Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

stand 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. Ed Morales here. Candy Vasquez excused. Jason Giliano here. Bill Hering here. Rob N here. Andrew Metta. Let the record reflect. Director Mike Jbo and attorneys are present as well.

Uh I think we need to uh swear all the members in. So, let's do that all at once. So, we might just all rise and I repeat after me with your right hand up, please. I state your name. I do hereby do solemnly swear domly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the Constitution of the State of Indiana and the Constitution of the State of India. and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge faithfully and partially discharge

my duties as a member of the Porter County Redevelopment Commission. My duties as a member of the Porter County Redevelopment Commission. To the best of my ability and according to law. To the best of my ability according to law. So help me God. So help me God. Thank you. So at this time we need to uh do the organizational procedure of electing officers. Um so I will take nominations for president.

Yeah. I'll make a motion to u Morelis present. Okay. Second. Okay. Motion a second. All in favor. Okay. Next. Um let's see here. We need to elect the vice president. Do we have any nominations? I make a motion to let the bill hearing the vice president. Second.

Have a motion in a second. All those in favor signify by saying I.

I. Motion carries. Nomination for secretary. Have any nominations for secretary? I make a motion for roll for secretary. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Motion carries. Okay. Consent agenda, financial report. Our financial report reflects the budget we put together at the end of last year and claims against them in the first three months and at least the first two months and 11 days of the year. Um, we took the balances what we had last year distributed almost very hot categories in that. So, I'd be happy to send you what the balance what the budget really looks like. Most of you were here and you saw that budget was approved last December. And then following that are four claims. paid. MKSA has two of them for comprehensive plan update. For some of you are here, uh the RDC is uh paying the bill for that for the county. Then we have the rental uh for the storage unit for the storage grant team have in place. We're going to talk about that later, but those are the things we pay. So the financials is for your information. claim to approval as part of the consent agenda. Is there any questions on any of these? We have a motion for approval. So move

motion and second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. We have new business appointment of the director, assistant director and attorney. I would like to offer the following names for your approval be myself, Mike Jel for director, Kirk Canson for assistant director, and Scott McCcl for attorney. Do we have a motion? So move second a motion a second. All those in favor signify by saying I.

I. I. Motion carries. Professional services agreement. This is for attorney Scott Mccclure. Relate of 199 $195 per. This is for the calendar year 2026. I'm sorry I went out over but that's item three. I I I went for the

yeah development economic financial go for the development and I have Mr. vote here tonight. This is uh between the RDC and the development economic finance consulting LLC provide us financial services. We find this very useful on our various financial reports from the state. Plus when we get into other projects and all that when we need financial assistance recommend approval on that you'll find his rates in the areas on needed basis and that's what we have here very well years that I've been at least is there any discussion Do we have a motion? So move second. We have a motion and second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Motion carries. Then go back where I said the other ones with uh bring Mccclure. Scott Mccclure will represent be the attorney for this $195 on a hand basis for your approval. Did you wrap this room, Scott? I did.

Any further discussion? We have a motion. Second. Have a motion to second. All signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. And if all you could stay around the mccclure agreement requires all your signatures, the financial consultant requires districts. Next up, you have the RGC field trip update.

Yes. Uh toward the end of last year, we talked about going on a field trip. U one of the members said maybe not go to St. Joe County, but I find St. county quite compelling. I know Ralph went the other the time we did before a lot of you didn't and this time I think you know compared to when Ralph and I and the cler went I think this one would be structural different maybe a little more office time with the staff of the RDC or St. because the county as well as the commissioner. I think a lot can be learned from both the elected official side as well as the professional side and of course we get u some kind of accommodation such as a a bus that we can be doing a tour of some of their facilities and sites both on the way in and the way out of the county. I talked to them and they would be glad and glad to have us come. If you go to the second and last page of your agenda packet, I have four dates. April 16th, April 20th, April 30th, and May 1st. Those are dates in which the um people I've been talking to are available. They can host us and all that. And so I propose we meet there at the county building behind the range for transportation, take us to and from there. And usually we stop somewhere for lunch to dinner while we up there. It won't take the entire day, but it pretty much consumed. I think we left here like 9:00 and we got back 2. Plus, there's an hour time difference. kind of works for our but you don't have to tell me tonight but maybe by next Monday you can email me all the dates that you're available and I'll try to get it so we have most

I can tell you right now 16th and 20th I'll be in North Carolina so the 30th just so happens that's when the attorneys available too so the rest of you can let me know and I'll reach out to council I'm best friends as well. I'm good.

