PORTER COUNTY PLAN COMMISSION
Regular Meeting

February 13, 2008

M I N U T E S

The regular meeting of the Porter County Plan Commission was held on Wednesday, February 13, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. in the Porter County Administrative Center, 155 Indiana Avenue, Valparaiso, Indiana.

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

Mr. Cole moved to waive the reading of the December 12, 2007 minutes and approve them as received in the mail.  Mr. Hutson seconded the motion, which carried on a unanimous voice vote.

Mr. Cole moved to waive the reading of the January 9, 2008 minutes and approve them as received in the mail.  Mr. Breitzke seconded the motion, which carried on a unanimous voice vote.

Old Business:

Commissioner Harper stated before we start the meeting I would like to ask on either of the cases that we have tonight if there is anyone that thinks they haven’t gotten everything they should have gotten in a timely manner.

There were no comments from the Commission members.

Commissioner Harper stated the other question that I have and just think about this and I will ask about it at the end of the meeting.  I looked over that check list that we got and approved for what we need here.  I want to make sure that everybody feels good about that check list and that there is nothing that anyone thinks that has been left off the check list.

At this time, Mr. Burns joined the meeting.

Case 07-DP-8.  Petition of Shellbourne, Inc., 5800 N. Keating Ave., Chicago, Illinois for a development review for a conference center expansion to be located at 359 W. 200 N. in Union Township, Porter County, Indiana. (Zoned IN, Institutional District.)

Eric Penney, Architect from NagleHartray out of Chicago, Illinois representing the Shellbourne Center.  Mr. Penney stated I am here tonight to give you an overall presentation of the project.  They have met three times with DAC and twice with the Board of Zoning Appeals for different variances that were granted previously.  One was involving the change in the setback because of changes to the code.  Another one was a clarification of drainage around the perimeter of the site area that they weren’t developing.  Mr. Penney stated I will give you an overall presentation.  Shellbourne has been on this property since the early 1960’s. This pond was there when they bought the property. This is Hwy 30 across the top.  We have CR 200 N. across the side and CR 375 W. to the west.  The existing buildings here are shown in the gray.  There is an existing lodge building here in what they refer to as the main building.  In between is a pathway with some walks and some fences and so forth.  What we are doing is indicated in yellow.  We are connecting up the two portions of the campus with a new facility with structures in between.  This is primarily short term overnight stays.  It is a religious retreat center.  There are some dining facilities and a couple of chapels.  The existing buildings are here and here.  Basically, what we are trying to do is tie these two buildings together all the contours of the property that are already there so that we don’t change a lot of grades and we don’t affect any more trees than what we have to.  We are following the existing pathway that runs along there so we don’t have as many overgrowth trees along there.  We are keeping our entrance drive off of CR 375 W.  It stays within the property the whole way so that we keep our traffic over on that road and we don’t introduce more traffic on CR 200 N.  This follows the path that right now comes up through the trees here, and we are just closing that off for emergency access only and rounding it down here to service the new building.  We have a landscape architecture and he will talk about this but our concept was to preserve the site as best we could to the existing character.  We introduced a lot of trees back into the space.  Especially, at the edge of the road things are a little bit thinner.  We are actually reinforcing that because we want to keep the views natural.  The new building is kind of nestled into the side of the natural slope down from the road over here.  It is a three story building where it faces the pond.  From the street, it is a two story building. I want to go through the plans.  This is the lowest level.  It is cut into the side of the hill.  So the street 200 N. is down here.  This is the pond area.  So the building is already developed that way. There are corridors and service areas that link up the two buildings.  There is a kitchen area with some dining facilities.  Then there are some common rooms, lounges and meeting rooms on the first floor.  There is a chapel down at this end and all of this opens up to the interior of the property.  This is the ground level from the road side area.  This area is primarily resident rooms, sleeping rooms.  This end here is priests sleeping rooms. It has a main entrance here and then the main chapel.  The upper level, only one side goes up one more floor and those are the sleeping units that look out one side to the pond.  The general character of the architecture is while we are following the lay of the land we are also going to keep the building broken up into chunks.  It is a long building, not necessarily a wide building but we are trying to keep it from looking institutional.  We are trying to keep a residential character look to it.  We have a pitched roof with shingles on it and brick facades.

