Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

It's not a tornado.

Are you ready? Good. I'd like to bring the meeting to order. You could all rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance. So they knowledge 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. [clears throat] Moving on to roll call. Kevin Bryky here. Bob

here. Kenworthy here. Harvard here. Michel here. Ed Morales here. Redstone here. Nikki here. On vacation is Mike Jbo. Thank you. Moving on to approval finished January 28th, 2026. Motion to approve. Second. [clears throat] Seeing a second redstone. I second. Red second. All in favor? I

opposed. Minutes pass or approved. U moving on to correspondence. No correspondence sir. Thank you. We will now move on to new business. Uh Rod, this is case number V OE-2026-1. Rodney L. Noel 316-1 North 625 West Buffalo Razo Union Township rural residential zoning uh on 3.3 acres requesting to vacate an existing ingress egress and utility easements. Would you please uh state your name and address and let us know what you need?

Rodney Noel. Yes. Great. Is this the whole period? Oh, I'm Yes, it will be. It will be

right. He'll speak then we'll open to the public. Oh

yeah. Go ahead.

All right. to supply for both cases conduct at hearings. At a public hearing before the commission, the petitioner proponent shall first present the facts and arguments in support of the case. Those who would oppose petition petitioner shin the discretion of the commission to oppose any time to the petitioner respond and limit public comment to those determined by state statute to be interested parties written by monstrous shall be accepted by the commission the commission. This then concludes the public hearing maintain orderly procedure each side shall proceed without interruption by the in presentation of a case. The burden shall be upon commissioner to supply all information necessary for a clear understanding of the problem. may continue the hearing when in its judgment petitioner has not provided sufficient evidence to make every person appearing before the shall abide by the order of the president. Discourteous, disorderly or contemptuous conduct shall be regarded as breach of privileges of the commission and shall be dealt with as the commission directs.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Like to state your name and address and what your question. Rodney Noel, 316-1 North, 625 West, Mount Brazo, Indiana. And I'm here asking for the to vacate the easement that is on the south side of my property. [clears throat] It was established 54 years ago when we bought the property for utility lines. From the very first day that we moved in out there, the utilities were put on the north side along our driveway and have been there ever since. So, there are absolutely no utilities whatsoever have ever been on that easement, nor will there ever be. I have permanent I have had the driveway um surveyed and we had a lawyer draw up legal papers and turned into Porter County so that anyone that moves in out there on the property there's four houses they're all relatives but should there not be none of us can change that right away. It's got to stay that way permanently. So, we have no use for the easement whatsoever, but it prohibits me from putting anything closer to than 65 ft.

On that property, thank you. Mike, do you have anything to present?

Maybe to give a little more clarity all I think staff report is pretty complete in 2024. Noel's property and the property behind it went through a minor sub as part of that they required that 60 foot white starting road coming up. You look at this picture here screen 60 foot of this section here on the screen road that turns south 60 foot and go west 60 foot all the way back right here. The intent was that this house and this parcel would have access to both drivers and their utilities would then be located because this back here what Mel was explaining to you they never put the utilities here drive instead of the drive here north of here and that driveway this house up here this house here as well what Mr. Mr. Noel was talking about that between him, three other parties, they execute easement agreement declaration of maintenance for this drive. So they've got sheriffility for maintenance and the use of that drive. We simply ask Mr. No here to contact utilities called Indiana1 photography that gives evidence that there are no markings.

We have reason to believe.

All right. At this time, I'd like to open it up to public comment. Uh, anybody would like to speak for this request. Can stand up to the microphone or state your name address, please?

Yes, sir. My name is Joshua 316. Um, I I live at the house directly to the west of Mr. Null's property. When this easement was put back in 2004, my property was the only one that would benefit from such an easement. And I can attest here to you not been utilized. Um, we come up with a separate easement for the driveway. Sorry, just we've since come up with a separate easement for the driveway. I believe that benefits the county too because it's less encroachment on the county road, less driveways coming from the county road and just a nicer, cleaner easement that satisfies poor properties. So, I'm here to speak out in favor of vacating the easement and I request that the commission please take consideration.

Right. Thank you. Would any I don't have anybody else on my list, but would anybody like to speak for or against um this request? We'll go ahead and close public comment. And Mike, any anything else? No, further. Uh, like I could turn over to board. Kevin, you got any comment? Uh, no. I'm satisfied. Mr. Noel had a driveway that had done.

Oh, yeah. [laughter] I brought this up with staff and uh before they got an agreement for the driveway, which I think is most important for us, but they're not coming back to our commissioners to deal with the the roadway issue. So, they've got that resolved. It all makes sense to me. In 2004, when the um minor subdivision was done, this was the only way they could split those properties. uh save the other agreement. Their engineer opted not to do that. He pretty much did a minor subdivision with the two lots. This makes perfect sense. Wish you' done it before, but

Thank you, Councilman. I don't have anything. Thank you, Nothing. Nikki, um first, can you scroll up on this a little bit because I'm trying to confirm that's county road 300 just south of all of us. Oh, no. 300 down.

Okay. Wait. Okay. Um, so am I hearing right though that where the driveway is, a new easement was established or that's where they put it? Because I know that I I guess maybe it looks like it may not be on their property. But my only concern is is if in the future, like what if it gets hit? Is there any guarantee or is it this lawyer agreement that will guarantee Yeah. that propert there's a new easement on that property or is it that lawyer agreement that'll guarantee that that property can never in the future make a fuss if we've got to put new access in because I guess I'm getting the picture. I thought maybe this was also going to extend to the farm field but with that road down below I get it. So I don't know how to phrase that any better of do we have guarantees the easements can always be there even if something gets cut. No physical perc Mr. No property to it.

Didn't hear. I'm sorry. The property is a driveway on Is that your property or

it's on my property? I own both properties. I own the property that you're seeing right there and I also own the other property that's adjacent to it. The only property I don't own is the farther house on the north and that's my brother-in-law and my son's house which is directly behind me. We all came to an agreement. We all definitely want this. We had an attorney draw it up so that the maintenance and everything is divided amongst the owners equally. Whatever maintenance has to be, we made it so that it could not be changed by anyone. So if one of us would happen to sell to someone outside of the family and come in, they can do nothing about it. They have to sign this agreement that they have to in order to buy the property they have to agree to this particular condition that this will be the driveway that they will use.

And I'm not as concerned about the driveway. I'm concerned what if a line gets cut. What if what what if a line gets cut? Are we right a utility? Because that's the point of the easement. The point of the easement is for utilities. So if a line gets cut, is that included in that agreement? Yes. that they have to agree to fix it. Yes. For everybody's sake. Okay. Yeah. I'm good. [laughter] I'm good. Commissioner,

no. No. All the questions been answered. Uh do we have a motion? I'll make a motion that we approve the vacation of the existing ingress egress utility easements on this uh minor subdivision plat for case BOE 2026-1. I'll second second.