I'm good. Those days also look like it's the 30th. Unless Commissioner Morales or Councilman Vasquez, I'd like to hear from them. I I think even in those days be fine as well. So that's the update on that. Um tonight I'm going to turn over the deis to representative club. In your meeting last year we talked about they lost their um facilities they had with the city. They're desperately looking for a home for the good work they do. And it was before my time here. So RDC did a nice job of helping them regular cost somewhere on the skirts of town where they put all their material. They actually do their work prepping their ramps and do quite quite a good job for the community. Um the purpose of that was kind of find out where they're at and see if they have plans of moving on. They said they actively moving. I'll let them address that. But their lease, I believe, I was told that we had verified that that's going to due in April. And so I invited them to come here so they could explain to you what their plans are. I mean, it's obviously not going to have anything by the time the visor turn for a whole year. It's totally up to you. So, I'll turn it over to Mr. Ber introduce himself and where they're at. Thank you, Mr. J. Thanks, gentlemen. Um, my name is John Barker and myself and

Bob Westfall who is here too. We are twothirds of the chairs of the Valparezo Foundation grant committee. Um, and I won't belabor everything that I talked about the last time we were here. Um, just to give you an idea on the uh what our project the team have been up to just this week. On Monday we installed a ramp for a Porter County uh employee. Uh they needed a ramp. Uh so we did that over our lunchtime. Uh today we removed a ramp for a 35year-old lady on the west side of town who completed her stroke rehab and didn't need the ramp anymore. Uh we immediately then went to the northeast side of Balpoa and removed a ramp for a 96 year old lady who was going into hospice uh tomorrow. Um so her children asked us to take the ramp out and uh so we accomplished that and as I pulled into my driveway coming home I received a phone call from a daughter of a lady owner for a ramp that we installed last August. She passed away and they wanted us to come and take their ramp out. Um, as of right now today, uh, we have 89 ramps, uh, up in Porter County all over the county. Uh, total value is about $475,000. Um, and, uh, we have in our bank account right now about $19,000 and we are ready to buy parts. We are now getting into our busy season. Um what the redevelopment commission is paying for right now are four uh storage units um at the uh Route 2 and Evans storage facility owned by the Phillips family across from I will refer to it as Samuelson's. It hasn't been Samuelson's for a long time but it's across street from Samuelson's. Um, and we have STO four storage units in there. And the Phillips family uh is giving us a 50% discount. And uh what was approved here

about 3 years ago was a $10,000 uh siphon uh to cover the monthly rent. And right now uh the uh county offices upstairs are receiving the bills from uh Philips uh storage facility. uh and you're paying about $256 a month. Uh the uh units are all in a month-to-month. Um uh the agreement that we kind of have with the Phillips family is as long as we have it, there won't be any rate increase. That's what they told us 3 years ago. If there hasn't been a rate increase, we know how things can change. Uh so um roughly $3,000 a year is what um you have uh been paying for us. Um and that would expire with the April payments. Uh what we have been working on for a long time is trying to find somebody who would be willing to give us some land so we can put up a building. And we have talked to several pullhorn businesses. Um, this is a tough Um, and we actually have a price quote for them to put where they would build us what we need for roughly $17,000 and we would pay that. The problem is we don't have any place to put it. Um, we have been uh lands we are hoping to be in center township just because of the proximity of everything that we need to put up but uh we have not yet had any luck. We have been in negotiations with the city for over a year. um to see if they would be willing to give us some land either on Axe Avenue uh where the new men's shelter is. We used to be in the building where the men's shelter is now. Um and we're not there anymore. We're obviously over a hardware facilities. Uh we have asked

