Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] Folks, call me to order. The first item is a pledge. All rise. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Next time roll call you. You still can't hear. Just a little bit larger mic.

One, two, three. [Music] Thank you. You can have this bigger mic. I'll try this one. Thank you. Kevin Bryce here. Bob here. Chris Kenworthy, Pamela Mishwood, Fish here, Ed Morales, Redstone here, Luther Williams here, Mickey Wowski, Rick Burns here. [Music] You have six present. You have a quum, sir. Okay, thank you. The next item is approval of minutes for April 23rd, 2005. Do we have a motion? So move. I'll second.

Okay. Motion and second. All those in favor say I. I those opposition [Music] second minutes are approved. Okay. Any correspondence at this time? No, sir.

Okay. We have one case new business is DB-2025-23. [Music] Applicant is Catherine A. Graham living trust car golfer. locations near North 50 West Chester in Victory Township Zonies A1 request is seeking approval for a proposal bring in medals high major subdivision to bury the following leaders. There's the first one. Conventional subdivision QB section 602 conventional subvision prerequisites also requisite standard PQ section 704. Next conventional subdivision CB section 6.03 conventional subvision standard and effect on development standards. Next is AC-01 access road standards residential frontage roads section 705B maximum of one egress I'm sorry one ingress and one eress connection is LT-01 lot establishment standard residential section 6.161 interior street furnage next is OP P-01 open space standard general section 7.20A all development shall provide open space. Next is OP-2 open space standards residential section 7.21 A1A

minimum open space calculation. Next is PN-01 minimum internal pedestrian network standards residential section 7.23. Next is N-02 minimum external pedestrian network standards residential section 7.23C. Next is PL-01 perimeter landscaping standard residential section 7.26. Next CR01 street and right away standards residential section 7.29 C4 connectivity all the elements shown right STO streets to connect to adjacent properties. And lastly, CS are SL-01 street lighting standards residential section 7.33A and C lighting planning for street lighting shall be presented to the plan commission section 7.298 and shall propose writings designed for interest 7.29C. I think that's it.

Very good. Thank you. Uh my name is Todd Le and I'm uh here on behalf of the petitioners in this matter. Um the Brandoms um are here as well, the family. Uh and we're asking for design waiverss uh so that we can move forward with a major subdivision. and I'll explain why it's a major subdivision when we're only talking about five lots. The property in question is approximately 53 acres in size. It's irregularly shaped. It's on the south side of 1000 North. 1000 North is just uh south of the 8090 toll road. Uh and this property lies between 50 West and 100 West. So the southern uh boundary then is a half a mile and the northern boundary is irregular. So it it doesn't have quite that distance, but it's a large parcel, but it has some challenges and you'll uh see that in a little bit here. The property is zoned A1. From the official zoning map, you can see there's A1 uh east and west of us, but there's also rural residential. That's the beige area just to the south of this parcel. Uh which is a residential classification as well. As I indicated, the Brandoms are here for a minor subdivision, but because of the circumstances that bring us tonight, it's uh required to follow the major subdivision rules, and so that's why we're here. It's a family farm. It has been farmed for previous generations.

The current generation uh has no farmers. So, this is inherited by their generation. They've owned it for oh say approximately 10 years uh their mother has passed uh and so they're trying to liquidate assets and sell this property. This is the proposed primary flat that has not been filed because we need to get uh clarity on what rules we're trying to follow. That's what is tonight's about with the design waiverss. So the uh primary plat has a who walking total of five lots on 53 acres. We have 340 ft of frontage on County Road 100 I'm sorry 1,000 uh north those eastern three lots. Then the lot gets a little uh larger for the uh last of the four lots going east to west. And then the fifth lot fronts on the county road 100 west uh on the southeast corner of the 53 acres. This is what we're uh talking about this overall property. Uh again, very large lots. Uh what you can see from the plat is the dash line cutting right through the middle of the entire property. and we have a pipeline. And uh to the south of that, you can see the dashed uh uh area, the little thumb uh or or mitten uh is wetland. And so there's a large part of the acreage that is not developable as well. So, we're uh seeking a uh large lot uh subdivision

and we need some relief from some of the requirements. Uh if we were to do a 150 lot subdivision, then we would be required to do all sorts of things. We want to do what four lot minor subdivision would be required to do. Overall, when we started uh 8 years ago, we had this property, but we had the uh 16 acres all the way over to uh County Roof uh 50 West. In 2018, we sold uh to the next generation uh a 10acre parcel on the corner and we did that with a administrative subdivision and that was the administrative subdivision. We went through the entire process um of of the that uh administrative subdivisions work here because we have plenty of frontage on this parcel, this 10 acre lot. uh and it's also agriculturally zoned. So the administrative subdivision was available to us. Then uh in 2021 we sold the 6.22 acre parcel uh just south of that also to Brian. So Brian owns the 16 acres along the east side that's not part of the proposed subdivision. Now, the nearly 53 acres that were uh we're going to subdivide hopefully uh in uh outlined in red and again you can see uh the orientation of the county roads with that. So the those two previous transfers I call them signals uh prohibit us to

