PORTER COUNTY PLAN COMMISSION

Special Meeting
February 8, 2007

M I N U T E S

A special meeting of the Porter County Plan Commission was held on February 8, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. in the Porter County Administrative Center, 155 Indiana Ave., Suite 205, Valparaiso, Indiana.

Those members present were Rick Burns, Tim Cole, Robert Detert, Commissioner Bob Harper, Todd Hutson, Elizabeth Marshall, Herb Read and Kevin Breitzke, President. Those members absent were Rita Stevenson. Staff members present were Robert W. Thompson Jr., Attorney Scott McClure, Patricia S. Gibson and Fred Siminski.

At this time, Mr. Breitzke read the rules of conduct for a public hearing.

New Business:

Case 04-MP-1. Petition of the Porter County Plan Commission, 155 Indiana Ave., Suite 311, Valparaiso, Indiana for a proposed Unified Development Ordinance.

At this time, Mr. Thompson explained the history of the new Unified Development Ordinance, the progress of the ordinance and the zoning classifications on the map. The contract was signed by the County Commissioners on July 20, 2004 to have Ground Rules, Incorporated from Indianapolis to work on the Unified Development Ordinance. Public hearing dates were May 12, 2004, June 23, 2004, May 9, 2006, May 11, 2006, May 12, 2006 and February 8, 2007. There were a number of public input sessions.

Keith Lakin, 1216 N. 345 E., asked if this was a public meeting for the adoption of this ordinance or is this a public meeting for input.

Mr. Breitzke stated it is a hearing for the adoption of the ordinance but also for the public input.

Jack Rust, 114 W. 950 S., Kouts, asked what do you have to have to get to the prime AG section.

Mr. Thompson stated we do have a map that identifies the prime soils. Also how close are you to residential uses or residential districts because the A-2 district does discourage having residential uses next to it or even industrial uses? It is


going to have to be in a heavily farmed area and have those prime soils.

Mr. Rust asked if after this is past and you want your property A-2 can you change it?

Mr. Breitzke stated yes you can.

Mr. Thompson stated if you decide to come in and ask for A-2 zoning district you can always come in and approach the Plan Commission and ask for something like that in a rezoning petition.

Neil Mulengraff, 322 N. 250 W., stated I am definitely in favor of a Unified Development Ordinance, however, how is this ordinance, since it was started in 2004, going to be impacted or influenced by getting some Smart Growth II. He is also concerned about the complexity of the ordinance.

Mr. Thompson stated there are provisions within the code that do allow some type mixed uses. Again, it has to go through a procedure and it is the Traditional Neighborhood Development District. It does allow mixed uses, but it is very strict on the development standards applied to and how to do this.

Gary Green, 250 Whitethorne Lane, asked when was Draft D first posted to the web site or available for viewing. Isn’t this Body concerned about the lack of people that are here to review this at this point in time.

Mr. Thompson stated it was posted on the web page in early November of 2006. I have tried to contact the newspapers again and if someone has an idea on how to get people out, please let me know.

Dean Bucher, 179 Buckskin Lane. I am in full support of what Mr. Thompson said about the R-1 areas and allowing septic systems in the R-1 area.

John McQuestion, 79 E. 55 S. There will be very specific guidelines that they will have to follow for the State and even more strict guidelines that we will have to follow for the Porter County Health Department Ordinances.

Tom Kane, 547 E. 640 N. After this ordinance is passed, can we still rezone our property.

Mr. Thompson stated Chapter 10 still provides for rezoning type application.


Ed Gute, 165 E. Hwy 6. Mr. Gute read an article from the newspaper concerning farm preservation in South county. He asked does this preservation mean by zoning maps or is there some other means that this land will be preserved for farming.

Mr. Thompson stated this goes back to the comprehensive plan that we have adopted where the comprehensive plan does state that we want to focus growth next to the cities and towns and try to encourage the use of municipal services. With that and being able to do that it will help preserve some of the rural areas and the agricultural area down south.

At this time, there was a small discussion concerning the Illiana Expressay.

Karen Tallian stated I would like to address something that Mr. Gute asked about how this new zoning ordinance was going to help protect agricultural areas to the south. Someone else commented on coming in and petitioning for a rezone. Of course the answer on the petition for the rezone is yes, you can. However, if you are zoned AG-2 and someone next door to you comes in for a rezone, I think it is going to be much more difficult for that person to get a rezone if you have more AG-2 farm land because now that you are sitting in an AG-2 area means that when the Plan Commission wants to look at what factors they should consider in rezoning your neighbor, one of the things that they are going to look at is the fact that you have prime farm land and you have this higher intensity agricultural use. If you are really interested in preserving the farm land down there, I think it is probably to be encouraged that you look at getting your land zoned in that upper category. Now that is a double-edged sword because when you do that it also means that if you decide that you want to rezone your prime AG land and turn it into a subdivision, it is going to be harder for you to do that.

Randy Sekerez, 116 W. Clark St. Mr. Sekerez concerns were in the rural residential zoning they currently have a rule that states that only 10% of the lot coverage can be impervious surfaces. In the current ordinance it is 20%. He wanted to know if that was a typo error or if that was correct.