Garth Wemmer stated I am the landscape architect for the project.  The character of the property is very natural. It also has a lot of nice topography as well.  We have put a lot of thought and time into aligning the primary entrance road and some of the other site features to make as little impact as possible.  Even though we tried our best to minimize the impacts we still do have to remove a certain quantity of trees.  Roughly right now we are going to remove 44 trees and because the existing trees are so important to the character we want to protect all of those.  So what we are doing is putting in a tree protection fence around the limits of our improvements and that is just not at the trunk but out at the drip line of the trees.  That really protects the root structure and will ensure the longevity of those trees even after we are done with our construction and improvements.  Looking at the plans we are actually putting in quite a few trees.  We are putting in a number of 43 shade trees even though we are removing 44.  We are using evergreen trees primarily along CR 200 to screen that view through there.  There will be ornamental trees throughout the campus and those are going to be more to soften the edge of the woodlands. There will be some foundation landscaping. We are adding 215 trees and taking out 44.

Ken Krause stated I am from Haas and Associates LLC, and we did the civil part of this project.  Where the new building is going is where this asphalt pathway is located.  The high ground is here at 200 and everything drains down to the pond.  This is going to be blocked by the new building and our drainage plan had to take…this is the sanitary sewer and the water plant. There is an existing sanitary sewer that runs parallel to the pond over to a tank.  This tank is there now and it has pumps in it to pump the water to Shorewood Utilities.  This basically doubles the potential population beyond this site.  We had to enter into an agreement with Shorewood Utilities for them to accept the additional waste that we would be sending their way and that has all been concluded and we have signed contracts with them for that to take place.  There are two wells and two lines that loop around the property.  One is for irrigation and the other one is for potable drinking water and fire protection.  There are several fire hydrants.  There will be four fire hydrants on this site plus there is a reservoir inside of the building for fire protection that will have pumps.  There is also emergency generating power in case the power goes out.  We have designed the system for a 100 year storm.  On top of that design we have also created a flood route around the building in case there was a catastrophic failure of the storm sewer system for whatever reason.  There is an overland route.  This is a swale that we are going to create on the south side of the building that can carry water over to this area and then run through this parking lot and then this goes back up to CR 375.  There is a rock shoot here so that water will be directed down this rock shoot and through an existing swale.  There is an existing culvert here and then it ends up in the same pond.  The pond we are using has a detention basin.  It has one and a third acre of surface area and we can store a little bit more than two feet of water on it.  I only need about half that for the 100 year storm with a two year release.  I have worked with DLZ about modifying the weir that allows the water out of this pond to the correct orifice size that will meet the two year release flow.  After that water is controlled and released out of this pond it does a big loop around and ends up going off the property and eventually under Hwy 30 and gets into Salt Creek.  Something that we don’t have shown on this one is a staging area.  All this is under construction.  Materials will be stored in this area here.  Because of that we felt that we needed to protect this wetland that this water ends up flowing through.  We have added a forebay here before it gets released into this wetland complex.  This will remove any silt.  The only release out of here will be through an aggregate comb with a riser pipe with a filter fabric wrapped around it so that the silt will stay in the pond and not be released down stream. It will also catch any trash or garbage that might wash off from this staging area.  There is going to be a lot of traffic here and a lot of coming and going.  This will become a permanent structure.  This all has gone through DLZ review.  The latest letter stated they wanted to see the detail of this weir put on the drawing and that has been done. 

Mr. Breitzke stated I appreciate you instituting a lot of the new best management practices that can be found in the IDEM manual that was just released including the outlet control.  The forebay is something we talked in length about as well as working out the issues with the outlet of the pond.  It was a challenge for you guys but it looks good now.  The overall site they worked with us to improve the traffic flow.  They had an access that we asked them to eliminate and they did that except for the emergency purposes. They are also planting many, many more trees, which was really gratifying to see.  I did talk to John Bullock who is on the Shorewood Utility Board and as of yet you are still milling out the agreement.  If we pass this tonight, I would like to make this contingent on the…

Mr. Layter stated we do have a signed agreement.

Mrs. Marshall stated I am concerned about the amount of water that is going to drain into Salt Creek. Where does it go and where does it enter into Salt Creek?

Mr. Kraus stated all the water on the site drains to this pond here.  This weir has an opening in it and the water goes out there.  This water will run through this forebay and then through this release which is a standpipe with a gravel filter on it.  It releases into this wetland.   A lot of this water will be stored in here until the downstream system...this will be build up and spill over downstream.  This drains out this way and then comes back this way.  It then comes up here and crosses under Highway 30 and then goes north of Highway 30 and gets into Salt Creek up here.  For your information, there is a dam over here and that runs through a creek over here that crosses right through here and then up into Salt Creek.  This water will be released at a controlled rate. 