follow the minor subdivision rules. We cannot do an administrative subdivision and we can't do a minor subdivision. There's only one kind of subdivision left and that's a major subdivision. So, we have to follow the rules of the major subdivision which requires many things that this property and our proposal simply don't um need in my opinion and uh we'll try and explain that. So again, we're trying to sell that uh 53 acres off uh and do that in the subdivision. And we've got this pipeline. We've got this undevelopable land. So a major subdivision just doesn't make sense with that pipeline cutting right through the middle of the parcel. So your uh UNO requires major subdivisions to have a full-blown drainage uh plan. That drainage plan requires as I understand it from talking to the engineers and your staff a uh watershed study uh more than just uh figuring out how much water is generated from the property and where it goes uh when it falls on the property uh the rooftops and driveways and so forth. So we want to do a minor subdivision drainage study. We're not asking not to do a drainage study. We're just saying we don't want to have to study the entire watershed. My understanding is that could beat 10,000 or more dollars just to do that, let alone the the rest of the uh drainage study that we're required to do. [Music] First and foremost, your zoning ordinance doesn't allow major subdivisions and agricultural land. Uh so we need that design waiver. Um,

your ordinance requires us to have an interior road. As I showed you, we're having driveways uh to the county roads. Let's talk about where the driveway is mostly that there's one on uh 100 west, but there's four uh that go to the north. So from 50 uh west to 100 west, there's a corner parcel in the northwest corner that's not included. I'm not sure where their driveway is, but let's say they have a driveway there. And we're going to have our four driveways. The poor parcel Brian's property that faces out on um 50 West. So we're going to have potentially five driveways in a half a mile. we're not overburdening, in my opinion, the county road, uh, in that area. Um, uh, number four on our list, uh, we have no new streets, so we're not doing an interior frontage road that's required. We're we're doing the driveways instead. Um, open space requirements. We don't want to have open space. I believe that a uh 10 acre lot creates its own open space. uh you have one home uh and then you have all of the open space. Uh that pipeline is underground that appears to be open space for anyone else, neighbors and and so forth. Also for drainage and is and uh all of the reasons why we have open space are accomplished with a large lot not requiring us to have uh a park or a field. Again, [Music] open space calculations uh is another uh request that we're asking be relieved.

Um your ordinance requires sidewalks. Um there are no sidewalks in the area but there are no schools, churches uh or other facilities uh or infrastructure stores or such that someone would need a sidewalk in my opinion uh in this particular area. Landscaping perimeter landscaping is typically required when you're doing a major subdivision. When you have 150 uh lots, we typically landscape the right way. Uh again, with 340 foot wide lots, I'm not sure that that's a an appropriate ask uh for what in essence is a minor subdivision. And street lighting, we we simply have no street lights. Uh but we have no need for street lights because we have no intersections, no internal streets. So again, uh those are the 11 things that um Mr. Burns had to read off at the beginning of our case. um that we're asking relief from so that we don't have to do all of those things uh that the major subdivision would require us to do. Approving this doesn't give us the authority to subdivide. We still have to do that process. But this tells u our design engineers Dulan Group what rules to follow when we file that application. The plat as you saw on the earlier slide is prepared. Uh but we need to know exactly what we have and and if we can follow that. Um if if we have to follow the rules, then we're going to have to work uh around the wetlands around the pipeline and there's going to be an interior road because that's one of the things that we're asking not to have to do. So I without these design waivers, um I I would believe that someone would

would try and put certainly more than five lots on 53 acres uh to pay for all the other infrastructure that your ordinance is requiring. We think that this is well suited because of the situation in in the land. Uh and um we're we're here only because of those previous selloffs quite frankly or we could have followed the minor subdivision rules more. 53 acres is a large parcel. Five lots is a small number certainly for that size parcel. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have for those that come from the public hearing. Thank you. In case of public meeting, Mr. J, you want to read the rules of conduct, please?

Conduct. Can you hear me? Conduct of hearings at a public hearing before the commission. The petitioner and proponent shall first present the facts and arguments in support of the case. Those who oppose a petitioner shall follow. The petitioner shall have rebuttal. It shall be within the discretion of the commission to oppose any time limitation, either the petitioner or the respondent, and to limit public comment to those determined by state statute to be interested parties. Written remmonstrances shall be accepted by the commission that need not be read into the commission record. This then concludes the public hearing. To maintain orderly procedure, each site shall proceed without interruption by the other and pre presentation of the case. The burden shall be upon the petitioner to supply all information necessary for a clear understanding of the problem. The commission may continue the hearings when in its judgment the petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence on which to make a determination. Every person appearing before the commission shall be abide by the order and direction of the president. Discourteous, disorderly or contentuous conduct shall be regarded as a breach of the privileges of the commission and shall be dealt with dealt with as the commission directs.

Thank you, Mr. Jel. Any staff report on this project?

We did have a staff report. I think petitioner um adequately did it in great detail. Simply put, as he said before, under normal circumstances, had they not had the previous parceling out or subdivision of the property, they would be appearing before us either as an administrative subdivision or a minor subdivision. It's simply because they had these other land splits prior that's forcing them according to our rules to be a major subdivision. So, it's really that simple as far as that goes with discretion. Okay. Thank you. a public hearing. Anybody want to speak in favor of this case? In favor of this case? Seeing none, anybody want to speak against or have any questions on this case? Saying none, I'm opposed to come up and state your name, my address, and speaker, sir.