I'll second. I didn't second it. [laughter] One of those two. Anybody seeing us? Bottom line, you got a second. Oh, shoot. I forgot that we [cough]

make sure some of you got terrible. This is famous behind sir. We got them all. I don't see any case number BOE 2026-1 votes as follows. Kevin Bryce, yes. Bob, yes. Craig Kenworthy, yes. Mer, yes. Yes. Yes. Redstone, yes. Nikki Wowski, yes. Motion carries.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. [snorts and clears throat]

We'll now move on to case Z0-2026-9 Z0-2026-10 Z02-2026-11. Nutrien West is um north and south of 1500. They are requesting an amendment to the unified development ordinance to reszone three parcels of land to a greenway district to allow for old city light wetland restoration. Did you want to plug your computer in? [clears throat] sticking just

Yep. Perfect. All right. If you would like to speak uh get your name, address, and uh what you're requesting. Uh my name is Lyndon Graber. I am with Nurian West, address 248 Southwood Center, Columbia, Illinois. Uh here requesting the reszoning of three parcels in Porter County uh from rural residential to Greenway District to for a uh wetland restoration project. If maybe you could go in further detail in terms

Okay. Yes sir. Um so we are in the business of what's called mitigation banking. Um essentially we identify parcels uh around the country to restore back into um wetland or and or stream um habitats. Those areas serve as a permanent conservation area to allow for the offset of impacts to similar types of resources um that are in the same watershed. So, an example would be if Indiana DOT is widening a highway and they're impacting wetlands. Um, to get a permit to do that, they have to offset that impact. Um, the way to offset that is to purchase credits from a project such as this. Um, this project is um a highly regulated project. So, it's already been through all of the federal and state uh regulatory requirements. So it's it's um it's regulated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and uh an inter agency review team called the IRP uh that consists of other federal and state agencies. Um so we've already received our nationwide permit from the core of engineers as well as our permits from IDM um and uh the other agencies that sit on that include US EPA, Fish and Wildlife Service and others uh DNR as well. Um this is a permanent conservation easement project. So this space is um permanently protected with an easement that will run with the land once recorded. Um it can never be taken off the land after that. Uh it's a highly restrictive easement that is um basically does not allow for any permanent structures, any destruction of any vegetation, um any introduction of roadways, any introduction of invasive species or

otherwise. It's basically a preserved green space on private land um in perpetuity. Um it's a like I said a highly regulated project. So we are required uh as part of our permits to stay on the project for several years until we meet predetermined uh performance criteria at which point we then hand over the project to what's called a long-term manager um with an endowment fund and they perform long-term maintenance into basically perpetuity. So um that's kind of the the high level overview of what we do and what our intention is with this parcel. Mike comment

maybe you could also address what is your experience what this does surrounding plant value um typically we have found that because it is permanent green space and it can't be developed into anything else uh usually our neighbors tend to like that um because they know that it's never going to be developed into a solar farm a data center a shopping center or something like that So, um, basically you know exactly what it is that's behind you. It's a permanent natural space basically.

All right. At this time, I'd like to open the meeting up to the public for comment. Um, we have a few people signed up. Uh, Brian Karns, you like to speak? There's a microphone over right over here. [clears throat] and if you could just state your name and address, please.

I'm uh 12 1233 Co Street in Burns Harbor, but my property my home is 1500 North 500 Michigan right? Uh my question is uh you didn't tell us what you you can just ask the the commissioners here a question. What's that? Just ask the commissioners the question and then they'll respond afterwards. Yeah. All right. Well, my question is there was no statement on what it does to the value of the properties around there.

We'll answer your questions when we come back. And also uh is this replacing property that was purchased somewhere else to do this to turn this into this? And is it really a wet land or what is that is really going to be? Is it going to be considered wet land? What is it really considered? Okay. Okay.

Yep. Thank you, sir. We'll we'll get to those questions shortly. Uh, I see Kevin Richards. Would you like to speak 5100 North? Can what happen? What can be done with this? Are you selling it? Can somebody buy it? Besides building it or something like that? Thank you. I see we have Michael Opat. Thank you.

Michael Opat 533 East 1500 North. I border that property on west and north. And the one question I have is why is my prop? Oh, back there. It looks like it's on the other side of the the ditch.

Yeah, that's good. Do and I the other question I have is how much water do they tend to be sitting on that property because this this area is kind of wet now. I prefer not to see all kinds of more water sitting there all the time because that it used to be just property. It already has cut into car to drain property over there. I'm just wondering that's going to be filled in so that water sits in there all the time what their what their plans are for it.

Okay. Thank you very much. I see Steve and I don't know the last name. [clears throat and cough] My name is Steve Sism. We own the property at 1485 uh north 500 east the 50 acres just to the west. Um and I guess my only question I'm I'm all for green space um next to me. My concern is I already have probably three acres of wetland at the front of my property on 1500 and I don't want any more water

coming onto my property because of something they do next to me. I'm all for taking care of the property or taking care of the land, but I just want to make sure it doesn't adversely affect what I already have there. I don't want to get bigger. I plan a we're going to have horses, so I just want to make sure it doesn't affect my property with any runoff in addition to what I already have. That's Mr. Smith, if you could stay there. Where is your property?

Um, I'm at the corner of 1500 and 500 East. So, I don't know exactly right here. Yes. So I don't I I but I don't how far there's a field right now. We're just a hayfield. There's a field there's small ditch and then there's a field that's next to me. I don't know exactly from that drawing where if it's the entire property um field a house and then the field signs a little bit farther down the road. But I believe that's a little easier. trying to see [cough] button right here.

Yes. So, yeah, for the the front side of 1500 there on my property. So, there is a space between us. So, I just want to make sure that anything they do as far as wet is concerned. And I've seen a couple different projects where it's not as wet as people think, but I just want as a runoff make ours bigger.

All right. Thank you very much. Um, that's all we have signed up, but would anybody else like to speak for or against uh this request? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. And Mike, do you have anything before we hurdle? [clears throat] was leaning into there wasn't a microphone. Um, just so you know, they do have covenants to their property to take it into perpet three case numbers. But we can make one motion if you want to pick all three whatever combination. But what they're requesting zoned R are we asking for the zoning to be cut down to greenway and our zoning does have restrictions what they do on property as far as building things like so they're probably more restrictive with their covenants that they told you about the restrictions Would you like to respond to those questions that were asked?