Mrs. Marshall stated here we are concerned about the amount of water that comes onto the property and the amount of water that leaves the property.  We do have problems for drainage in Salt Creek.  I am concerned about Salt Creek.  Are there fire hydrants?

Mr. Kraus stated there are four on site. There is a loop system that protects the whole site.  The building itself has a fire protection system throughout it with a pump with extra storage capacity and a generator to serve that too.

Mrs. Marshall stated you made the claim that you have made an agreement with Shorewood to use their package sewer plant. 

Mr. Penney stated correct.

Mrs. Marshall stated I would like to see that you put a letter in the file that they do have that capacity because I know that the Regulatory Commission regulates and I don’t know what amount you are saying that you are going to put into this system. There too it goes across Rt. 30.

Mr. Penney stated Mr. Thompson has received that letter.

Mrs. Marshall stated I would like someone to address the variance that you received for the storm water ordinance.

Mr. Penney stated there is 45 acres on the site. We are developing three and a half acres right here.  The ordinance can be read to say that you have to maintain all water on the site throughout the entire site.  It was really referring to these existing wooded areas that go off the site at the various corners of the site.  All of them are heavily wooded.  To keep the water on site we would have to significantly alter the existing landscape, which is counter productive to what we are trying to achieve there in keeping it natural. 

Mrs. Marshall stated you said that your main point of entry will be off of the other road and not CR 200.

Mr. Penney stated right.   CR 375 W. is the existing entry way.  It already comes back through here up to some pavement that runs through here.  What we are doing is increasing the size of this lot and keeping the traffic flow through the same area and keeping it all on site.

Mr. Read stated I went through all of the material that I have received.  One of the main things that you pointed out was that the new building interrupts the natural flow from south to north and that would be handled in two ways. As I understand it, one creation of a new swale to go around the west side of the buildings and some storm sewers.  Is that correct?

Mr. Penney stated that is correct.

Mr. Read stated I don’t remember seeing a drawing of where the storm sewer lines are. 

Mr. Penney stated this dark line with these large black dots is the storm sewers. These would be the structures for water to be collected and introduced into the storm sewer.  There are three here and there is another one at the top of the swale.  These two come together into this line here.  This line drains this way through here and…

Mr. Read asked underneath the foundations of the new building.

Mr. Penney stated yes.  This will be built like you do a railroad crossing or a highway crossing where you have a larger pipe as the casing pipe and then the carrier pipe goes through it. 

Mr. Read asked to see the drawing with the cross section through the building and the pond. Mr. Read stated I would like to see a contour map showing existing contours along that southern route and the revised.  You did show how you would have to revise the contours to accommodate that relocation of that walk but it didn’t show the south side.  Do you have drawings now or can you get drawings?

Mr. Kraus stated this area here is showing the revised.  There are new lines on here showing it. 

Mr. Read stated you have to get that water away and around to the left.

Mr. Kraus stated that is what these lines are indicating.  It is a swale that runs in this direction.

At this time, Mr. Penney and Mr. Kraus explained to Mr. Read the water runoff.

Mr. Read stated I am satisfied with this now and I am not going to hold anything up for it. 

Mr. Read asked is the surface runoff and the pipe runoff designed to work simultaneously or does one take precedence over the other.

Mr. Kraus stated most of them will be carried from the pipe.  We have done calculations to show DLZ that we can handle a 100 year storm going through the grates that we selected for each of the structures.  Or if the pipes reach their capacity and can’t carry any more we always have a fall back position that the swale can carry the water away too. 

Mr. Read asked is there a maintenance and removal plan of trap sediment for the forebay.

Mr. Kraus stated the pond itself is probably the main feature on the site.  They take care of that pond very well. I don’t know if that has been dredged in recent years.

Mr. Layter stated I have only been here for three years and it hasn’t been dredged in my time.

Mr. Read stated during the course of construction you will have a flush of sediment so you will have to have a clean up of that sediment shortly after construction and then probably every so many years thereafter.

Mr. Kraus stated the one sheet that I didn’t show was the soil erosion control plan, which we have submitted and this plan has been approved.  Besides protecting all of the inlets we have protected all the culverts and protected the rock shoot and protected the steep slope with three different silt fences.