We're reporting everything. That's right. That's right. So, my name is Eric. I live uh just it would be out south of the property that we're talking about here. And so one of my concerns is obviously what would happen to the water to for building those homes and the drainage that would affect mine. And then also you know we bought that property I think in 2015 and the thoughts of building in the country is because you know you want to be in the country and away from subdivisions and things of that nature. And when we built and I don't know, I'm not up on all the the laws and I didn't know exactly, excuse me, what they wanted to do here, but we were under the impression that it would be sold off to 10acre parsons. And so the thought was, you know, if we buy this piece of property, we build our forever home. We don't want to be by subdivision. That's kind of why we chose the the uh the lot that we did. you know, now all of a sudden, you know, looking at this with 11 different things, I think these rules were put into place for a reason. And I don't feel that given a waiver to overcome these 11 different things to do this is it spares those who bought property out there for these reasons. And uh the other thing is it's going to increase traffic and that check road. I don't know if that'll hold that up over there, but more so than that, it's just that we don't want a subdivision where we live, and that's kind of why we we built the house where we did. And and that's that's my concern.

All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? State. Yes, sir.

State your name and address. Uh Eric L65 by the next Mr. River there. And some of my concerns are about the same. Uh, one of my biggest concerns is I have one of the newer homes that's been built there 20 27 years ago. And, uh, with the people that are working here are literally at war with the tax people here. And my property has gone up in value 250 some thousand with that tax going up and up and up. And I know almost all of my neighbors. I I've seen their homes. I know what most of them do. And I mean, they're stepping on our chest, literally. And I'm looking at retirement. And I just wonder what she's going to raise it next year. And these are probably within big lots. I imagine they're going to possibly be close to million-dollar homes. Uh, and what's that going to do to me, Jeremy? Very people that don't even make close to what I make. I I don't know. That's my concern. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? Seeing none, I can turn over to Mr. Please respond.

Thank you. [Music] Um, [Music] if you can see the screen that I've uh I have, this is the proposed primary plat. And on each of the lots, you can see three dots in a row, north to south. um near the top those are soil borings and so that is where the soil scientist has proposed the septic system to go. So the homes are going to be located near the county road on the north end not on the south end. Um and the area on the south end is that undevelopable land I was talking about. So lines away from the two gentlemen who spoke. As far as storm water, we're not, as I indicated, uh asking to be relieved from providing any drainage calculations. We just don't want to have to study the entire watershed at a great cost. We just want to be able to show the county what our storm water uh impact is and that we're going to not impact uh neighbors with any fugitive water. We have a wetland that is probably going to absorb a a great deal of of the water naturally. Uh but on 10 acre uh 11 acre parcels, there's literally plenty of room for absorption. Um but that's the engineers uh job to to satisfy the county when we get to that next step. As far as density

is concerned, um you know 10 acre lots is about as u light a density as you can possibly imagine in any kind of subdivision when you know hundreds of homes. That's not this subdivision. It's not two lots, but it's only five, but it's not 20 acres, it's 53 acres. Uh, these are large lots. As far as the rules that were asking you to give us relief on, one of them is street lights. Does anyone want street lights? Does anybody think street lights are appropriate here? I think not. Uh, so those are the kinds of things that we're asking for. Does anybody think that we should have new roads in our 53 acres? If we can avoid the roads, we avoid drainage problems. There's less impervious surface. Um, those are the things that we're asking relief from. Things that are, I think, appropriate again for a minor subdivision. And I don't think anybody would suggest that 10 acre lots is a major subdivision when we're only talking about five lots as far as taxes. and the last gentleman. Um, these homes are not in the same community as his. I acknowledge that in a traditional subdivision, one that I live in, if you live in the uh lowest valued home, your properties rise because all of your neighbors have more expensive homes. And it kind of, you know, raises all boats. a high tide. Um, that's great for property values, but it also impacts your real estate taxes. We don't have that same impact here when we're talking about a home that's not in

the same subdivision, not on the same street and over a,000 m 1,000 ft away. Um, so I don't see that these homes, no matter what their price, would have an impact one way or the other on the home values south of this property on the other side of the property on the other side of the wetland. I've tried to address those concerns. Thank you. Well, thank you. Any new questions? Seeing none, I'm close. over to the board. I do have one more. Okay,

a motion to open up. I make a motion to open up a motion. I second. All in favor? I all oppose. Okay, we're open back up. [Music]

I apologize. Well, I um speaking of the wetlands again and the water that goes in there, what if there is more than what they're prepared? I mean, it being a farm field and an open soil and being able to soak compared to grass and the water that's going to run in there. I mean, I've seen his get pretty bad over the years cuz that wet land kind of goes to his property. And is there an idea if he starts getting more of his property flooded, ends up on mine, is there a plan or is there an action that can be taken? Okay. he would answer. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, back to you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, we're not here to solve the drainage problems. That's the next step when we we get to a subdivision process, whether that's a major subdivision, following the rules of a major subdivision or with the minor subdivision rules. But I can tell you that I've been doing this for 35 years and the engineers have told me over and over uh that row crops shed water to neighboring properties much more frequently and much greater volume than turf grass. So, if we have turf grass around these homes, that's going to add as a sponge or absorb and control runoff much better than a farm field in farm uh farm crop fields. So, uh don't trust me. I'm just a lawyer. The engineers are going to get it figured out at the next step.