Uh yes sir. Yes. Uh thank you everyone for the questions. A lot of really good questions. Um I'll go in order and uh please let me know if I've u forgotten something here but uh the first question was um what does it do to surrounding land values? um difficult to say exactly just because it depends on what the surrounding land is being used for, what could be used for, and what value somebody would see in that. In general, like I said, with the the projects that we've done nationwide, um neighbors are very much in favor of this because it is a permanently protected space that can't be developed into something that would be potentially undesirable. um like some of the examples that we had before. So, I unfortunately can't speak to a specific tie to a land value dollar number. Um but in general, folks like having it as um as their neighbor. Um second question, is this replacing property that's been purchased elsewhere? Um what this is, it's a replacement of uh loss of aquatic resource elsewhere. So this is the this wershed the Calat dunes wershed. If there are existing wetlands that end up being filled or impacted um somewhere within that wershed they have to buy a credit from this project to offset that impact. Um so we have to develop these projects ahead of time. So the impacts that this will ultimately satisfy have not happened yet so far to date. So, these are typically anywhere from 10 to 15year projects. It may take a while for all of those credits to sell. Uh, it may not. It just depends on commercial development activity. But basically, we have to do the restoration work ahead of time so that there's what's considered a

no net loss of wetlands. Um, and the the ecological function that is lost from the impact would then be replaced by what's already in place here ahead of time. Uh, next question was basically what is it going to be? Is it going to be a wetland? Um, what is it going to look like? Um, this project is designed as a herbaceous wetland. So, it's not a forested wetland. Um, so it's primarily um what's called emergent. So, sedges, rushes, um basically herbaceous vegetation. Um it's it's not the goal or the design or even the desire for there to be unveated open water. Um the what this is designed for is to and and the standard that's measured for to meet hydraology standards is that the ground has to be saturated for 14 to 28 days during the growing season. So um that does not mean long periods of standing water. It just means basically wet dirt. And my colleagues can probably explain that a little bit better than me. Um, but essentially that's what it's going to look like. Um, is um a a grass sedge rush type of uh type of area. Um, next question. Uh, what can be done with this land? Can it be purchased? Uh, can there be a hunt club on it? Um, yes. A lot of our properties ultimately end up um the one of the only things you can really do with them is is hunt recreationally um or use them for quiet enjoyment. Um but um we we do own the property right now. We intend to hold on to it for the foreseeable future, probably the next couple of years after we get through the

actual restoration work. Um before we try to find a good home for it. Um, we usually try to identify a neighbor or somebody who works in the conservation space. Um, this particular area has a lot of nonprofits that are conservation um, uh, organizations um, or land trusts. Basically, we're looking for somebody who knows what they're getting um because we still have a a long-term vested economic interest in the project. We don't want anything to be destroyed out there or somebody to buy it and not know the restrictions of the easement and do something that would impair the value of it and create an issue for us. Um, so we take our time and try to find a really good home for it. Um, usually it ends up being a neighbor or somebody who wants to to use it to uh potentially hunt. I'm not sure about the the hunting value of this particular parcel. Um, and like I said, we don't have any immediate near future plans for selling it. Um, but ultimately it'll be our objective to try to find the right home for it.

Um, next question is, uh, how much water do you intend to have sitting on the property? U, maybe Tom or Derek could have a better answer to that than I can. Um I'll let them introduce themselves but basically it's um they they're a firm that we have hired and they have done all the design work uh and regulatory approval work for this particular project. So for the record Derek Martin with V3 Companies 7325 James Avenue Tom Sloinsky with B3 Companies 7325 James Avenue.

So I think the next couple questions were going uh revolved around water and you know what's going to happen with the existing drainage. So going to give a high level overview and then maybe jump in in the north unit and the south unit a little more detail of the existing conditions drainage and then what the proposed improvements what will happen. Uh this exhibit's just meant to give kind of an overview I think like most people know it's a very wet area. Um it's mapped in the flood plane. It's a little bit I would say deceiving as a flood plane engineer because the depth of flood plane through here is like less than a foot. It's just pretty much a general wet area um that that's out in that uh general vicinity, but you can see the entire north unit and the majority of the south unit um is in the map flood plane, which again when you're trying to create a wetland and you want the hydraology, that's part of what uh is looked at when you're looking for property for that. So, I'm going to open a couple exhibits that focus more specifically on the drainage. I'll start with the north unit. So, the north unit's a little easier. I think one of the gentlemen that talked about it, that's um 1500 north to the roadway that borders it to the south and everything drains basically north Carver Ditch. There was a reference to kind of a cut in here which is represented by this arrow right here that allows that site to drain down into carpet ditch. And you can tell here with the contour lines there's probably 10 12 feet of relief coming from the roadway draining to the north. So there is there is a little pocket here and what be the northeast corner where water can go off site. And then it's difficult to see in this exhibit,

but there is a drainage ditch that kind of straddles the property line on the east side. Might actually be off of the property, but so then in proposed conditions, um, and this I'll describe what this is kind of showing here is the general, like Lyndon said, the general idea is we don't necessarily want a big pond of water, but we do want to hold hydrarology, especially like this time of year. It's not a problem. I stopped out at the site on Saturday. It's about perfect for what we'd want right now. Um, but the problem becomes later into the spring when you want to hold any hydraology that falls on that site. So, the proposed improvements for this area are pretty simple and it's basically burming up that entrance into the Carver Ditch and over here in the northeast corner. And when we talk about a burm, a lot of times people think like we're putting a big dam up. In this particular case, the burm is about 12 inches to 18 inches high. And we do that so that the top of the burm, everywhere except for where it leaves the site is a foot above the normal water level. So that when we have a storm event and all the water that typically runs down the Carver ditch will still run down the Carver ditch, but it will exit the property through one controlled location that has the appropriate erosion protection and maintains that normal water level consistently. So in this particular case where this red arrow is here, we would have a concrete BM that's in the ground. we'd have rock behind it and that that would effectively set the normal water level. So then kind of looking here, what these different colors mean is when it's dark blue like this, it means the water would be about a foot deep plus or minus. And

then going out to where the edge of the light blue is there's no more ponded water. It kind of just blends into the existing grade. And then in the green, the idea is is that having that water sitting there, we still have subsurface saturation that the plant roots can utilize and and appropriate hydrarology for the plants. So from a I guess from a northern unit perspective and and a drainage concern and I think there's the comment was maybe also tied into this drainage way on on the east here. We're not impacting anything off the property. In this particular unit, we do accept water from the west here. So, we would be burming this up to hold our water on site, but we know that, well, not that we know, we were forced to and understand the fact that we have to maintain that drainage route. So, we'll create a swale on the back side of our burm. our BM will be more interior to the site so that that property to the west can drain out the carbon ditch the way it always has. We would like to accept that water, but by accepting that water and ponding it, we would potentially be pushing it back on that property, which would not be acceptable. So maybe we'll take a look at the south unit. So, the south unit's a little more um interesting in the fact that and this is this isn't all of the south unit. We have a little bit over here to the west as well. So, in the next exhibit, but generally speaking, we have some drainage that goes towards the north towards the roadway. Now we're on the south side of the roadway, but most of the site goes through these these blue lines appear to be maybe they were old