about any available land uh for the new McGill plant and uh they have researched all of the land that is not a brownfield site and they have uh basically told us no uh there are there's no facility there's no land available and no building available. uh we need roughly 12-,400 square ft at a minimum to store all of our materials and there's just no place available at the McGill site for that. That's where we have really put all of our eggs in that basket hoping for that. Um, in the last 90 days, we have had conversations about the possibility of adjoining the PCACS building, which and I'll refer to that as the old social security building on Campbell just south of the tracks. They are responsible for 20 25% of our ramp applications. In fact, as Bob was telling me, for the first 15 years we did ramps, they were responsible for almost 100% of our RAM applications. They were all kidney dialysis patients who were using their transportation services. And so we have a built-in dialect with everybody at the PCACS office. And until about an hour ago, we understood that building was actually owned by the county. And thanks to Mr. Jbo here, uh, we found out that it isn't. It's actually owned by the PCACS organization. And I can tell you that tomorrow morning we're going to start conversations with them to see if there's a there's quite a bit of land around that building, including a pre-coured concrete slab on the north side of the building that would be a good starting point for us. So, we're going to try to negotiate with them to see if they would be willing to let us construct a building and we can work out the legal, you know, have to have we have to pay the attorney something. um

to work out some kind of an arrangement. Uh but as Mr. Tabbo pointed out, none of that's going to happen between now and the end of April. So what we would really appreciate from the commissioner would be at least one year extension for us to be able to go through all of the permits and all of the uh the information that we would need uh in order to get that building constructed. uh where the understanding would be if we get into that facility then we would obviously no longer be sending you invoices. We wouldn't need the support anymore. Um but I'm happy to answer any questions you have about what we do, how we do it. I I gave you the full I I still have my PowerPoint presentation here if anybody is interested.

You're shadowing doesn't work. Are you going to be the bank of your practice on Saturday? I'll be serve Well, yeah, I'll be serving pancakes when it's 6:30 to 9:30 on Saturday. So, yes. And Bob probably has tickets. I sold out. I bought 10 tickets already. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate your support. We'll certainly be there. So, does your shelter need facilities like bathroom? We we don't have electricity or bathrooms where we are right now. Uh so we are limited to daylight hours and we have to make arrangements ahead of time uh for the bathroom facilities. Um but uh what we're proposing here is not that uh none of those

just a building.

It's just just a building and we we would like to have electricity. The only thing we need electricity for is charging the batteries uh for our hand tools. Have you ever thought about land that county owns that has been sitting on for many many years not doing anything with out of the tax ro did this pretty well I know there's a lot of them out there I'm happy to have a I know we have we just got a list of certain rockers I don't know exactly if there's any in the you're looking for when we we can book.

Yeah, we we are we we understand that we are anybody who's willing to give us the land, we're absolutely willing to listen and and do the site site review. Um we could look into that for sure. That would be that would be fantastic. Um, and what would you say you're looking for space-wise? 12-,400 is our minimum. Um, is that building building or land? It's a building the the this is this facility that we have this bid for is uh uh 16 by 20

and and back. Do you anticipate if you're on that carpet even if you get your friends at the building? Yeah. U the building's already there. I pass the whole time and I know it's got space around it. But would the city have any uh objection to something like this? They have to go through their zoning. Yeah, I'd have to I I would talk to ML. I uh I just wasn't sure if that would be so off the wall and over.

Yeah, we just don't know. I as I I didn't know until an hour ago that they actually owned the facilities. I didn't know who to talk to about it. You know, I I've been involved in city politics long enough to know that I can I pick up the phone and call Vicki and say, "Hey, here's what we're thinking. Can you do something?" Yes, sir. Or what what is there possibility? staff could search the roles of accounting and not maybe tax sale properties, but we'd be happy to do that. They can continue their way into the nonprofit that up there. That would be to be honest with you.

And uh this this price does not include the pouring of a concrete slab and we would we would need to have it have a 4-in concrete slab poured around it. So, I don't know what that would add to the price. Um, but the reason I had them come in because I knew that the anniversary date is next month and I think boards should be very proactive on how they manage their money. And maybe just for record, uh, he mentioned 256. We're actually now paying $276, I'm sorry, 276

and that totals $3,312 a year. Um, I think for your consideration, as John said, if you want to extend it for one year and allocate $3,312 and if they get it done before then, then we both walk away from it. But at least 12 months to get something in order and in place, if that's what your plan, that would be the That would be great. Very much appreciated. Yeah, I I fine with that. I don't have problem with that. Might make that motion.

Yeah, I'll make that motion. So, we need to uh entertain a motion to extend uh that be the rent for the buildings that you you want uh with an extension of one year. What was that amount again, Mike? 3,000. 3,300. Let's say 35. No, not to exceed 3500. Not to exceed 3500. So, an extension of one year with the current facility you were in. not to exceed 3,300 35 3500 around it. That would be great. Very much appreciated. Do we have a motion? Motion second. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries.