Thank you. Public hearing. [Music] Uh I think we're calling this a subdivision, but really it's like uh 10 acre parcels out in the country. We've got uh we've got five of them and they're all over 10 acres. U so I don't I don't see a problem with the size or eliminating some of these uh u areas that he wants uh relief on. Uh the pipeline certainly does pose some interesting things. I mean you just I mean to work around that pipeline would just be to put a sub to put a subdivision larger than this requiring all these requirements to be made would just I think we're just asking for a whole lot more runoff and and uh uh just it would create a lot of drainage problems I think. So, so I guess I'm I'm in favor of what the proposal is.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Wesky.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree with I am an engineer and tell you that farm fields tend to shed the water a lot faster. Erosion control is a lot more difficult. that we have grasses and landscaping around these houses will have less impact. These lots are basically the same size as your lots except now we're under the uh guidance of the unified development ordinance that we developed in 2007. Up to that point we the county was allowing these 10 acre split offs with little or no guidance. Now, we're at the point where we're giving these people a lot of guidance and because of the requirement to do a a major subdivision after using their minor subdivision, right? With a parent parcel, which is a very large parcel that Reynolds owns. Uh we're going to this next step. They did the minor subdivision, administrative subdivision. So now they must go through a lot of these extra efforts to to do a subdivision, but these lots are the same size as uh yours, Mr. Brit Ritter, and I'm not sure what Mr. Piss's size is, 5 acres. So the same impact basically is what you're experiencing. There is a large wetland at the south end bordering Mr. river that uh we'll talk about more when we get to the next stage of this. They still have to come back before development review and back to the uh department before they become a subdivision. This is just getting waiverss to a direction to the

petitioner to follow through with it. Uh I would mention that uh with the last meeting although it's not pertinent here uh we are still concerned about the uh toll road right away. We want to make sure that that right away is located on the north end and we you know have a good understanding what the county has has way uh pavements in a standard subdivision. One of the things is we'd have more obligation because we'd have county streets built up within this. We'd have far more houses in here and the developer would have to make substantial investment in all of these improvements. This is kind of a good compromise and also protects kind of in my opinion the integrity of the rural landscape out here. So you're kind of getting the best of what can happen here in my opinion. But apart from that, I really don't have any questions for Mr. Lee. Can you can you expand further on the drainage? What would happen? What type of drainage study do we have? A question came up. You know, are the are the wetlands large enough? Yeah, I I believe they are. It's it'll be specific to just the area that we're looking at. The minor subdivision has a reduced uh area of study. With the major subdivision, we have to look at where uh all the water is flowing and try to maintain some kind of uh pass through. And uh it's usually much more substantial. And we'd have uh some storage requirements if they're

appropriate here. Again, if they do some measures that limit the requirements of uh storage of the water, detention or retention. And typically in your subdivisions today that didn't happen 30, 40 years ago, we would require detention ponds and a whole storm system to be created here. I don't know that it would be necessary because we are effectively reducing the rate of runoff of these lots as they're urbanized. Thank you, Ray.

Yeah, I I don't have a problem with this thought. Actually, I'm I'm happy to see this. Um, as someone from Chesteran where at the Barassi, you know, they're trying to put 600 homes in in in, you know, 300 acres. This actually warms my heart and I I feel for anybody who buys acorage and then, you know, says I don't want anybody living next to me. But I'll tell you, as as a Liberty Township person for 20 years, I I I would much rather see this than what a lot of people are trying to propose. You know, national builders coming here and cramming houses down our throat. So, I absolutely welcome us. Thank you. Pam, I have a question about the pipeline. It looks like there's a 100 foot easement. What's in that pipe?

Should be oil. I suspect it's petroleum. It is really I own 50 acres up here and I think it's the Marathon pipeline. I believe it goes through. So, those people will be having that pipeline going right to the middle of the property, whoever purchased it. Interestingly enough, you can build very very close to the pipelines. These these homes would be well well set back probably four or five times what code would allow. Um you can build very close to a pipeline interest.

If you're interested in safety issues, the uh pipelines fly these every week. They keep an eye on what happens. And they actually run machines through the pipes, too. You know, cuz when I bought 50 acres, I actually the farmer, God bless him, he built the barn right on top of the pipeline. I didn't know that. And he moved the stick over like, so a guy came out and he's like, "Hey, uh, what did you do?" I'm like, "I didn't do anything. I just bought the property." So they they they're they're they see they they walk this, they fly it, they put machines through it. It's prospective buyers would be notified of this pipeline running right through the middle of their property.

Yeah, it's it's flagged the owners in we either have train tracks, pipelines, I mean that's the whole county but you know there especially we have train thanks to Lake Michigan everything comes through our family farm in Jeff Township had four pipelines and the AT&T cable was running along the north side. You just made me a little nervous. That's all I wanted to know. That's it.