shallow drain tile at some point, but now they're very shallow ditches that run through the site. And the reason why in some of these situations I show arrows going both ways is it's, you know, it's pretty flat out in this area and it's not necessarily well defined with the pitch. So, kind of depending on the storm event and how much water there is some that is currently draining up here and gets into the roadside ditch that runs east along 1500 and it gets over the main part of the ditch and what is that 600 east I think on the east side and that the roadside ditch is a couple feet below the site yet and then once you get to the east carver ditch is like another four five feet even lower there. So the primary drainage here gets into these ditches and really comes out to the souththeast corner and gets into this carver ditch what they call north arm two that then heads out to the east to that same where basically the carver ditch is coming down 600 from the south. It meets up with this out at that point. So we'll take a quick look here at themselves proposed. And so again, what we want to do is I know I believe there was in the past um one of the things we were thinking about is we want to keep the water in our site. We don't want to impact the roadway ditches. And so the burm that comes up here, again, this burm was anywhere from six inches to like 14 in. But we want to cut off these what maybe were previously drain tiles and now ditches. We want to cut that off from discharging that water into the roadside ditch. And we want to burn down here so that we can create that same type of

small pockets of deeper water. We don't want a ton of deep water because it's hard to get plants established, but we want saturated ground. And so and this you can see and over here now you see on the west side I think um the gentleman that was talking about it's over here off of this screen but all of this is coming our way again you can see the property line what we wanted to make sure that when we uh pond up this water that would never extend to the property line. So all of the overland flow that's coming to the site will continue to come to the site and is actually welcomed. We want as much water from high ground coming to us as we can again so that we can provide the hydrarology for the plants. And then that water will all come down here and again go out this regulated drain to the east. Maybe I'll pause there and see if we have questions or can we take questions?

No, you can just keep going with your presentation. Okay. Yes sir. Um so I think that is what we have kind of for the water aspect trying to describe the existing conditions proposed conditions. Um I don't know is there and where the water's going. So correct. Okay. Thank you very Thank you very much. Uh Mike, do you have anything more to add before we

from a property battle standpoint? I I would also point out that it's currently zoned to market. If uh this works, you get a favorable recommendation resation within our assessment system changed out of resial taken out the trending factors in this neighborhood. It wouldn't have whatever value underlying value ended up being assessed on this property in whatever format it was assessed in wouldn't affect the surrounding property values from the perspective of how we trend keep along that. So part of the resone would actually help the surrounding areas because it would be appropriately categorized in the right z use. it would be sync back res that way.

Thank you. Uh at this point we'll turn it over to the commissioners. Uh Kevin comment.

Yeah, I'm glad that the attorney brought up the issue with the real estate comps. It's favorable to the locals I believe. But what's even better [clears throat] for us uh as a county, we're not building and maintaining this structure. It's up to other entities but the benefits are one of storm water storage which is necessary in this area and then uh storm water quality if it needs to be treated. This water goes in the carver system into the low cal and eventually into burn ditch and lake Michigan. We have an obligation to try to clean uh the water as much as possible and that's done by uh putting it down in the soils, natural bacterial action. In addition to they will be doing uh plantings with hydrophic vegetation that would be suitable for the soils and the conditions that you have here. That would have also helped with the uptake of the water. But uh most important to us I think is they complied with not burning or damning the water from the adjoining properties. So we make sure that the water keeps moving and make sure it's not sitting on top of our county roads which is also very important to us the traveling public and the neighbors. So I think uh everything they propose is positive at least in my state of mind and uh I think it all looks.

Thank you Councilman. So just a couple things. [clears throat] When I don't know things I ask a lot of lot of questions. So I forgive me if I ask questions. So this is 160 acres. [clears throat] You're going to create a wetland because somebody else is going to destroy real wetlands. Yes, sir. Correct. Okay. Who do you plan on selling these credits to? Who are your customers?

Um, so typically, so nationally, the company I work for, we have about 200 of these projects nationwide in about 27 states right now. Um, we've done a lot of analysis on our major customers throughout the country. Um, DOT is our biggest, um, by far. Uh, we also sell to a lot of pipeline companies. We sell to a lot of commercial and residential developers. Um, it just depends on what area of the country you're in. So, Fort Worth, Texas is much different than St. Louis, Missouri, which is much different than Sacramento, which is much different than here. So, it just depends on the type of development that's happening within what's called your service area. So, we have an addressable area that we're allowed to mitigate for. Um, this particular one, it's an 8digit uh huck hydraologic unit code and it's called the Calumet Dunes. Um, it's a relatively small geographic area right up here in the northwestern corner of the state. So, it depends on the type of development that would be happening here. Um historically there's been a lot of development and impacts to aquatic resources uh that have happened here. Um and so uh it would again just sort of depend, but right now um we've already been in contact with several different entities who are requiring credits. Most of them are transportation related. Uh one of them specifically is from Indiana DOT. they had a historic um violation that has yet to be mitigated for and they would like to use this site to mitigate for it basically. So hopefully that helps answer the question.

The mitigation for impacts to wetlands has to be approved by either the core of engineers or the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. So it's not just you can't just go impact any wetland you want. need to get a permit first. Then the regulatory agencies like to avoid wetland impacts or minimize wetland impacts before you're allowed to impact them. Okay. Council stone if I could. Yeah, we're doing the trail.

Yeah. projects working on we are we have to mitate at a ratio it gets us three what we feel is less than three so in our case we're going to buy credits from places like this or the DNR program does the same state

and I know you did talk about possibly with a local conservation company. Shirley Hines would be somebody that I would trust like and not that I don't trust you, but I I don't trust anybody. I'll be honest with you, that you know, somebody like that that you could work with, I would know that they would take care of this property and the surrounding homeowners wouldn't have issues. And that's the only thing I guess I have a problem with. Go ahead, Scott. Sorry. [clears throat]

You do transfer eventually to say your neighbor. I'm assuming that after we've sold our credits, we've been able to fix the findings that issue that underly correct. So go ahead.

Sure. So um so there's basically for us to achieve a project close out and get that notice from the core of engineers that the project is closed out we have to meet all the final performance criteria which are all documented and approved ahead of time in our mitigation banking enterp native hydrophic species that have survived. There's has to be so much species diversity. We have to have documented hydraology. Once you reach that level Yes. and you sold your credits and you're transferred to the third party. Correct. If that third party fails in some manner on this property, what happens then?

So then the the responsibility then is for the core of engineers to identify another potential long-term manager uh for that property. So they we have to propose a long-term manager at the beginning of our project to to get project approval and through that they have to vet who that individual is. Uh there's two different roles. There's there's a conservation easement holder, a grantee. In this case there's a nonprofit in Indiana who holds all over Indiana project um uh easements. They are the enforcer of the easement. They have to be a third party. It can't be us. Um, so they are required and obligated to maintain the easements, basically make sure there's no encroachments over time. That's one role. The second role is the the group that actually does the long-term maintenance work. So they come out multiple times a year, replace signage, mow, spray if they need to, if there's some invasives coming up, but it's light touch maintenance at that point because they're not in the active restoration phase anymore. Um that company is um a company that we utilize in multiple core of engineer districts throughout the Midwest. They've been approved uh by multiple core of engineer districts to fulfill that particular role. Um they have staff, they have herbicide licenses, they have equipment um and they are involved in the the development and maintenance of all of our projects as well. So the eventual third party holder is approved from our state regulatory agency is someone who in their opinion is capable to manage this in the future.