Mr. Read stated I am talking about long term maintenance.

Mr. Layter stated we are certainly willing to do whatever maintenance is required.  It has been stated that we want to preserve the character of the site so we don’t want it to become overgrown or become unusable.

Mr. Read stated I am concerned about the routing from your pond to Salt Creek and how that is handled and it does cross somebody else’s property.

Mr. Kraus stated this enters the natural drainage way that is there now.  It is nothing that we are going to create. If there was nothing on this site that is the way the water would go.  It would run down to where this pond is make this big “u” turn and head out east cross the property line and head up north to Hwy 30.

Mr. Read stated I would ask our lawyer here for his opinion.

Commissioner Harper asked when it goes off east does it go into a defined waterway?

Mr. Kraus stated yes. We sat down with Tony Kenning and Mr. Thompson and Mr. Joseph and we had at least one meeting specifically about that.  On their recommendation we went to the BZA to not only get the variance from those corner areas that runoff and we talked about that wetland area and whether it constituted a waterway or not.

Mr. Read stated there is one other point that I noticed the sewage problem and the timing restrictions on the sewage between certain hours. Do you have some kind of a fail-safe plan that if the sewage treatment finds itself overflowing during what we would assume to be off peak and then all of a sudden due to a big flush of water and usage, off peak becomes part of the peak.

Mr. Kraus stated the contract that we have with Shorewood Utilities is that we can pump between 9:00 p.m. to 5 a.m.  What will happen is during the day the tank will fill and it will stay in that tank until 9:00 p.m. when the timer will turn the pump on.  Then it will pump into Shorewood.  If they called and said that they were having a problem with the plant they could call our maintenance man and we could delay that time.  There is the reverse too.  If we fill this tank up and it is filled at 3:00 p.m. and then the dinner crowd comes in we can’t put any more into that tank we made agreements with Shorewood to allow occasionally to pump during the day instead of the 9:00 p.m. to 5 a.m.  Shorewood will allow us to do that.

Mr. Read stated you do have an overflow on your tank.

Mr. Kraus stated no. The overflow is the pump itself.

Mr. Read asked if the tank fills up it is not going to spill out into your pond.

Mr. Kraus stated no. We have floats in there for the controls. We have fail-safe floats in there too.  Once the water level rises to a certain level it will kick the pumps on.  There are two pumps in there and if it continues to rise it will kick on both pumps and drain it down. 

Mr. Read stated I am satisfied.

Mr. Cole stated it was a very nice presentation and you do have a very beautiful area out there.  All of my questions have already been answered with the exception of one small one and that was about the filter fabric on the standpipe up here at your pond.  How soon do you think that could get filled up with silt and would have to be replaced?

Mr. Kraus stated filter clothes are very easily replaced.  The problem with this particular scenario is that we have the gravel on the outside of it and then the filter clothe is right up against the standpipe and then there are holes in the standpipe that allow the water in.  Most of the silts will be taken out by the gravel. By the time it gets to the filter clothe only the finest of particles will be left.

Mr. Cole stated I worry that it can sit there and get clogged and not be recognized or noticed for quite some time.

Mr. Kraus stated one good thing about these type of forebays is say this whole thing does get clogged it doesn’t let any water out.  Then the new water that will come in will then have to fill it up and by the time it fills up it takes so long that most of the sediments in there will settle out and only clear water will end up going over the berm.

Mr. Cole stated I do have a question that really isn’t relative to their issue but it does concern me and that is that commercial zoning directly north of them, which was shown on the first picture as a large field.  I am not sure how much drainage could come off of that if that were to be developed commercially. I was wondering if when it was zoned commercially if there were any exceptions had been placed on that area and if there is some control.

Mr. Thompson stated I would have to look into that. That was prior to my being with the Plan Commission.  Any further development of that property would have to be in front of the Plan Commission.

Mr. Burns stated this came in front of the BZA a couple of times and they are very professional.  Some of the neighbors did attend the two meetings and all the neighbors were in favor of this proposal.  There was one neighbor that spoke negatively.  They did follow all of DLZ’s recommendations.  I have no problems with this.

Mr. Detert stated they did a good job on this and I am satisfied with this. 

Mr. Detert moved to approve Case 07-DP-8 contingent that we have the petitioners affirmation that they will co-operate with the County and the County drainage people if we have any problems with drainage relative to your development.  Mr. Breitzke seconded the motion.