I do. We have a motion motion to approve the uh variances as they're uh in our all 11. All 11 to all design waivers. Design waivers. Okay. All 11. Do we have a second? I have a second. Got a motion in the second ballot. [Music]

Yes. [Music] I got a bunch of them here. I'm just [Music] huh. [Music] The matter of case number DW 202523 voting is as follows. Kevin Bryce yes. Bob Gillian yes. Pamel Micheller Fish yes. Redstone yes. Luther Williams yes. And Rick Burns yes. Passes 60. [Music]

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Next item, Shaffy. Mr. Jim's [Music] been actually [Music]

Yeah, I'll tell you that. He built a he when he built he put railroad ties up and put them in the earth. He was lucky that guy came out. He goes, "Do you know where that's at?" I was literally one foot from the

No, I didn't. [Music] Okay, we're ready. Okay. On staff report, and I know that's brought some of the people into the room. So, I wrote a staff memo to all plan commission members. I'd like to read it in the record. I think it'll bring some clarity what the intent of this. It's really hard to hear.

I'd like to read this staff report we put together that brings some clarity what the purpose of what we're recommending tonight. And of course, it's the board's decision whether or not they want to do this or not. So this is for conversation with you and discussion and you make the decision if you want to uh move forward. So listed on the agenda for the August 27th plan commission there's a staff report titled formation of a plan commission subcommittee to review evaluate and recommend additions deletions of revisions to unified development ordinance and rules and procedures. The agenda item allows the plan commission to discuss, evaluate the potential need for this subcommittee. The final decision will be made by the plan commission. The formation of this subcommittee is based on staff observations and internal discussions. And I'd like to interject what's not in report. In my 19 months since I've been here, I've seen conflicts, need for better definition of our current UDO. In the 19 months I've been here, Susan and I and others of the planning staff, we have many spirited discussions on the interpretation of the UDO. So that's kind of precipitating where I'm going with this. [Music] gives the primary f its primary focus is on possible amendments to unified development ordinance and planning commission rule rules aiming to clarify definitions include relevant detail and address inconsistency I messed up before the subcommittee would serve an advisory role of the plan commission amendments to the important are only formally considered by the planning commission and meetings such as this and require final approval from the board commissioners in the form of amendment process includes deliberation

proposals and hearings at public meetings conducted by both lobby plan commission and commissioners shall hold public hearings and take public input on any changes to an ordinance. So I think that's an important distinction. It's not the committee's job on their own to change anything in the UO or rules and regulations. Some relevant examples for further consideration may include one, facilitating coordination across multiple source documents to ensure consistency in titles, assignments, and definitions. For example, minor discrepancies exist among various sources regarding the criteria for membership on the development review committee. As an example, if you look at our rules between the UDO and rules and regulation, sometimes they got a county highway county engineer, sometimes they don't. There's some discrepancies here. I think we should get both documents coordinated with each other. Two, assess the necessity of appointing a presiding board of the zoning appeals hearing officer in instances where both primary and secondary appointees are currently unveiled. And since I've been here, that's occurred on two at least two occasions where it was really tough to get both to come here because both had conflicts that were scheduled for the scheduled date. Three, clarification regarding the definition, usage, and evaluation of a legal record as well as the distinctions between a private driveway and a private road. Those are two unique circumstances that we've dealt a lot with. We've kind of backed ourselves in a corner the way we did put the UDO in and that what a legal lot of record is. There's a lot of ambiguity between what that is and in order for them to go to the next step to build a home and the case we heard tonight to

even do a subdivision and everything like that. A lot of it depends on whether or not something what's called a legal lot of record which isn't really well defined in the UDO. We'd like to resolve that by having a definition for that. Four, examining board of the zoning of field cases from the past 3 to four years to assist development and design standards need updating. As an example, repeated requests for accessory structures above the 20 foot height, and these requests are normally in the range of 21 to 25 ft, indicate that the restriction may need adjustment simply because in most of the cases I've seen in the 19 months here, vast majority of those cases have been approved. And what we got to remember, this ordinance was written in 2007. That's 18 years ago. Times have changed. People have uses for taller barns. They shouldn't be obsemly tall, but is 20 ft tall enough? And I'm not suggesting that we're going to change it, but I think we should have discussion and investigation on that. Example five. Since 2017, more than 35 county ordinances have been passed to amend the UDO. That came through the plan commission, went to the commissioners. you're part of the UEO that they don't even think exist inside the book which is creating confusion when people come to our UEO they forget to look at the amendments which are scanned copies of documents such as I'm holding in my hand so we have contracted with the original publisher to incorporate all 35 plus amendments into so the UO reads like one book from beginning to end and we hope to do that maybe more on a quarterly bas cases so we keep up with it instead of trying to do 35 all at the same time. So when that is done

the book is going to need to be evaluated because we're not going to put a 500page document out of all the assurance quality control. One of the aims I would like this committee to do is help share in the responsibility of reviewing this book because it's going to be quite volumeless. that could also be a task for this committee. And six, just as another example, the UVO is often cited for code violations. Should code enforcement ordinances be included in the UVO or kept separate? And that's a question because in our office is the code enforcement officer. And when I hear of the unified development ordinance, to me that tells me this is guides and principles in which we develop property. If this property has been there, the house has been there 50 years and it's got a code enforcement violation for whatever reason based on other county ordinances, should that also be incorporated in the video? I think it's a mix of both. So, I'd like to examine that. So, include conclusion in this memo. staff values the insightful cont contribution plan mission and believe this opportunity will allow members to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the UO and we look forward to talking to you. What I mean by that is by having a subset of your group involved in the inner workings of what goes on behind the scenes does nothing but improve your knowledge of the UGO and how it's applied as you make your decisions going forward. So we think that's also another positive impact on us. So I want to reiterate this committee is not making decisions that'll be embodied or codified in any documents whatsoever. They're simply going to be addressing some of these examples that I talk about. But anything that comes out of this committee has to come to this body public meeting with a public hearing if any ordinance revisions made. And all you're doing is