Yes sir. That's correct. So if that fails that's why back to that regulatory agency to replace that steward. That's that's correct. Yes. And then the only wanted to add was the reason it makes sense why Department of Transportation. You got a road, you got an interchange, you got you don't have a choice, you have a trail. This is where that's coming from. But I think the key part I just want to say again, these aren't wetlands being remeated. These are in this particular watershed. Yes, sir. That's correct. Yep. They have to be [clears throat] they have to be local. Um, so that's that's 100% correct.

Oh, and Oh, go ahead. I was gonna say while you're on that topic I think and just applicable who gets to determine the steward like does the do you guys ever seek public input on who the steward could be? There you go. Yeah. I I wondered if that's where you were going with that and it wasn't said, but is it always like the Army Corps that says this is it or do you ever seek public input of who would you like to see such as the neighbors around it?

So, um the the long-term steward has to be identified and approved in the mitigation banking instrument which is all approved ahead of time. So that that all has already been approved that that's a document that is developed and vetted with the core of engineers and the rest of the IOT. So fish and wildlife, IDM, IDNR, EPA. So we had to propose a steward. They had to vet them. That instrument was on a federally required public notice. Um so it was public comment was sought for that. um and they ultimately determined that this particular entity was acceptable um to them and all the requirements and so that that was approved. And who's that again?

I heard it was public comment. So it is available for public comment. It was that public comment has has since expired. So a couple years ago back when we were originally proposing this project as part of that process through the core of engineers, we had to put the project out for public notice. And so and I guess and thank you for that. That's great. Great. I just want to make sure that going forward, you know, none of the land owners have have issues because I don't know your company. I don't know how long how long have you guys been in business? Uh over 10 years. How many projects have you done? We have almost 200 nationwide. Okay. And who's going to be the steward of this property? Um for for until the until the performance standards are met, it's us. We have the financial obligation.

But who's going to be after that? Then decide uh yeah, that's already been decided. So, it's a company called Loveless Custom. Who? Loveless Custom. L O V E L A C E. And how many properties do they So, they serve as our steward for I have to go back and check, but I know that they are a long-term steward for projects in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri. Those are the four states I can think of. Now, they're also the our maintenance contractor. So, this project after restored, they are the company that will be maintaining it for the next seven to 10 years while we're trying to meet performance standards. There's a lot of continuity consistency there as well. So once you meet the performance standards then correct then you can possibly offer it to a Shirley Hinds or No.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. We could offer it for for land ownership. Yes. For or for land ownership or for

correct. And the other thing so with this had been approved a couple years ago. There's not a specific project that this I kind of look at this like climate credits, right? It's kind of like kind of I mean kind of like that except that there has to be what they're interested in is is temporal lag. So that we have to build this in advance of ever solving anybody else's mitigation issue. So we can't say, "Oh, DOT needs 10 credits. We don't have a project there yet, but buy these credits from us and we'll go put one in there soon." We have to we have to build it first and then hope that there will be demand and then

Okay, that was my question. So there's not a company that you know of right now that you're doing this for. Correct. No, we we are building not any type of big huge projects or big mass development. Not you know the big project. No. Correct. Um there like I said because the project is now approved the market is now aware that we are there. We're the only mitigation bank in this service area currently and so we have already been fielding calls from several folks who do potentially need credits but we haven't sold any yet. Okay. No, I was just making sure because I didn't want this on a site and then you know this 300 acres somebody's building some massive thing and you're doing it for them. I just No, no, not for transparent sake. I just wanted to know. Yeah. No, it's a great question.

Is there any projects that you're doing this for?

No. No, there's no there this project was designed. We we call these green field or speculative mitigation. Our company about 90% of our portfolio is spec mitigation banks. We have a market research team that does a lot of historic market research. Try to identify where should we go put a mitigation bank? How big should it be? What type of credit should it offer? Do we understand the regulatory environment there? Do we understand the competitive supply demand dynamics there? Does it make sense to invest there? So ultimately we make that decision and we decide this is a place we want to put a bank and so we try and secure the right piece of property for it. We go through the two to three year process to get it approved by the core of engineers and the we hope that our market research was right and we start receiving demand. That's exactly what this project is here.

Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. in determining the water level, what impact will it have on the surrounding heat because it looks like your your uh drawing elevation drawing is in inches. So, I mean, you're getting pretty accurate here. Yeah. As far as the goal here, are you talking about an impact on the surface water or like potentially ground water? As an example, the surrounding neighbors, is their property typically higher to where the water's going to drain away or are you building something higher and the water's going to And I understand you're going into ditches, but still

correct. Yeah. So, on the north the north unit, I think um I can pull that one back up here. We're down the majority of our property where we're building and we're not building on the southern portion of the north unit because we have this gas line that goes through the middle of it. So, this is already the low the low port of the property that's going into the ditch here.

Okay. We are receiving some water from the west here, which is again why we're not we're keeping that outside of our burm, not not burming up right at the property line because we want that water to be able to continue to go into the ditch unobstructed. So, what we're doing is just really ponding up the water on our property. And again, I don't I don't want to be misleading. The green and and the the dark green and the light green, there's that's not even water. That's that's just kind of wet soil. Uh the light blue would be zero inches the edge up here going down to a foot deep in the middle where the ditch is. So like in a really big storm event, we probably have, you know, half a foot, 3/4 of a foot flowing in that ditch anyways going out to Carver. when Carver Ditch comes up, it's going to back up onto that property and probably in it in a large storm event and inundate, you know, some portion of this area here already. So, we're just trying to we're trying to match the drainage conditions and keep all of the hydraology on our property if we can.

So, so essentially because of the BMS and the existing drainage and the drainage you're going to put in, there should be no impact on the surrounding homes. Correct. No adjacent impact at all. Okay, could I add to what you're saying? Could you explain it's in the flood plane now, so it does exhibit some pounding, so to speak, now could you explain what's so different about this than what it's doing today?