Discussion:

Mr. Layter stated we will certainly respond to whatever the Commission suggests and if problems do arise concerning the drainage we will do whatever is necessary. 

Mr. Hutson asked could you tell me a little bit more about the conference center and so forth and the history of what it is utilized for.

At this time, Mr. Layter explained what the conference center is used for and type of activities that are carried on at Shellbourne.

Mr. Hutson stated I was looking at your landscaping and if you are really trying to use native plants there are some on here, the barberries and day lily’s and things…

Mr. Wemmer stated there are a few that aren’t typical of a natural setting like barberries for example.  That is only to supplement.  Those are going to be use more at the building edge.

Mrs. Stevenson stated this was a good presentation and you have all your ducks in a row.  You know exactly what you are doing.

Mr. Read stated I encourage you to use especially around the west end to plant deep rooted grasses that bring the water down to the water table more directly.

Motion carried on a unanimous roll call vote.

Case 08-FP-1.  Petition of James D. Williams, 394 W. 300 S., Valparaiso, Indiana seeking secondary plat approval for Windy Oaks Subdivision, Phase “C” to be located on the CR 250 S. between CR 600 W. and CR 675 W., in Porter Township. (To contain 2 lots on 3.88 acres. Property is zoned RR.)

Donald Bengel stated I am representing Mr. Williams here this evening on the secondary plat for Windy Oaks Phase “C”.  The secondary plat is the same as the primary plat with no changes.  We have been to DAC and they had some suggestions that we made. On behalf of the Surveyors Office we did change Lot 46 to Lot 44 because that made it easier on the assessments.

Commissioner Harper asked did everyone receive everything that they thought they should have received.

Mr. Burns stated I have no questions at this time.

Mr. Detert stated I have no questions.

Mr. Hutson stated I have no questions.

Mrs. Stevenson stated I have no questions.

Mr. Cole stated I have no questions.

Mr. Read stated I did get your drawing on Phase “C” but not included was the drainage pattern on this rather peculiar layout of drainage.  Next time when you come back would you please include the surface drainage pattern?

Mrs. Marshall asked how are you going to limit the use on the existing pole building so that it does not become commercial.

Mr. Bengel stated on the deed of dedication it says that the existing pole building on Lot 45 as shown on this plat shall not be used as a living unit nor any type of business.

At this time, Mr. Detert left the meeting.

Mrs. Marshall stated so this lot is going to create one more ingress egress access to the road.

Mr. Bengel stated actually two, one for each lot.

Mr. Breitzke stated I am still a little bit concerned about the use of the pole barn.  Although it doesn’t affect these two lots, Commissioner Knoblock and I have had discussions with J.D. Williams the owner on other portions of this as far as drainage. Mr. Williams just went through another surgery so we haven’t been able to get together but I think that because it has no impact on this that we should go ahead and consider this tonight.

Mr. Burns moved to approve Case 08-FP-1.  Mr. Hutson seconded the motion, which carried on an 8-0 vote.

Discussion on Autumn Oaks Subdivision.

Mr. Thompson stated this was requested at the last meeting to be placed on the agenda.  Mr. Breitzke has been speaking with Mr. Carlson.  I have also tried to call Mr. Carlson concerning the drainage next to Mrs. Gray’s property.

Mr. Breitzke stated we have two issues, one on the west line with Mrs. Gray and Rick Carlson.  Mrs. Gray was willing to let us put a storm line along her property.  Her husband is against it.  I have figured out an alternative way to bring the water back around.  I have estimated the cost to be around $9000.  That way we could run downspouts and sump pumps into a line that would go onto the street sewers. That would actually involve three separate lines facilitating two storms inlets along the north/south street and then the last one outletting into the storm line that was put in at the very north end of Gray. The other issue was with Agilleo where the overland water flow went kind of at an angle.  It is largely the landscaping that pitched the water because the roadway for their house, the sidewalk and everything flows down.  If you can imagine, at an angle toward an inlet on the east line of their property and the water catches at that corner of the sidewalk and goes across the corner of the driveway and tends to create an icy condition on their driveway.  If we look back, their neighbor had put kind of a stone waterway in and to extend that storm waterway and put a pipe with the co-operation with Agilleo we may be talking about $4000 to put in a pipe along the south side of the road for about 80-feet.  Then put an inlet in between the walk and the curb and catch that water in part and also direct the water a little bit better and redo a portion of the sidewalk to flatten it out so we don’t have that pitching at an angle across.