Thank you all very much. And we'll check I'll check on those properties. See what we have. That'd be great. Uh I can give you my our card. Yeah. Mike and I get that. Got it. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Look forward to your last 46 meeting scheduled. Yeah. Um, I'll talk to you in the report about a lot of things are moving, but business-wise, I I kind of got the feeling we don't have enough to do every

Thank you.

Y kind of pick up, you know, I don't think we got enough to do every month. And so the very last page in the package I came up with three options. One, option one is just meeting every month. It's the second Thursday of third month. Option two is meeting every other month, second Thursday of the month. And option three is meeting every quarter, second Thursday. And even if you didn't have option two or three, we got business because we're actively working on something. We have short call meetings um in the months in between. But I just wanted to get your pulse what you wanted to do with something like this. Um I'm our expectation. We'll talk about this at the end of the meeting. You know, I'd like to see us be a little more proactive and projects going. We got some ideas we want to share with you this future endeavors, but that's up to you. You want to question that. I brought it up mostly for discussion amongst you, especially you more seasoned veterans. I know,

right? So, I'm going to rely on their experience on this board's experience, whatever you I mean, still actually has projects going on that obviously the standard items that we have to do, but um yeah, I mean, if there's nothing to to meet on, then wait till there is for the most part, you guys. Well, I I think you can actually go with option one with the idea that it's on all our calendars, but there's nothing there. Do what you've done in the past and just say just do a cancellation. Do a cancellation. It's a lot easier, I think, to schedule and remember if it's the odd month or the even month and this.

Okay. I mean, I have no problem having them cancelled, but you know, but I think you start getting gaps and then all of a sudden you're going to have to have a special meeting in between two cuz you have something now you're back to, you know, some kind of odd schedule. Okay. Then we don't need a motion that way. I will just cancel them. But we expected we may go 3 months between, you know, I think every quarter we got. Oh yeah. But have we got other action? If not, we'll cancel. Best way you want to do that. Um, and are we moving it to 4 now? President.

What's your pleasure on that? Well, I I thought we picked 4:30. We're having a problem getting here by 4. Oh, you want to change the time? Keep do you want to keep it under the complex with any other meetings like the Thursdays for you or the reason Tuesdays? The reason we went to 4 I think is because the meetings used to be on Tuesday the council some meetings and sometimes they budget meeting before that and I kind of put the pressure on you guys. Yeah. But you know once we have gone to Thursday

Thursday is pretty much a wide open thing here. I just thought it some people have a problem getting here by 4:00 and for me I was always coming early. Most meetings are 5:30 council commission commission DCA but you can make whatever you want. I'm good. So whatever you guys do I just made a mistake this morning. I just got to go check my calendar.

Okay. So meetings will stay monthly. We'll stay at 4:00 and then we'll put cancellation. Fair enough. Okay. Commission commission member comments comments. I don't have any anyone else. Mike have anything you'd like to say? I'll be notified.

All right. Let's go to staff report. Okay. Um, some of you been very involved in this, some of you have not. Um, the comprehensive plan, we had couple events since the last time I updated you. Um, we had Wood Creek Road, which is a subtask of the comp plan, looking at the overlay of if that Ralph were to go in, we had meetings with the public. And then most recently, we had a public workshop. I think Ralph, you were there. uh commissioner was there where we opened up to the public invited come in. We had workstations set up around the room with data that we've collected thus far and we're asking for their impression on that data. We ask them questions on how they feel about certain things. The comp plan in summary is really a visioning document at high altitude. It's not meant to get close down to the ground and say this property right here is going to do something. It's more of a general thing for the entire county as well as maybe regional zones in general fashion and the goal of it, you know, it's required by Indiana code that the county every governmental agency towns and county have one of these. They have to update unfortunately for some of you to repeat ours hasn't been updated since 2001. So really long overdue. So it's a public workshop. We got a lot of good comments. I would guess we had someone between 55 and 60 people in attendance to that activity which you know count 174,000 I hope for more. There were really good comments. Um they're taking that information and they're distilling that all the information. The other thing and what I'm proposing

