Development Review Committee - Regular Meeting

He forgot to put the service up, so I called him up yesterday. That's what I was doing this morning, meeting with the plumber to get him to finish the job. Sometimes I wish I had just done it myself.

Okay, we'll call the meeting to order. All members present except Dan Boyd. Today's agenda, case number MJ2525. Evangelia Elferi.

Oh, they're very good.

Did I get close? Mayor of Crowell, Ebenmarsh. Located at 48 West Division Road, Valparaiso, Indiana. Morgan Township. Current zoning is R1, low-density single-family residence. We have 110.51 acres. They are here today for an informal review. Primary plan approval for an amended primary plan. The re-subdivision of Lot 1 of Cypress Estates Major Subdivision, a proposed three-lot subdivision. I see there's a bunch of people and representatives that can get off. Here's Mr. Evans. Does he want to introduce himself? You both could state your name and address and tell us why. Michael Eliferri, 48 West Division Road, Valparaiso, Indiana. I'm the one who will be moving on to the new one of the plots that we're approving today and building a home on. Very good.

Lucas Eliferri, 56 West Division Road, half property owner of the lot being developed.

Rich Piazza, Coral Island Marsh, 111 East 3rd Street, project manager for the development.

And like the records show, Mr. Boyd has joined us, so we have a five-member board present. Please continue and explain before we start.

As stated on the agenda, we are looking to create two new buildable lots within the 110 acres that are currently by the Alfieri family. Both of those lots are going to be developed for potential use only. The houses will be built for the Alfieri sons, so the family could be together. We have got Keep comments from the planning department and stormwater department. So far, I don't believe there is any outstanding issues.

Before we continue, I do remember this. There was some discussion early on about the access. Could you maybe elaborate that for the record, what this access could be? Because it was a private drive specifically for when they came and subdivided before, just so the board members know. And at that time, the owner represented, he wouldn't subdivide again. Here we are. That's fine. But then it created problems with the driveway. So could you explain what you're doing?

So the existing driveway on the east side of the property is a private driveway that services the houses that are there now. There has been a two-foot non-access easement along the east side of the two new lots that will that would deter them from accessing that driveway. And a new access easement across the lot to the north that's being created, giving access to the lot to the south, both of which will not use the existing driveway that is there.

And I'll let Mark address that when he does his very good. I just wanted that statement for the record because that's an important discussion. So, David, you want to start off?

Yes. Engineering wrote a conformance letter on September 23rd of 2025. We also know that there was a meeting between the owner slash applicant and county staff on September 10th, 2025. This is the project that had originally received engineering conformance and a positive stormwater management review under a prior configuration that was authored by Michael Novotny. The stormwater management was still deemed sufficient when the changes were submitted. And we did go through, again, we worked through the aforementioned ingress, egress, and access. That kind of bounced around a bit. That's been settled on the latest plans received by the county. So again, that was engineering conformance authored on 9-23-25. And I would also note that there was an outstanding comment that was on that letter to update the CN values and the two-year 24-hour depth values to match the Porter County Stormwater Design Manual. It was not determined that the slight error that was included would have upset any validity to the stormwater management calculations, but we just wanted those to be addressed prior to any permit awards going forward. Is that all, David? That's all I have. Thank you, sir.

Dan? I looked at it. Soil borings have been done on both proposed lots. They both support a septic system. So I do not have any further concerns.

Thank you, Dan. Kevin?

Yeah, Dan answered most of my questions because of the mixture of soils here. But as long as the soil site is... went out and did the boring, so I think we'll have success. What David brought up, I recall that that was a minor issue. Still, we want to be consistent with applications. And the last question we discussed before was the driveway access issues and how you're going to resolve those. So I'll defer to Martin.

Thank you, Kevin. Martin? Just in reviewing this, I do see for lots two and three that the proposed driveway would take care of that, or sorry, lots three and four. That'd be a shared access driveway between those two lots?

Correct.

Okay. And not being 100% planning myself, is in a major subdivision, do you have to have access from a road or can it be from a shared access drive? Did this get conformance from Susan? Yes. Yes. Okay.

I believe often issues like that are modified by the number of lot. So because of my understanding, because of timeframes of when things happen, this was classified as a major, but given the number of lots of certain things get reviewed, at least in the stormwater world, certain things can be reviewed at a lower level based on the number of lots.

Okay.

I think it's something that I already specifically to your question, which is a valid question. On February 25th of this year, The petitioner appeared before the plan commission got design waivers. It's a whole list of them, but one is their interior street frontage residential was granted. Okay. And I think that should create right-of-way standards. So it was covered as a waiver. Okay. And this will appear on the revised plat. Does it? It does. All these waivers? Yes. Okay.

They're on it.

and the existing easement which you're accessing lot one that's in place and the verbiage in it is already there to allow access to that property?

That easement is outside the scope of work of this project and it is in place from the previous approval.

Right, and it mentions this property specifically for access?

Yes, exactly.

Okay. Then I would say just to clarify, the shared access driveway needs to be passable by two vehicles. I would say we need to meet the minor administrative subdivision standards for a private road. That'd be a minimum 16 foot wide. 16 foot, 18 foot. I had to clarify, but just to meet the private shared access drive standards. That'd be the one. I think I'd be looking at that when we get to a final.

That's in the right of way, right? Or the entire way?

That would be for the, since it's any portion that would be shared between the two properties. So wherever that easement exists for the access would need to be the entirety of that. Thank you for clarifying. That's, I'd also be looking at drainage in this area just to make sure that we have culverts on the road. I'm not familiar with it myself, but that's something I'd be looking at that time. I don't have any for it. Okay, so yeah, we'd need to get sizing for that just to make sure that the hydraulic load's appropriate for whatever culvert you're gonna be putting in.

And just to get this on the radar now, when you all are ready for that point, your two options would be for, even though it's not public, for the common improvements of the driveway, that would be something that you would either have constructed and inspected by staff of the county, or you would have the ability to put up a performance bond get into a performance agreement with the county to just address that area. Given the limited nature of what's common, our suggestion would be to just have that portion constructed for secondary plat because you don't want to go through getting a bond and all of, you know, you don't want to go through all of that for, I mean, most folks don't anyway. They don't want to go through all of that just for a short stretch of drive. Let us know when you'd be ready for that inspection when that time comes.

To add emphasis to what you just said, Kevin, you made this motion at the Planning Commission for the design waivers and agreed it verbatim. Kevin Breitsky moved that they accept the design waivers requested in case DW 2025-26 with the driveway subject to minor subdivision standards. Perfect. The condition. Yep. So it was seconded and approved. So just for the record. It's done. Thank you. No, that's everything for me.

Rich, do you have anything to add?

I just have a question. Do you have a standard for locking the mud off the tires? As you're doing construction, we can't have mud tracked out into the division. It's a real old error. Rich?

Stormwater. So, it's

Sometimes it takes to put stone at the end of the drive to prevent or knock the mud off the wheel. Or your personal vehicles.

Any other board members have any questions or comments? Does petitioner have any comments or questions of us?

Yeah, okay. No question at this time.

Okay. This is an informal review. No approval will be given at this meeting. This is for your advice only as you appear at the Planning Commission on September 23rd, 5.30 p.m. this program.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you for your participation.