Yeah. And just kind of flipping back to this, this is kind of, you know, as a flood plane engineer, this is a scary map because it's the Blues flood plane. There's flood plane all over the place. Again, it's pretty shallow flood plane, but when Carver Ditch um during a 100 I hate to use a term, we now try to use 1%, but during a 100redyear storm, in theory, this is kind of the area that would be inundated in here. And so, you can see that this site would be inundated in theory almost all the way up uh the embankment. I don't think that's accurate at all. And a lot of times these flood studies put out by the state or FEMA are estimates to the best estimate, but we already saw before in that previous exhibit, the grade falls about 12 feet down here. So, um, but the water will get up pretty high potentially through here theoretically speaking under, you know, the current rainfall and all that. So I I just want to be clear during what we're trying to do is maintain the hydraology in like the everyday type of storms, the you know six month storm, the one-year storm, two-year storm and a hundredyear storm. This everything's going to be what it is and our project won't have really won't have any adverse impact. Hopefully the plants I think somebody had mentioned they'll utilize more water. They'll provide a little bit more infiltration. Hopefully a little more takeup. It'll definitely provide a water quality benefit, but from you I'm not going to try to sell it as a flood benefit. It's not going to make this flood plane go away,

but it's not going to it's not going to contribute to the neighbors problems. Um, another question just on the uh the credit pricing, is that typically fixed or does that fluctuate supply and demand? It fluctuates with supply and demand and it hasn't been established for this project yet. Okay. So, and one last question for Mr. Jagel. you had indicated there was um other steps of this process. Yeah, they're not constructing structures or buildings, but I do believe they're going to have to submit they've submitted all their technical information. We'll have to issue a permit for control. So, we will get another view of this from an engineering perspective before.

Okay. Thank you, Vicki. Um, the only the only clarification I want to make uh just because when I hear hunting that can almost scare me or maybe make some people upset, but you said this property has no intent for trees. So, it's not like it's going to be wooded. And I guess why I'm pointing that out, that to me tells me that hunting would probably be limited mostly to like birds. And I'm not committing you to that just to put in people's mindsets. It's not like this is going to be an all shootout range with anything and everything. You know, wildlife is only going to tend towards the areas in which they like and this is not going to have woods. That's correct. Yeah.

So, that's my point. So, we're talking more maybe feeasants, turkeys, things like that. We're not talking deer and other things. That's right. And and I'm not a a hunting expert, but but you're right. Um, we do have several forested wetland properties in other areas of the Midwest that do set themselves up well for deer hunting. Um, this particular property is one that we've already identified internally at the company I work for is probably not being one of those. And so we're like, we're gonna have to maybe figure out a different home for it. Um, but um, and that's fine. And I'm not saying it has to be the goal, but just again people's understanding, okay, the desire [clears throat] for this is not wooded.

So again, have to think about wildlife. If you were to use front, you'd have to think about wildlife that would actually come to the site. Correct. Not all is going to. I'm good. Thank you, Pam. I have a question. Will the ratio of acres be the same on both sides? for instance, one acre of created wetland for one acre of destroyed wetland or is it 2:1 or 3:1 or the opposite? What what's what's the ratio?

That's a great question. So on the what I'll call the supply side, which would be our side. So whenever we're generating a mitigation bank and we're trying to establish a certain number of credits, our proposed plan that V3 has developed here for this, we have to justify a credit ratio. And so the best you can get is one to one. And that's whenever you've got something that does not exhibit wet wetland traits today, but you're going to do full restoration on it. And so it will exhibit restoration or wetland traits after you have finished your restoration. Um that's full restoration. Most of our sites are we're targeting full restoration because you can get more credits per acre on entire site. So it's more economical. We also have properties that have what's called enhancement. So you get a less ratio if you have an existing wetland but it's full of invasives or it's not functioning properly. If you need to enhance that, you get maybe half a credit per acre on that. And then there's preservation which is fully functional wetland. It's in great shape. Doesn't need any work. We protect it and put it as part of our project. We'll get a little bit of credit for it, but not very much. So we tend towards the former on all of our projects just for economic purposes. That's the supply side. this particular project I believe is full restoration just because it's all in attic production today on the demand side which is the other part of your question I think so whenever somebody's impacting a wetland how many credits do they need to buy per acre of impact that's subject to core engineers and IRT approval so they take into account several different factors mostly they're taking into account the quality and functionality of the wetland that's being impacted the higher the quality the higher the ratio that they will ultimately I require for it. Um, and Tom could probably speak to that more so um, than I can because V3 actually represents several clients who end up needing uh, mitigation credits, but the short answer is it can vary and it's due to to quality and functionality

that's being lost. So, who determines the quality of it at when you're done with your project? Who's going to come in and say, "Okay, this this will garner five or this portion will garner five credits." Who who makes a determination?

So, we have to propose at the beginning in our mitigation banking instrument. Say, "Here's our restoration plan. Here's our ratios that we're proposing. Here's the performance standards that are associated with that. Here's what we're going to plant." All of that has to be approved by the core and the team. So, we go back and forth with them. So, so we have a fixed number of credits that we can potentially earn on this site and that's determined upfront at the MBI. Now, we have to perform. We don't get all those credits released up front. There's a release schedule. So, we um we have 15% of the total potential credits that are released whenever we get the project approved. And so, then we have to restore and actually do the restoration and construction work. We'll get another I think 15% on this one at that time. And then over the next five to seven years after that, when we're documenting that we're performing and meeting those standards, we get small percentages released then too. And then there's a final percentage at the very very end um that we'll get whenever we achieve the final performance standards. So we have to earn the the credits out over time um which means we have to obviously stay on the project and take care of it.

Okay. One thing on um required mitigation when you're impacting wetlands and need a permit, it's generally one and a half to one. So for every acre you're impacting you need one and a half acres of mitigation. It can go to three to one for some higher quality impact. And [clears throat] just one note so the south unit is 88 acres in size and we're getting 66 credits but only 20% are released upon approval. So takes a long time to get all the credit. Thank you. Correct.

Um, this is in the Lake Michigan wershed. So, does that mean that all the credits that you're going to supply or what lands in that wershed or they can be outside the wershed? Uh, they have to be within this 8digit huck watershed. It's called the the calat dunes. Okay. Um, it's Yes. Yeah. Um, I know this is a very I sensitive environmental area. I was on a park board for years and we were able to acquire two pieces of property. I'm looking at them out here, hawk ridge and bring across. Yeah.

Because of how sensitive this area is for bird migration, you know, wildlife, uh, fauna, I mean, everything. So, I guess my question is, you're going to go in there and you're going to strip this ground. Is that correct? To do the work? Um, what do you mean by strip? Go and excavate all the ground and take all the No. No.

Okay. when you do your work, what are you going to use native plantings to go back? Because like I said, this is a very sensitive watershed. It all goes into Lake Michigan. And I think if you're doing this, in my mind, it needs to be put back with natural planning, native planning, and things, you know, that are going to enhance because I believe Pock Ridge was bought using migratory bird money. Um, it was a grant. Both those pieces of property were increased significantly because of the grants because the Laura fauna and wildlife.

I'm concerned about when it does go back, it goes back correctly. It goes back to almost native. I mean, let's let's do this. This is Lake Michigan. We've got national park two miles north here.