giving a recommendation favorable or unfavorable to the commissioners. After that, it goes to commissioners. Will they have a public hearing in two readings before it's adopted as an ordinance or if he denied his simply put? I don't know if that's what you got. I would entertain any questions or question. Um, will this subdivision have to be only members of the plan commission or would the public at large be eligible? The idea of a couple citizen appointments still I'm just asking the question what what you thought you know we did think of that.

Okay. And what I would recommend if you want to go forward, no more than four members from you. And I think one of them should be your BCA appointment and one should be either the elected commissioner or the elected councilman. I think that should be I think I think your representative to the DCA should be on this. I think that's Bob and then at minimum one of the two elected officials being a councilman or commissioner. after that than maybe two other members sitting on the board or the surveyor [Music] officials that's why I'm here

but I would like it to be a citizen board to be honest with you but at least one elected official that's a recommendation you can do whatever you want okay just one question [Music]

uh pretty much the same question so what what's going to be the makeup of this committee and you kind of answered some of the questions of where we've had issues and definition but that's going to be an ongoing process. So this should be an ongoing committee. You know the UDO as you said was done 17 years ago. In fact, we were late in doing that in my opinion because the first ordinances, planning ordinances were 1959 and very little was done with our ordinances up until 2007, which basically gave us uh nearly 50 years before we substantially rewrote the vision of the county, including the comprehensive plan. So, we need to have the comprehensive plan updated, but we also need to reestablish these rules as we're going along. To be honest with you, the UDO is in really, we feel, is in pretty good shape. There's no sense reinventing the wheel of things. And to me, what's missing is definition sometimes to distinguish between things. And sometimes we have conflict what it says over here versus what it says over there. And that's what I just said. And a good example is the first thing you brought up, private roads. I don't think a lot of the public understand the difference between our public roads, the charge of the county commissioners, and the private roads we have out there. And I believe some of the definitions in those two are mixed and they amend one and amend the other

and there's inconsistency. Exactly. That's it. That's it. Right. Um, I like the idea. I think it'd be good to get citizens involved as well. So, I think that'd be a good good thing. I think it's a good idea. I know sitting at some of the BPA hearings um just being conflict all the time on especially arominiums and and hikes and whatnot. Um, we need to be more unified in that.

Yeah, I like your idea. I think a commissioner councilman be a good idea to have on there and definitely one or two people. [Music] I I like the idea. I wish other members were here to hear this.

I did talk to two of them and there at least I got that impression. And secondly, what I want to add to that, you know, since Susan and I have been in here and some of the other staff, it's not only this we're going to do, we want to roll up some we had the training session back in March. Remember, not all you could attend, but we brought a professional in training with the ECA and the plan commission on your duties, responsibilities according to the Indiana code, as well as to our own rules and regulations. What we want to do with Susan and I have been talking about this is maybe have at the end of a meeting if it's a light agenda having a mini training session to go over a section of the UIO or a little piece of the yo-yo and have a discussion on what this means and what it's interpreted as cuz I think that I mean you're the ultimate decision makers not our staff. Our staff make sure they adhere to the UDO to bring it before you guys can make a decision and you should be well informed and make the best possible decision.

I have one more one more question. Sure. How many members on the committee? No more than four from the uh No, no. Total for the whole committee. The whole subcommittee I'm thinking not counting staff. I was thinking four of you members, two or three from so Okay. Then the staff the staff will be a motion for motion. Well, I need a motion and then you need to make assignments. Just so you know, Craig Kenworthy, if you decide you would like to volunteer, I'll make a motion. Um,

I'd like to volunteer, too. Um, I make a motion for the formation of a plan commission subcommittee to review, evaluate, recommend additions, deletions, or revisions to the unified development ordinance and rules and procedures. We have a second. Second. Okay, we have a second. All those in favor? I. All those oppos say nay. No. It pass. So now can we have a motion for your appoint your recommendated appointments? Oh recommend Kevin recommend

I recommend Kevin. Okay so we got Kevin two want two or one because you can't have four. I I I don't want to pack the thing with all elected officials. I like the idea of laying people that decisions. You can make it any way you want to, but I think you need to be sensitive to have lay people, the citizen members, be pronounced on the board. Well, we got a motion from Mr. Yes. Is that all right? Yes. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second.

Okay. We got a motion and second Mr. Rinsky. All those in favor say I. I. I. Oppose say no. Thanks, Mr. Brson. Now, Bob is your member to the BCA, so that might be a consideration. I'll make a motion that I'll second it. Okay, motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? Should ask if he's willing to accept. Yeah. [Music] How's Scott suggesting you want to hold till the next meeting when you got the full board?

