Commission Plans for Honda boom

Adam Huening

With the new facility for Honda looming in the future, the Decatur County Area Plan Commission (APC) set out at their Wednesday meeting to prepare for the expected commercial and residential boom that will follow with it.

“We’re being opened up to something we’ve never experienced before,” Decatur County Area Plan Commissioner David Neuman said.

The Board wants to shore up its ordinances before developers begin to take advantage of what the members call “loopholes” in regards to planning for subdivisions and commercial zones.

First, they went through another reading of their new industrial ordinance, which they began when Honda was still a potential resident in the county. The ordinance passed and will endure one more reading at next month’s meeting before it can be sent to the Decatur County Commissioner who must sign it to put it into effect.

Next, they looked at a new drainage plan in the hopes of making it better. This one allows for petitioners to “do their due diligence” when coming to the Board with large projects, such as subdivisions. The new plan, which still needs revised, allows more wiggle room for the Board and less for petitioners without restricting creativity.

“This one is much more flexible,” Board president Brian Keith said. “It allows the designer to design instead of making something fit.”

Keith advised the Board this is not ready for a vote and they need to come up with ideas to help improve it.

“This is a draft, the first go around,” Keith said. “Take this home and digest this and come back next month with any questions you may have.”

The APC also wants to rewrite its design standards and its classifications. One thing they wished to see was a redefinition of residential areas. They agreed two lots would be considered for single and double family dwellings under the A-2 classification. However, any petition containing three or more lots would fall under an A-3 as a subdivision and be subjected to tougher scrutiny in regards to drainage, planning and size.

Keith advised the Board he had spoken with Barth Howard and Associates Engineering. They told him to examine the new comprehensive plan put in place by Dearborn County. Keith said they would develop the plan for them but it would take up to six months, a timeline the Board could not accept.

“We have two months, three at best,” Neuman said.

While the details of a new plan is being developed to protect the county for big developments, they decided to examine the legalities of declaring a moratorium on all subdivision and commercial petitions, which would include housing developments and planned unit developments or strip malls. A moratorium would mean no decision could be made on a petition until a specified date chosen by the Board. This would allow them time to develop the drainage plan and design standards and avoid being bombarded by huge developments that may take advantage of the county through existing loopholes and litigation.

“Doing this gives us the opportunity to clean (the ordinances) up,” member Joe Witkemper said. “We need this done in two months but that just may not be possible.”

While the APC has some huge tasks ahead of them to prepare for the boom, they breezed through the three petitions on their docket.

Life Apostolic Ministries in Westport represented by the Rev. Gerald Sharp was seeking approval to rezone 1.83 acres from a B-2 business to an R-2 residential in order to construct a church on their existing property. The building that has housed their church for the last 20 years was formerly a gas station and the congregation has outgrown it. The new church would be 34’ by 84’ and house a sanctuary, three classrooms, an office, restrooms and dressing room. Sharp only requested a piece of the land to build on due to mortgage reasons despite having a much larger parcel. The Board decided to revise the petition.

“If you want to separate the parcel for your mortgage, that’s fine, but to keep it simple, we’d like to go ahead and rezone the whole parcel,” Keith said.

By doing this, the APC has kept residential zoning on one side of Westport and business on the other, which they found ideal. The petition passed unanimously.

In addition, the Board also approved the rezoning of two separate parcels for the purpose of constructing single dwelling homes. Barbara Stone and Richard Moore were given the go-ahead to build a home on their property at 6474 S. Co. Rd. 150 E. Chris Springmeyer was also given the nod to build on his property located a half-mile south of Star Baptist Church in Adams Township.

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