I believe the date is I'm going to I'm not asked to call I haven't talked to the elected officials yet but what I'd like to do is pull together a joint work study session of this audience the bill but also this will be a useful document for you and your efforts you know when we get around to things as well as the commissioners and the planning commission. So we have all three of those esteemed bodies together that want to come work study session and the consultant will come in and kind of give you digest version what it is and then get your input because we've heard from the public now we want to hear from the people that are going to be using this document as well. I think we're targeting um here and I think it's April 13th. Yes, April 13th retarding. And again, I've not officially approached any of the other boards yet. This is a recent thing I discussed with our consultant just yesterday afternoon. So, I think this would be a good session for all three of those together just to kind of hear where this thing's going. I think a lot of people don't a lot of people do comp plan sit on the shelf collecting dust. And I think this is your document as a defender sometimes too when you make decisions says or when a development comes in whether it's a residential development or a large commercial building it's embodied in the comp plan and mind you the comp plan is many components what we're doing land use a fair also includes park if we had nontoriized like bicycle and walking pads that could be in there so it's anything in there that has to do with how we define our land and use our land for all components to this complex and uh I think it'll be a very useful thing and it'll be good for our consultant to hear what boards and the elected

officials have to say. So there'll be more coming. So sometime in the second quarter we're going to meet what we'll do sometime in the second quarter we will complete the thing the thing will be done in draft or we'll make presentations at the public meeting probably both at the commissioners meeting and the plan commission meeting plan commission is going to forward it to recommendations for final adoption. Um so that'll come in the second quarter and hopefully by the end of the second quarter we'll have an official you question uh on the uh meeting on the 13th it' be later in the afternoon but early evening I think that

so with the comp plan are they taking into consideration the comprehensive plan that the RDA has developed which includes areas of poor county as well as you know they just have their new land development entity for brownfields and things of that nature. I think that might be something that from our perspective as a board to look at are there properties like that that we could help target with the RDAs that you know the region will help in funding because that's basically what the whole entity was was designed for. Do we have a listing of those type of properties that meet the criteria currently that that's what they're looking for? That's why they formed it in order to get the funds in order to uh to clean up those properties, right? And to make them viable. So, you know, there's a couple answers to your question. One, we have the properties comp plan doesn't deal with that. However, the comp plan can say we got to forge these relationships to achieve these goals. That's right. Now what I've done just uh two weeks ago I sat down with uh uh AJ Vner from the regional development authority and I sat down and talked with them to kind of build that relationship to address that and other things in which you just mentioned now we're talking specifics down level we have tip area and you know we've been working with the northwest Indiana forum over the last few years at least since I've been here 2 years but we'd like to work with the RDA A and the Indian econom economic development corporation as an example. We talked about that that we can maybe have properties that are available that we can work jointly to get those accessible maybe get some funding make sure utilities are there to accomplish the goal or clean up as you suggest make them return those cash useful. So this conversation with the RDA will continue

to Spencer left the uh Northwest Indiana we can uh continue conversation with the director there as well and they give us they can open us doors at the other organizations and things like that. One of the things I want to go back to the comp plan and you know I've asked a lot of the elected officials and commission members you know comp plan what do you want to be residents have spoken up what they want to see but you as board members or elected officials commissioner whatever what direction we want to go for instance the the information shows that there are more people leaving for coming for employment than are So we're kind of quasi bedroom community Chicago work getting jobs part of the comp plan we're doing which wasn't done in most comps but we put an economic development part somebody met with Randy Gross he's some consultant consultant he will also meet this meeting with the 13 do we want to you know data centers bit of talk. I'm not saying I'm going to support data centers. I'm not against data centers, but that's just one type of employment. There are other employment opportunities and in the comp plan, we can make that decision and choice. Where do we want to be? Got to paint the picture. So, do we want to promote jobs as part of we're doing a pretty good job at being a place to live because obviously people are coming here. But what do we want to do about jobs? that can also lead to a comp plan. So, I guess I'm kind of going off track, let's just say, but it all kind of ties together because if you're going to take

land that's brownfield, take land and get with like the IEC and all that. I think the goal is you're creating a job growth or industry so to speak. And I'm not the one to make that decision. all you collectively in various boards you got to make that decision and I think that's what it's important that on the 13th you hear that from what direction you guys really want to go