Mr. Thompson stated I did tell Mr. Sekerez to bring those points up. As far as the RR with 10% impervious, that could have been an accidental carry over from when we had the lots at two acre size. We may have not compensated back when we knocked that from two acres back down to one acre. I will leave that up to the Plan Commission on how they want to deal with that. The different type of subdivision types with rural residential, the perimeter paths and jogging paths, I don’t think it necessarily talks that


you have to put a jogging path in. He stated there are options within code going back where they can do a 20-foot strip around the development that does not count for open space or they can do a 50-foot strip with some improvements on it that could count for open space. There is nothing that talks specific type of standards that they have to develop in these perimeter areas around it. These perimeter areas where put in because going through these meetings with the agricultural community they are always asking for a buffer between their land that the subdivision. They didn’t want subdivision lots butting up against their fence. I do believe that was an attempt to try to provide a buffer in a way to prevent some planting that would affect the farmer.

Mrs. Ahlberg, 80 E. 1050 N. She asked what is the scenic route.

Mr. Thompson stated it kicks in when someone applies for a development plan or a subdivision if there are trees along the frontage of the road it simply is stating that we want the trees protected going down the road.

Gary Green asked why was the PUD Ordinance taken out.

Mr. Thompson stated there was some questions on the Plan Unit Development Ordinance. In Chapter 4 still refers to a PUD. At this time, Mr. Thompson explained the purpose of this being in the UDO.

Mr. Lakin asked what is the green area in Pine Township.

Mr. Thompson stated this is the National Lake Shore.

Mr. Lakin stated you said the best farm land is in South county. If you get your soil maps out you will find that some of the best soils are in Pine Township. Mr. Lakin is also concerned about the scenic roadway section and the square footage for houses.

Mr. Thompson explained the square footage for houses in the UDO. He also explained that we are currently working on a landscaping manual that lists the quality trees for this area.

Mr. Mulengraff’s biggest concern is the leap frogging of the city limits.

Mr. Thompson stated we cannot control what the city’s do.

Mr. Sekerez stated he would like some clarification on why the check off list isn’t in the UDO.

Mr. Thompson explained to Mr. Sekerez about the application package and the different check lists.

Mr. Sekerez commented on the PUD ordinance and how it should not be stricken from the UDO.

Mr. Breitzke stated we have had hours of discussion on the PUD ordinance and the majority of the Body felt that we should strike the PUD’s for the time being because of the number of cases and citations of abuse.

Mr. Rust stated I really commend Bob Thompson for all the work that he did on this. I really feel that it was a hard process to go through and a lot of changes.

At this time, the public hearing was then closed.

Commissioner Harper stated I have a suggestion. I think the Board needs a chance to look at that map and look at this. I suggest that we set one more meeting. If anybody on this Board is serious enough that they want something changed, that they arrange a meeting with Scott and if Bob Thompson wants to sit in, bring in their suggestions and have Scott draft the changes that they want. Then we will vote on these drafts at the next meeting.

Mr. Burns stated I think that is a good idea.

Mr. Detert stated there has been a lot of work gone in to this and I think that there are a lot of things that some of us would like changed including me. I would look for my concerns to be addressed by Bob at a later time. I think that we ought to move forward with what we have. We will add the maps later and vote on them separately.

Mr. Read asked what is the procedure if we adopt this as written, then if some of us think that there should be revisions down the line.

Attorney McClure stated tonight we are not approving it. If the Plan Commission were to take action, it is either a favorable or unfavorable recommendation to the Commissioners. The Commissioners can then change, add, subtract and depending on what their action is it could in fact come back here for another vote. If in fact, it was sent to the Commissioners voted in as is the procedure for changing it would be to amend the ordinance. Just like any other time we have ever amended the current ordinance that we have. Another way of potentially changing this document at the Commissioners level is I believe that the


Commissioners meeting will be a public meeting and they can in fact make a motion to amend as it sits and then vote on it, at which time it would change at that point.

Mr. Breitzke stated at that point it would get sent back to the Commission for the approval of the amendments.

Attorney McClure stated correct.

Mr. Detert moved to approve Case 04-MP-1 and what we have been presented with and forward it to the Board of Commissioners with a favorable recommendation. Mr. Cole seconded the motion.

Discussion:

Mr. Thompson stated Senator Tallian just brought up a good point. This document does make reference to the map so this is going to have to be forwarded with the map. If you want to have a thirty day viewing period for the public to look at it and come back and take comments on the map.

Mr. Detert stated however we can move forward is what I am interested in.

Senator Tallian stated when the Commissioners vote they need to vote on this map. They need to vote on it at the same time.

Attorney McClure stated I think it has to be adopted simultaneously.

Motion failed due to a lack of a majority vote:

Burns - No Cole - Yes Detert - Yes
Harper - No Hutson - Yes Marshall - No
Read - No Breitzke - Yes

Mr. Burns moved to continue Case 04-MP-1 to a meeting that will be set in March. Mr. Hutson seconded the motion, which carried on a unanimous roll call vote.











At this time, Mr. Detert gave credit to Mr. Thompson, Senator Tallian and Mr. Breitzke for all their hard work.

Mr. Breitzke stated I would also like to give a lot of credit to our two interns. We really got our money’s worth out of those boys. They did a great job.

There being no further business the meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.

PORTER COUNTY
PLAN COMMISSION


s/ Kevin Breitzke, President

Attest: Robert W. Thompson Jr. AICP, Executive Director/County Planner