At this time, the Plan Commission members discussed cancelling the second meeting of each month and go with just one meeting per month until business picks up.

Mr. Detert moved to cancel the second meeting of the month and to leave it to staff as to the scheduling of the second meeting for each month and to only schedule as the need arises.  Mr. Breitzke seconded the motion.

Discussion:

Attorney McClure stated my only concern with leaving it up to staff would be obviously when we get in a situation like we have with the February meeting we have a petitioner, I don’t know all the specifics, but maybe they were at fault on the public notice and now to get back on they want to come back in and they are going to be wanting that second spot of the month.  If we leave it up to staff, obviously there is going to be a lot of pressure to go ahead and open up that second meeting. That would be my only concern.  When business starts to pick up, we can get a report from the Planning Department and we can just have another motion to have the second meeting again.

Mr. Breitzke stated we shouldn’t leave it to the staff to have to be put in that position.

Motion carried on a unanimous roll call vote.

Commissioner Harper stated I was looking over what Tim had tonight on the first hearing.  Tim, did you have everything.

Mr. Cole stated yes I did.

Commissioner Harper asked did you show me everything that was mailed to you.

Mr. Cole stated yes, I believe I did.

Commissioner Harper stated for that development review hearing here is what I didn’t see.  I didn’t see all the letters from DLZ.

Attorney McClure asked Tim did you bring everything that was in the whole packet with you today. 

Mr. Cole stated I brought everything that was submitted since the last DAC meeting.

Commissioner Harper asked did everyone have the DLZ letters because there was more than one DLZ letter.

Mr. Burns stated Bob and I are on the BZA Board so we seen several of those.

Commissioner Harper stated I think that is something we have to have.  I think we should have every one of the DLZ letters.  When the BZA meets on something like this do you write up an order?

Mr. Thompson stated there are minutes.

Commissioner Harper asked did anyone that isn’t on the BZA see the BZA minutes.  Where they submitted to you?

The Commission members answered no.

Commissioner Harper stated I think we should have the BZA minutes.  Was there a highway report on this?

Mr. Thompson stated no.  That is not required.

Commissioner Harper asked was there a DAC report or the minutes from DAC?

The Commission members stated yes.

Mr. Burns stated this DLZ report was sent on February 7.  I did receive this after the BZA meeting.

Commissioner Harper stated here is my concern.  I know now that we have people on this Commission who will ask if they don’t get them but who knows how it is going to be five years from now and I just think we should have rules in effect.  I think we should have Ray to start working on a check list and have it ready by the next meeting of what we need for developmental review.  We do have some money left with Ground Rules to change some things.  So I am going to ask that if you have some ideas that you may want to suggest for this ordinance to put them in writing and we will put them on the schedule, discuss them and if everyone is in favor of it then we will submit them down to Ground Rules.

Mrs. Marshall stated following what Mr. Breitzke said about putting Blum on the second meeting of February, what if they at that time don’t have their stuff together. What if they can’t meet that checklist and they don’t have it together, are we going to be notified then that there is no meeting.

Mr. Thompson stated the reason they were not heard tonight is because they missed the notification date for sending out the letters by a few days. Todd called me up and was honest about it and he told me he missed the 20 days. He asked me what he should do and I told him he was continued.  That was why I opened up the second meeting of February. 

Mrs. Marshall stated I think that is good and that was a good decision. 

Mr. Thompson stated they do have the DLZ letter and that will get out to you.  There are a number of them.  I will make sure that you get all of the reports.

Mr. Breitzke asked is this a primary plat that we will be looking at.

Mr. Thompson stated correct.

Mr. Breitzke stated I will just bring up something that the Board may want to be aware of that the Certificate of Territorial Authority still hasn’t been awarded to Shorewood yet.  That is still pending but I don’t know if that really affects the primary plat or not by our rules. There are some issues with final construction plans that we have long standing ones as well as some of the construction details.

Commissioner Harper asked why should they be on the schedule if we don’t have that.

Mr. Thompson stated Kevin made me aware of that tonight because he spoke with the actual Shorewood Forest Utility Board members.  I was not aware of the Territorial thing.  I was shown that there was an agreement worked out between Shorewood Utilities and what Mr. Blum was supposed to be doing as far as construction.  I was not aware of these items.  Kevin will be contacting Mr. Leeth tomorrow to talk to him about these items and if it is not cleared up then we will be canceling them for the February meeting.