to your point about where people are going out to go to work surprising at all I did it for 20 years in fact I went all the way to Illinois but in that company I was running over there small cap NASDAQ uh 80% of our employees were from Indiana. They started out at about 50/50 when I got there. By the time I retired, it was 80% in Indiana, which isn't a surprise either. But what sort of makes me think is we don't want to become just a bedroom community, try to count all the RS and not have necessarily a good financial tax base. You you would want to have the things that draw people here and are, you know, big employers and data centers wouldn't jump to mind because they tend to be low population and specialized. So it would be more factories and distribution

industry with the highest best use. So, you know, it would be interesting to know if if you've already got that statistic group and I don't know how widely and how granular we've got, but it would be interesting to find out just how many people leave our county and where do they go and Lake County and where do they go? you know, a lot of them are going to Illinois and then obviously we want to draw back here and have that attributes here and that would sort of speak to how you industrialize or create manufacturing jobs and and larger employers. They've got information on employment we're getting and it's we're no different than anywhere else. It's coming more and more service job oriented. Um and and and and that's what we got to decide if we want to do it. You don't just sit and wait to come. Sometimes you got to put some effort in and you lobby position to create that example. We got this off the tip and all after how when did that get started? What year

that would have been 6 years ago? Five, six years and it's a 25 or 20 year 20.

We're five, six years and a 20 year thing and the only thing we have to show for it is 14,000 a year because of the JC's gas station. There's hundreds of acres back there. Currently, it's zoned industrial. Um, one of the issues with that zone is it's multiple property owners. There's some guys that want 50 acres of land or maybe a little more something less. You know, there's options you guys can be strategic and maybe go take down and buy some of those properties and then turn around and incentivize them. We're not going to get in the developer to work for the developers, but you can buy real estate. Then through your tip development agreements and all that, you make sure proper utilities there, attract someone that wants to be there. We work with the we can work with the board. was with the RDA and all that kind of stuff and it goes pretty small but as long as we're not doing anything chances of that property in Virginia itself is pretty slim and so those are the kind of ideas I want to foster and work with you guys on this year at least to see if that's something and there may be other areas we should be looking at too um but I think that's the duty of this board to kind of look at things like that but we need a sense of direction we just don't do it as they will come. It's got that be very sound. How much of this is driven though not just by you know how the land use you know whether you're building subdivisions or strip malls or whether you're trying to have a balanced economy here question you can be a bedroom community and have no industry and once you get the population that you know a certain tax base and certain relevance to it and of course you're going to have you don't want to leaving without food and

whatever. So that creates a mall next to it with pretty soon, you know, the economic base of a whole bunch of subdivisions and strip malls, food is as powerful as something that would actually employ people.

There's two responses to that statement. One, when you look at communities, they're solely bedroom communities. They suffer because they can't give us like the services that other communities got a better mix of industrial, commercial, and residential development. You got to have that mix. Second part to that equation is the states through Senate Bill SEA1 is forcing more reliance on income tax, which is feast and banner. It goes with the economy. Whereas property taxes is stable. It could be a bad economy. we're still getting roughly the same amount of money. Now you're going to rely a portion of that. So we have to be strategic about what we do. Now granted, people can work in other areas, but they get taxed living here. So what's the cost for what KS was going to eventually

financial consult at a higher level? Yes. It's not so much the planner but not the planning but they have recommendations of what the county give us suggestions but it be up to you guys to decide and commissioners and the planning commission and the RDC. That's why this meeting is so important and we need your feedback cuz we're at a point we need a sense of direction on especially a topic such as this cuz there's a lot of people they like it just the way it is. Sure.

They don't want any more people to come here. Now, you can't put a large party on anything. They never work. So, what you got to do is you got to have smart planning and smart grows. And that's what we're trying to do. But I guess though, you know, it's smart growth, but it also has to do with as you indicated, you know, the tax base because some of these towns burns ours, you know, homes very much and then they were lucky that they that's what I'm saying. And we're lucky they incorporated further with the steum that you know that was just half the stand. It wasn't planned per se. Now as far as the saut immaterial it was but there was a very serious contender on about 58 acres. It was the just north of the Casey's convenience store gas station front 149. They're going to put a big commercial development. were really excited by that that they picked up the the developer was working for a large national chain grocery store and the grocery store decided that wasn't the place to go. So that kind of I was dying to tell you for all your meetings at the end of last year was pretty exciting cuz I think the people that started it's all zone I1 I2 which is clean industrial around there. This was a change that they had come in for zoning. But then we could rethink that vision and say, well, we'll put the commercial on the main roads, which it is on the six, do the same thing 149, and behind it, it could be industrial or we go residential. You know, we we have options. So, it's it's little little things like that sometimes that really