Yes. And um I know Tom has got some good information for this and I just wanted to if you don't mind, Tom, just um so um a couple of things there. Um, number one, some of the things you were mentioning about like this general area is very sensitive for conservation. That's actually one of the main reasons we selected this property and it's one of the main selling points for the core of engineers. They're trying to create wildlife corridors. We don't want to go find an island somewhere in the middle of a in the middle of, you know, central Indiana where it just doesn't provide that much ecological value. So that's actually one of the main attraction points of this particular area is because of all those surrounding things. Number two, the flora and fauna. So we're required to do uh 100% native uh species. So I think Tom is probably that's what he's wanting to speak to. Um but there our our planting list was is already approved in the NBI, but we had to propose it. The DNR, IDM, EPA, Fish and Wildlife, everyone got to comment on that. Okay. Um, and there's even restrictions on our seed source has to come within so many miles of this this region of Indiana. So, it's got to be very very low, but they it's it's ab and there's and there's a restricted list of invasive um and uh and noxious species that are not allowed and we have to document those in our annual monitoring reports and how we treated them and we have thresholds of of what's allowable and over time that threshold decreases as the restoration techniques take hold over the years. Um, can I

go ahead I got Okay, go ahead. You may answer my question. So, [clears throat] this we will be seeding native plants and putting plant plugs in the ground because we want the native vegetation to establish as quick as possible because then we get more release and it'll be actively managed every year. And you're going to have like if you need to do a burn or whatever is that kind of what you're management tool. Okay. Okay. We when I was on the park, we restored some native prairie and I you know that's the kind of thing and I know it's it's not an instantaneous thing, right? It takes time. That's why we use plant plugs because they establish but you will do your best to make sure the native plants thrive and

we have to that's one of the performance standard. Okay. Yes. Appreciate commissioner.

Um my question is we're going to be a statement on the values. I think that was answered. Um, I understand the credit, you know, I I consider credit swaps type of situation. Um, and I looked at the the drainage map you had up here beforehand. Um, and one of my issues is I just want to make sure that everyone's clear that that's not going to become a problem for the rest of the residents and the surrounding properties, right? I mean, would it be fair to say that, you know, in [clears throat] this 160 acres of property here that that that that you have is probably one of the lower areas of that of the surrounding properties. Would that be fair to say?

Yeah, we're accepting drainage from the west and then um 1500's kind of a high point. You know, north of 1500 goes to Carver Ditch. South goes to the Carver Ditch arm to the south unit and then the property to the east drains directly east that was out there Saturday. Um they have several shell swailes much like this property that discharge right into Carver ditch that's running along 600 to the east. So we're somewhat already isolated and either accepting drainage or drainage is going away from us. And so um to to answer your question, yeah, we would not be impacting adjacent property owners. And we talked about this internally, like if there was some kind of really weird

maybe there was a deep drain tile that nobody knew about elevationally. It doesn't seem probable. But this is also again through what he was talking about with the management and to monitoring. It's a living site. So we would have to make adjustments and you know if we identified something we would make an adjustment on the site. Okay. Um, and how how long does it take to to, you know, start to finish one of these kind of properties before you're looking for another steward to take it over?

The performance standards for the Chicago district are they typically take anywhere from 5 to 10 years to be fully met. It depends on the overall performance of the site, the planting conditions, the weather over those establishment years. um you know if there's drought then we're not able to reestablish hydrarology and document that it's going to take longer. Um but if we have good weather it could take um you know less time um but it's going to be a minimum of five years on this particular site and it could take um a few years longer than that depending upon the establishment.

Okay. and and you know, out of all the properties you've done so far that your company's built up so far, how how many of those have gone to land trust and let's see how many of them have become like hunt clubs or something of that nature in terms of the ultimate land owner? Yes.

Um we did an analysis. We have over 80% of our projects actually we don't actually own the dirt. So this one is different uh than that. We do ultimately end up owning some properties if the if a land owner um if it's a listed property or if they ultimately would rather just sell. But we have a a land sourcing arm uh internally that identifies properties based on their their physical characteristics. We're not looking for listed properties. What that all translates into is that most of our portfolio um we we contact an existing land owner and we basically compensate them for our ability to go put a conservation easement and restoration project on their property. So we don't actually own uh the the underlying real estate on most of our projects across our our portfolio. And then with this type of project since it is kind of a credit kind of situation then as Fern said the new owner just so I'm clear has to keep it the way it is. Right.

Yes. So it's never going to be developed into buildings or you know turned into something that it wasn't intended for because of the credit situation.

That's correct. And and also because importantly the easement. So the easement is a permanent conservation easement that runs with the land. Um and in fact the easement actually has to be subordinated to all loans as well. So lots of our land owners across the country still have a mortgage on the property. They have to have a signed lender consent from their bank saying we are consenting to subordinating our position to this easement. Meaning if they ever have to foreclose on the property, the easement still stays in first position whenever they go to dispose of it. So um the the easement is really a strong lynch pin there that that basically maintains its conservation status into perpetuity. And how long how long are these are these credits, you know, and these agreements? How how long are those put in place for? You know, is that a forever thing because one was taken out of one area and then put here?

Yes. You know. Yes. I'm just trying to satisfy, you know, in my mind that, you know, this is just going to be turned back into a, you know, primary wet land and, you know, the residents around don't have to worry about it being turned into something that not is correct. Yes. We're not talking about here tonight. Right. No, it's a great question. Um, I do like the fact I mean this being zoned down. That's correct. Right to Greenway. Correct. Okay. All right. I don't have any questions. Thank you,

Mr. President. Yes. May I say one more thing really quick for the property owner right here? What you own all this that that he's not going to have any problems? Is there, you know, I guess that's that's kind of what I'm really worried about because I understand where it goes. But man, if you're if you're that property owner right there, is there some type of assurances that hey, you know, we're going to we'll stay so far away to make sure water doesn't come up and you know, you got mosquitoes or something. I don't know. That's what I'm worried about right there is is that prop property right there.

Derek, you may be able to answer that. I'll I know that that property sits higher in elevation. So, there's a there's a large notch there on that there's that there's the contour map. So that there's a large notch on the northwestern side there. That's a hillside. Um it's actually that is not part of our project area. It's part of the the parcel that we own. But um we can't we can't reestablish hydrarology on that because it's a it's a hill. You know, God didn't make it a wetland initially. We're not going to go in there and excavate a whole bunch of dirt and try to make it a wetland. We're not getting credit. That's what I was getting at is you're not gonna artificially make something in the wetland where this person might have a problem with it.

Correct. No. Yeah. Yeah. We um as a company we do not take on those types of projects because ultimately they fail it if this historically we're looking for parcels that historically were wetland until a 100 years ago whenever they were tiled drained whatever and we're trying to restore it back to what it originally was. Okay. That's what I was worried about. Thank you. Anybody else have any more comments or questions? Mike, do you have anything?

Yes. Before anyone may forget, I want to remind you three partial with three distinct case numbers. So when you make your motion, please include all the case numbers you want to include your motion. I'll make motion to include cases ZO2026-9, Zo 2026-10, and Zo 2026-11 and forward a favorable recommendation for all three of these petitions and parcels to reszone them to Greenway to allow for old city light wetland restoration. forward that recommendation to the county commissioners.

We have a second. Second. All right. Now, [clears throat] vote.

