and so we really appreciate you giving us the time to be able to focus on this. Now, in regards to specific parcels and specific um breakdowns, we're not there yet. Um we have spent um several months building this baseline which gives us our primary land uses the re the red purple yellow. We now need to spend the next month figuring out the tiered levels of those purple yellow reds because there are four levels in business districts which is the red. For instance B4 is all automotive. So, we can't have one color of red here and then automotive is allowed everywhere that where there's B4. So, we're going to add another level of detail to this so that you can tell exactly where an auto dealership can go, where a gas station can go, where a auto mechanic can go versus an Applebee's. You know, that's not the same. It's a different code. So, we'll be going through our business corridors, uh, looking at existing uses and then looking at, um, our comprehensive plan to determine what needs to change based on our comprehensive plan and existing uses. There will be some time, probably a couple years, while we work through existing land uses that get reszoned that become nonconforming. That means that the new code, the let's It's a a light red and they're supposed to be they operate as a dark red. That will mean that they're non-conforming. They're legally non-conforming and until they make a change in their property

use, then uh they they can continue to operate there. So, there'll be some time and we can get into that more in in detail in the future, but um this is the start and um as Sylvia mentioned, we are going to take this out into the community. We're meeting with a couple different community groups to walk through this plan. So, if you have um a community group that you want us to uh express this with, we're happy to do that over the next 30 to 40 days or so. Great. And I think for clarification, if this if this was digital or you zoomed in on it, there'd be a lot more detail.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. He can zoom in right now and show you in individualistically if you want all the way down to the row. Yeah. It's amazing. That's what I'm saying. His work is very Oh, so you already have them shaded. Yes, they're shaded based upon o overall um coloring. So yellow, all yellows will be residential. Um, but when you once we go through it, it'll be a lighter yellow, a darker yellow, and a darker darker yellow than that yellow. Oh, I thought it already has the shading. Them the lines them your uh the parcel the bottom bleeding over. Thank you. We've started building the shading. Just so you know, we have started it. Okay.

But it is not presented today because it's not finished. And

it it's the the um parcel lines that are kind of moving over and making it. That's what I thought it was already. and starting at this level don't give us that opportunity to you know sit with everyone and we all kind of live in the creation of this document because it's a live document like Miss Sharp said it'll consistently evolve as we identify areas is a large city I know you all know but I've kind of learned that well in this journey um but ultimately this will help us move forward um it also helped with the address management system um which is it's actually done. Um we have readressed um completely for every single parcel in the city to align with postal regulations.

Very good. I I I just want to compliment you because this is the way you're able to you I'm saying you but we're able as a city to understand the best approaches to streamline development and and all the things we need to actually manage. So your your micro because I have a cousin that's architect once I see these colors I know what's underneath it from the CA systems and all that hard work. So, I just want to compliment you and I I would say for myself, get ready to have more input and more detail to make sure we support and make help the decisions go well because that'll allow us as a city to grow a lot more smoother.

Well, he said more detail. Um, other than that, uh, that is about all. any other questions that you have after the fact, always email um our department. Um if you want this printed because you don't have it, I'll get you a version, but it'll come to you digitally. So, thank you guys for your time. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. I think that's the end of the agenda. So, uh motion to adjurnn. I move. Second. Second. All right. That's it. We're done. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.