start the project. But some of the ideas I got on that just real brief that it's cooking is they they tried it in a year and a half ago. But I'd like to engage a real estate broker that's very familiar with this kind of work we do. And I know they did before. But I want to be talking to these owners and ask the point of question. Would you be willing to sell? What's the vision for your property? Can we work together? What kind of cooperation are there? Those are the questions we should be asking because it's going to take this concerted effort to make this a success because it is there must be 20 properties property owners and some of them probably aren't happy to sell and then a guy I know bought a property in the northeast corner of 1496. I met with him and see you he want us to tip you. So I just kind of educate what a tip does and maybe how it could be advanced again if you want to exercise. But I think that's going to be a hot corner if there really. All right. Recent legislative bills not a lot. There was a lot of activity. Bill 133, House Bill 1333 had to do with a lot of data centers. That bill did not make the light of day. In summary, what the house proposed is any agricultural land that was raised by the US Department of Agriculture being nonprofit land automatically by right be developed into a data center, a wind farm, a solar farm, whatever. Uh there's been no opportunity for public input, public hearing, etc. like that. uh that bill made it out of the house even with them wondering how would it

fair in the senate they made the sen make it out of committee but they took a little provision out of that bill the original bill said that if a neighbor specific came in we'll get 1% of the relief they're abatement they're getting on their personal property tax. In other words, the sales tax of that equipment, the uh local the government get 1% of that and 1% of their annual utility bill or electric bill that was in that bill 1333. They took that piece and modified it and I think it's only 1% of the uh I could be wrong but I think it's 1% of the sales tax abatement is now on bill 12 house bill 12 bill 12 was less than it was over things pieces bills put together so that's there but they didn't do anything to as far as data centers go they didn't pass anything that made mandatory reported that passed through the state of control. Um then there was bill 101 which the commissioner went down Indianapolis and we testify in front of the Senate committee from planning perspective. I think that bill would have a lot of unintended consequences for us. Most other things that said duplexes and accessory building little sub houses that are far separate from the other primary residents could basically build any residential zone class no I write meaning there's no public hearing we couldn't stop them from doing we had to change our code the

state told us to add a whole bunch of other provisions it basically took away local control but where that comes in for view in the in the RDC is the we propose that you know zoning is not the main root of the problem of obtainable housing and we didn't go down and outright say we're against them. He said size doesn't fit all the county and the city aren't the same. That the unintended consequences we went out and a lot of these tend to become rental units with absent land but that we understand that attainable housing is something that needs to be addressed and we acknowledge that. So we weren't against it. We said but there's other tools and one of the tools I mentioned which impacts you is using the home tip. Someone came before you on the homestead on the Liz edge. Problem is you already started the project and someone asked a question if we don't give it to you because we still continue. They said yes, we'll have time to shut that down. But that kind of project according to our comp plan is the exact project you want happen because it preserves our agriculture land because Tom plan says we want residential fence development cities in Thailand. Now to make that happen the city or town has got to have the capacity and the willingness to extend to each other but that comes at cost and what I was suggesting these things like units and duplexes in the high density have licensing high density area because that's good for the developer cuts their cost in the long run to keep them areas where they're well served and we use the homestead to encourage that by extending utilities that we think is best in our best interest to do so and that's where the development commission come in because you're the one that has to start

your partner in the process is ultimately the council has to sign up so that indirectly affects you but I think this tackling of attainable housing is there a role for redevelopment commission to do smart projects smart zoning smart changes where we can encourage that kind of role that's if they like that direction because it satisfies us in other ways too because I'm sure our comp plan is going to say we want to protect agricultural land that's our go back to we want to put them here so I think I think I think that's kind of working so house bill 101 did not have all that stuff. The Senate, I think, saw wisdom and by and large they gave cities, towns, and counties 2 years. So by January 1st, 2028, we they're letting us try to solve the affordable housing issue on our own, which I think is the right way and the fair way. It was kind of what we were recommending in the first place. We didn't say it in those words, but that's what they did. So that took three four weeks of my time writing white papers, reaching out to senators. I know um Commissioner Morales was focused on that piece of legislation plus others affecting township, government control, etc. So we spent a lot of time, I think staff wise on being involved in the legislative process, at least understanding where everything is. I love your way in terms of that.