Oh, for Okay, I think about that. I was going to nominate Red, but should we wait? That's That's your That makes no difference. I mean, I I'd love to be I bring a I don't know. I just some of the stuff I'll nominate Red. I'll talk to Ed. [Music] We have a first and a second. We have first and second. Okay. Do we have a All those in favor say I. I. Those oppos. You're good. So that's how many.

Okay. Like nominate. I'll second that. There we go. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed. Okay. You're approved. Hey Mike, how are we going to get out to the for the citizens or like I think we convene our first meeting just for organizational purposes and then see how we're going to Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. any other issues.

And I think but before we pass, I think when you guys when the first organizational meetings put together in that way, this this board can start to put together their citizen appointment ideas, the commissioners and the council, we all have meetings coming up. I think if those citizen appointments can uh be put together between now and the organizational meeting, the organizational meeting will just do that. We'll be to decide how often, when, and what format we're going to have notes and all of that. So, I think that'll give the board the opportunity to come up with the citizen ideas for appointment. Plus, we haven't even told anyone where to apply or how to do it. So, we have to get through that at that meeting to say, "This is how we're going to do it. This is who's announcing it to be able to do it. So, thank you. Any questions? Yes. Come up to state your name and the address. I'm J3 North Parkway Township. Um I just had a question when I saw this. It was about having a subcommittee um dealing with Indian townships and the data center and all the nightmares and everybody that had it throughout the county will have or any of you or anybody that should be on the committee and if you lived in an area that would have been affected by it and I don't know if you have which is good because unless you've walked in somebody's shoes or gone through it like your neighbor lost his job so that you lose your job, your whole world changes. Your family, your mental, everything changes. So, I appreciate it if you have people who could have been affected by the data center because I think that's a a big deal to all of us, especially the kids at the school. So, I appreciate it. Thank you.

You're welcome. [Music] And that's how you announce. Um I just have two quick questions. Um one is a vision that the meetings will be publicly noticed once everything kind of gets u rolling, you know, just so we can kind of watch even and not really say anything but um just kind of see what where the discussions go. And then my second question is what the timeline what the vision for the timeline for the subcommittee work would be so that um when it comes you know uh just so residents have an idea. I mean we just been through the wheeler thing that was almost a year right and so we just want to see what um just kind of make measurable goals so we uh kind of understand what progress looks like. Thank you.

Can you say the name address again? Yeah, the Italian Porter Township 331 South 100 West.

Thank you. Anybody else? Wait, wait, before we go address the question. Yes. So again, I this is not a data center committee. That's why I think the director spent the time to write it out because we know the timing. We understand. But in reality, what we're looking at doing is what we're saying. Um, if that changes, it'll be at this meeting or at the commissioner's meeting. It will be public and it won't be a surprise. Um, at the first meeting, that's when we that first organizational meeting is kind of where we start and say, where are we going to start? Is it over at BA and those issues? Is it over in the definition section? Kind of outline that. Then as those committee meetings progress, they can't they can make no official action in that committee. This board can't make official action on those uh recommendations. We can recommend after we got our recommendation after we've had a public hearing to take it to the commissioners to have another public hearing and then that's the final decision. So, as far as I in talking with the director, this is probably going to be a committee that's open for the foreseeable future until all of these issues are kind of drawn through cuz we're getting to the point where the big the thing that's hard to understand and he highlighted it appropriately is we all went through those that were around for the 2007 redo of the UDL. We've then had this many years of amendments and those are all sitting not all back in they're at the end and so we need to bring those in. Some of those have brought in some of those confusions or things that are not exactly meeting up. So this is a long-term and frankly

instead of revising and redoing the entire UDO like the original process, this process the staff has looked at and said the the bones of this ordinance are very good. We have things that we need to address, but the committee needs to sit down and not only decide which of they want to address, but how long that will take. I don't want to leave the public um not knowing what's going on. This committee couldn't really be going on for 24 months as it takes bits and pieces of these issues and tries to solve them if that helps at all. Thank you. [Music]

Amy Hedge on 115 North 500 West. Um thank you for that explanation. I I don't want to speak for you, Cheryl, but I think um your question was more around a you know going through the data center process in UDO. There's a lot of room for interpretation kind of what you said Mr. Jabbo as far as like a DIY buzz, right? Like there is a lot going into that whole conversation and obviously it's way above my head. Um, but I think as we're looking towards this committee, I will say in doing a lot of research for our Union Township data center, a lot of the code is very hard to find in the UDO. So, I really hope that some of the noise ordinances and some of the landscape ordinances are very clearly defined under what that looks like when we're going through this whole process. And then, um, I just want to say I've learned a lot from you, Mel Reed, on um, zoning and our overall UDO. and I really hope you apply to be on this committee because you are a wealth of knowledge and I really appreciate your efforts in all of this. So,

thank you. Anybody else like to speak? And no, I like them will not be assigned. Thank you for coming. Um, I know these get weird, so I'm just making sure that weird reverb again. Um, thank you for the explanation and actually your name. I'm so sorry. 2008. [Music]

Um, it sounds like this is what you did with the website board. you're just trying to accommodate a cleanup of consolidation. Um my question after your explanation uh attorney which I appreciate is if this is um a longer term type of thing will this committee be addressing things based on a new application coming in for commercial for a 500 acre multi-use project for another god forbid data center. Okay. So this is more just clean up what you have. This is not going to be as of going to this new committee because of an application that shows up in the year.