Mr. Breitzke asked is that required? I was under the impression that they had it. It has been a year and then I had the opportunity to talk to one of their Board members tonight.

Commissioner Harper stated why don’t we do this.  Why don’t we decide if we are going to require that rather than get here two weeks from tonight and have everyone here to submit something, spend two hours and notify all the neighbors and have them in here and we decide that we don’t have what we need to make our decision.

Mr. Thompson stated one thing that they did meet per ordinance is the fact that they did get the letter from the utility saying that they did have the capacity to handle that.

Commissioner Harper asked Kevin explain to me what they do not have.

Mr. Breitzke stated jurisdictional authority…

Commissioner Harper stated the State has not given Shorewood permission at this time to service that area.

Mr. Breitzke stated correct.

Commissioner Harper stated which means that it is all iffy.

Mr. Breitzke stated correct.

Mrs. Marshall stated if we go ahead with the hearing and they don’t have it then it comes push to shove.  In my opinion they should have it.

Mr. Burns stated in the past we put contingent on it.

Mr. Breitzke stated we have in the past but with the new UDO I wasn’t sure how this fit in.

Mr. Detert stated if we pass something that is on the understanding that they are going to live up to all the commitments, if they don’t get sewer system then they are dead.  They can’t build what they want to build.

Mr. Breitzke stated I was somewhat disappointed because it has been so long.  I was hoping that portion of it would have been satisfied by now. Maybe there are delays in the system or whatever down State.

Mrs. Marshall stated I did hear of a letter that was written that said because the Porter County Plan Commission has given the approval to certain development they then would follow that.

Commissioner Harper asked who would follow that?

Mrs. Marshall stated they granted the new territory.

Mr. Breitzke stated the Indiana Regulatory Commission.

Mrs. Marshall stated we have to know who the leader is here and what is going on.

Mr. Read stated a promoter will use our approval even if it is conditioned to use that as leverage down in Indianapolis at the Regulatory.  We sometimes make a motion, a conditional motion.  I don’t totally oppose that if the conditions are relatively minor.  To make a motion for approval for something that is serious, a drop dead deal, like sewers or water that I think we should not do.  I think that we should make them go back and say when you get the approval for the sewers or the water then come back to the Plan Commission and not give them a motion that is conditional on a major item.

Mr. Thompson stated I think Liz brought up a good point. Sometimes the State will say “Okay, the local approved it then it must be okay.”  So then they stamp it approved.  I wanted to make sure though with Todd there are some State laws and State regulatory agency’s that do require approval of the local governing body prior to them issuing approval. We need to check on that first to find out.

Commissioner Harper stated once we get this ironed out and get this subdivision done we should probably make up our minds and make this part of what people have to have for us. 

Mr. Breitzke stated this is like a moving target because legislation changes just like we do and we should set something on this timeline to say based on the laws today and work within that framework.

Commissioner Harper stated I think we spend a lot of time in meetings, not a lot, but a substantial amount where it came down to the question whether we had everything we needed or not.

Commissioner Harper stated I would like to ask the members if they think that anything should be added to the check list and that before the next meeting they contact Ray and tell him how they want it worded and then we will take them one at a time at our next meeting and we will vote on them and decide whether they should be on the check list or not.

Mrs. Marshall stated I won’t see Ray so I will tell him tonight.  I think that we are failing to have a watershed of every proposal or every site development that we have.  I don’t see that watershed map and I think that sometimes we are being led in the wrong direction as to where water flows in this county.

Mr. Thompson stated it is on the check list.

Commissioner Harper asked do I hear a motion one way or the other on this hearing we have in two weeks.

Mrs. Marshall moved to not hear Case 07-P-3 until they have Territorial Jurisdiction for Shorewood Utility.  Mr. Read seconded the motion, which carried on a unanimous roll call vote.

Mr. Thompson stated staff will send out letters to the neighbors stating that this case has been continued.

Mr. Detert stated I think there is a real easy way of solving the problem of notification.  First of all, what you are trying to do is to let them know what they have to give us.  Once that happens, if someone shows up with nothing or just one simple thing you automatically continue.  You make them renotify the public by the same way that they did, the newspaper ads and mailings.  I think two or three times of that they will get their act together and start sending them.

There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m.

PORTER COUNTY
PLAN COMMISSION

S/ Robert P. Harper, President

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