No, I mean I think it came to, you know, kind of what we wanted. You know, at least give us the opportunity to trap something up. You know, the one thing I learned down there is it seems to me that they're not going to swing from the ideas that they have and what the compromise has been for a lot of bills is we'll give you time to figure it out if you don't figure it out for you. So, I mean, we got some green room on that. You know, because you you start putting these things without any any guidance or any oversight. You know, you're going to put some of these in rural areas where you don't have infrastructure and then, you know, you're putting big housings up, but you're going to have septic wells. So, we at least have that that time to build some type of land to meet that, you know, that expectation. And two years sounds like a long time, but when you get into zoning and code changes, we will use every bit of that two years. So we we're starting now.

So does it come any resolution about any centers? No. I mean, I don't know how many counties, towns, everybody's, you know, saying not here and all that. And one was interesting on the national level talking about paper and infrastructure and you know get such a deal and put it on the backs of all res.

No I don't think any there was a lot of not a lot but there was a few of the bills that you made some directly or indirect but a lot of that didn't make it worked out. there was some fear that you know they would take away a little bit of control on the issue but that never transpired. Um I was just reading today the Congress in Washington was talking about addressing affordable housing. I don't know if that's from a financing point or something, but federal government. Another one on the national level was this idea that there's almost like an industrial version of things where they're, you know, corporations are going out buying the land and taking over what was private land. Do we see any of that kind of stuff?

We see that. Yeah. And I I I was kind of surprised having seen what happened in places like Las Vegas where you know 08 n happened. You know they we had huge uh gs and houses and they were flipping and foreclosing and everything else. I know a lot of Japanese names, you know, spectators and like property mostly developers who the ones we deal with and I'll come back to that. There's one or two of them out there are national is a national housing of various types. Um they're doing some projects. They got stable family housing project like I said north Indian got one north that's division up north. Um, so there are these national birds that kind of come in and do all that. They got quite the systems. They got they got it all figured out. Then you have your local people. And what I've what I've been doing over I think this board house 101 I've been meeting with attorneys uh developer builders of residential and you meet with real estate brokers and I asked again what keeps you from building attainable housing was kind of interesting when I heard that these are people that you know they're kind of more modern type people things delivery of housing has changed so much in the last decade or so. It's just kind of interesting. It's all down to density, smaller lot sizes and the density. The thing I talked about the home helping extend utilities and all that. Those are all in play. I've got my notes and all that meeting these guys. So, and that applies the same thing to business. If we decide that we want to

do business, the same theory can be done. what makes our land our place more attractable without the harm so to speak. We always cautious but I think we're in a good position. We're finishing our comp plan. The state legislature came up with this thing we got to get done in two years. We got a subcommittee to the plan commission where we're looking at things in our DO and some of these things plan to commissioners. you know, all is working kind of in the same same direction all at the same time. So, I think we got a leg up on this thing and we keep working at it, you know, and of course, like I said, indirectly there roles for this property too, whether it's housing or commercial industrial. The other thing I learned is go back here mixed use development residential is also very popular. You can have smaller lots with single family residential. Then you have multif family residential. There's going to be patio homes where people home and even t. And then the products they're doing are changing. You know, one I saw where they got skinny lots and this house is built right on the property line has a zero setback. And then the guy next to him doesn't have any windows on that side, but he's got a setback. And then they repeat that pattern over and then the lot doesn't have to be deep because then they put the porch on the side that faces the house without the windows so they feel like they have privacy. So they got a lot of little creative does that apply to that's what works at different types.

They started out town homes but on the north side they didn't single county because at that time in 2021 they said town homes. One person says to homes are still popular and another one says no. There's a club on the market. And you got different levels of tomic homes. You got your less inexpensive ones. Those are your starter homes. Then you have other ones that are more maintenancefree because they do all the maintenance for you. They just do your side. You got nothing to do as far as maintenance. Um the last night I think that you have any questions and Dan's here if you have any financial questions as well.

Thank you Mike. You're welcome. Public comment. Anyone here to like speak for the board? Larry. All good. All right. The next meeting will be April 9th, 4 p.m. here in this chamber. Uh meeting a journ.