This committee will not hear applications that'll go through the process to the staff to hear the BCA. Okay. Just the way it is. Okay. And and my other question maybe was what Natalia was trying to ask is these are going to be um behind um development doors kind of discussion. they won't be privy to a hearing it. It'll be the appointed or the um the tested people and then that will go then to this separately not as a public hearing to them and then they do the public hearing. They do the public hearing by.

Okay. Is there going to be like a recap to this board at the public hearing that says we have wanted like item by item on the agenda. We wanted to do this, we wanted to do that, we recommend this and don't recommend that. Yes. If we want to make recommendations for changes in the view, like the examples I said, we'd have to make a petition to this board. Item by item item by item. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Um my only other comment and it in I don't know the legal needs to be considering about this but um I I really feel like after this experience there has to be some limitation on accepting sense that are stacked up beyond what the state law currently defines as and I think this is probably really good learning experience using how far it could go uh what our intended use might or what our goals are to preserve good development and preservation of quality life. So, um I I really would like to ask you to consider writing something specifically that defines what we ask for staff on top of the nutrition. So, there's a limit

and that's a good question. That's a good question. I understand that doesn't take a lot of because legally there's certain things we can't do and everybody has a right to their land and pass. But if if something given a docket number and a fee is paid, shouldn't that have to abide by the in the movement of discussing whether it we may fine-tune that prospect? That's what I'm saying. Exactly.

But to but to deny that's a that's a tough hill to but we'll talk about that. That's my concern. Um and the other thing and I think maybe other people feel this way is um we'd like to see if there's some consideration to develop an ordinance for that interest. overtly did one was very minimal and they even didn't even ask for bonding or qualification of insurance companies but um I think a lot of us here really feel like we don't want to go through nobody wants to go through it again and can we have an ordinance that at least gives some definitions to interest not as part of this new committee I'm speaking off a tennis so if you can answer that

I I think that would be most appropriate taken up with commissioners to direct the plan commission to look into that Thank you. I didn't know how that would I would think it would be appropriate to give that direction. Okay. Thank you.

And then to to answer your question to the speaker previously to um we've tried tried as we can. We have posters in the building. We put it on our web pages and our social media pages. We are in the midst of an update of our comprehensive plan and uh we welcome all input. Matter of fact, we invited our resident who uh is anti-wick road self admittedly. We invited him. He's sitting on the steering committee that listens to the input from our consultant. Uh that eventually will come to this board and to the commissioners for approval. But we welcome all the things you're talking about about thriving your neighborhoods and how you want to look and shape and feel. comprehensive plan is the place to get those comments in because that is the guiding document to be honest with you. The comprehensive plan is the document that drives the UO and should drive the decisions before.

Um do you know when that's going to be revised and complete or you I can't remember what we started in February and I expect by the end of this year maybe early next year complete but we're still got a survey out there. Yeah around a couple times. Please by all means get out pop up. We went to popups. We had probably half a dozen or more pop-ups trying to get public comment throughout the county. It's tough getting public comment when it comes to this stuff, but we really encourage. But that's an important document that I think you your voice can be heard. Thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome. Like to point out the last time we updated it was 20 years ago actually.

And that was the first time 24 years. 20 20. Yeah. per specifically 24 years, but prior to that was 1960. Walk to the elevator and right before you get on the go in the stands in the elevator, there's a poster there. You take your phone and scan it. And if you don't, you call me and I'll be glad. Okay. Okay. Any other comments?

Yes, sir. So you're probably tired of hearing about dash, but um can you state your name and address? Yes, sir. Orlando, Indiana. Again, thank you all for your professionalism and dedication throughout this long and challenging process. Um I'm excited to help county and communities create a strong data center ordinance that will protect residents, property values, the environment, and overall quality. Next up should be a countywide moratorum on data centers including towns and municipalities while proper ordinances are developed. This may take 200 plus days to review and finalized review and finalized. There are already rumors about a potential hyperscale site in portage. In my opinion, it is critical that the local boardages ask the counties before moving forward to avoid the challenges other towns across the country face. Cow County, Missouri has a strong ordinance that I'll share with you within the next few weeks which has been reviewed and approved by a few trusted experts. This can serve as a great starting point for Porter County and towns to build. Key ordinance highlights include clear definitions, noise limits including DPA and DBC limits, restrictions on generator testing, strong enforcement measures on non-compliance, lighting security measures, 40 ft height limits, appropriate setbacks and buffers, national state park setbacks, prioritizing ground sites for hyper hypers scale data centers, proper definitions of different different types of data centers, area utility launching standards, evaluation performance standards, groundwater and soil testing plans, landscape and vegetation plans, storm water management, fire safety and emergency response plans, commissioning

and recreation requirements, bonding requirements. Finally, I want to thank you guys for all your hard work and openness to the public input. This has been the most professional team I've seen tackle such a difficult issue. I look forward to working with you in the next few months. And as part of the submission, I'll include myself and email if you have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else have any comments? Seeing none, do we have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second motion. All those in favor? Oppos?