Got it. And your company bonded, right? I'm sorry. They bond these projects. Make sure like we do um do bond with the county. I just want to make sure any any issues, any problems, you go bankrupt that we're not left with a half finished greenway project. So I want to make sure is that are are you guys financially able, stable, and bondable to make sure that see this through from A to Z?

Yes, sir, we are. And actually, one of the requirements of our project to get the mitigation bank approved by the regulators is that we have to post financial assurances in an amount that would allow for exactly what you're talking about. So there is a bond that is already in place for this particular project. Should we default tomorrow, there is a sufficient amount of money that would then be um you know instituted from that bond or called from that bond um and the core would identify an able entity to come out and basically finish the work where we where we left off. Okay.

[clears throat] Okay. Matter of case number Z 2026-9 Z206-10 Z 2026- vote follow Kevin Bryky yes Kenworth yes Mner yes Fish yes Morales yes Red Stone yes Nikki Wowski Yes. Motion carries 8 Z. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very interesting.

What we'll do now is move on to a staff report to be an update on the comprehensive plan and plan commission subcommittee.

[clears throat]

Look at that. the the public people from the public asked their question during the public comment and that public comment was closed. I think the problem is nobody's presented after. Yeah.

Yeah. just so this will be heard. This was not the final decision. This was the recommendation of the county commissioners. The county commissioners will have two more public hearings in which there will be one more first public comment. So you'll be able to have public comment again. Oh no, no, no. They have to come back in front of commissioners. Yes, sir. Keep this in mind because you won't get a notice like before May 12 p.m. in this room commissioner. Thank you.

Okay. I don't have me. Yeah.

So, I'll be real brief. We all believe this is getting late. Update on comprehensive plan commissioner sub committee. A lot of you attended last week the joint meeting commission commissioner RDC. I thought it was very good meeting. Our consultant got to hear a lot of comments from members. This will go a long way to make our report better perspective. As far as the planning commission subcommittee meeting, we did have a meeting last month. We are scheduling one the first week of May. We're going to present them in case for maybe UTO changes, but that continue to discuss. We'll be bringing those in front of you. So,

set a date for that meeting yet or no, it's either going to be May 6th or 7th, Wednesday, the election day at the time. But I'll be setting those. Thank you.

Uh continue education store and containers. I want really really brief a picture. These are the things we're dealing with. Maybe not quite in this setting. The one down is most common. Usually 13. These are pretty prevalent throughout the county. The ones up top look fairly new. The one down. We're not going out looking for these things, but we do get that call in to say complaint because a lot of these are like rusted up. Someone told me to actually give them away service. So I want to bring this up to you. This is one of the things we challenge the subject. If you go to the UO when it comes to shipping containers, structure standards in chapter five that shipping containers amongst all those other things shall not be used I think with reason you know farmers with crops they use like that they just use

so this is a an issue that our code enforcement is facing because in theory they can't have on the other you know we go after each and every one of I'm sure blowing up all the time complaints that we res so we've got some options that we're kind of working through but I just wanted to bring up the speed of these kind of issues that we'll be bringing things maybe we can deal with this in a fair way that maybe treat them like structure They can't do the front yard. Yes, they have to be attractive looking and matching the house just like any other structure.

We're also examining what makes a shipping container. I mean, a lot of you seen heavy shipping container gorgeous architectural wonder. I haven't seen one in person. So, I just want to bring this to your attention to you with this and also addressing the sensory structures. I think it's time we change to be a

and Mike just to let everybody know um we have great conversations. We have a great broad diverse section of people in this county that there's a lot of things I would imagine like this that need to get addressed and it's kind of nice to vet and hear from different people, you know, throughout the county and, you know, we have engineers, we have lawyers, we have, you know, elected officials. So, this has been this I think this is great what we're doing here. What I would add on these from the legal side that makes the difficult to deal with they end up somewhere we don't like them. They are heavy. They get wherever when we get the one that is complaining we don't want it. We're trying to get rid of it. It is never in a place that you can get that you can get to unless it's three weeks in spring, four weeks in fall, and it hasn't rained or something. So, I would encourage you as you drive around to see if you see them. We've had many discussions internally what to do with these to add a little bit more to it. Some of our concerns are they're not structures. They're not meant to be they're meant to be airtight. They're not meant to get out. They're not a door that we're used to. So when we're thinking again, we haven't put anything to paper, but just out loud thoughts. Do we make a window get cut in? Does the door have to change? There's have to be a pitch the roof on it.

Ventilation, ventilation, you know, etc., etc. Along with the size and some sort of foundation. So, right, that's what I was going to say. sometimes foundation to put together. It's not as easy as just saying, "Oh, do we like like you said, we How long do we talk about this probably for Mike?" An hour, an hour, hour and a half, I think it was, didn't we? It we and boy, we came up with a lot of different things. Ventilation. Um, yep. You know, and then Exactly. Not again, not to forall the conversation, but at some point, is it a structure,

right? How many things do we have to do to make the $2,500 thing now structure? So, that's part of the discussion to go through is to see how it

I'm glad you brought that up because at five o'clock before this meeting, I decided, well, how much do these things cost? Could they really be economical? And they're on eBay for an average of about $2,600, not too far off the 2500 that the attorney mentioned. and come in sizes of 8 by 8 and 1/2t tall by 20 feet. 40 feet long is a standard that's 8 by 8 and 1/2 ft tall and 40 ft cube which is 8 ft wide and 9 and 1/2 ft tall. I also looked at a video at that time and as Red mentioned, ventilation is a critical thing, but these things will still leak and they're very problematic when people start to stack them, especially if they try some odd configuration. If they stack them one on top the other like they're on shipboard, it's not so much an issue. But they are problematic. There's no wheels to them. How do you move these things around? you know, is it responsible to have these things on private property?

Okay, guys. Yeah. I mean, were you at the last I I had the flu. Oh, that's right. You were saying we tal we talked about we talked about all the we talked about every single issue you brought up and we what we didn't want to do is we didn't want to punish farmers or people out in the country that use the to put their fertilizer, feed, anything like like that. But yet we didn't want them in subdivisions like oh let's have I mean so we were really trying to figure out what's a good balance

maybe it's resiz And we're special use the eyes and cross and make sure this isn't going too big or you know. Yeah.

A lot of people disagree with me, but I think the best thing we did with trailer homes was to do special use exception, but they had to come in annually to make sure they're up to code. Sir, I got one more announcement. This is Mr.'s last meeting. The commissioners this week. He's going to fill the vac they can appoint the board of zoning appeals. So the commissioners at their meeting announced they're taking applications for member of planning commission. So you'll have a new face here. Just let me thank everybody for all your help and your kindness and your guidance. I certainly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for serving. We knew good people. We say that all the time. So, all good. Uh, do we have a motion to adjurnn? Thank you. Second. Second. Done. Oh, wait. Okay. I was under the impression that was good response was not yet done. So he can talk again if he wants to. Yeah, it could be worship time. I heard they all had a great time.