By VICKI URBANIK

It’s not unusual for the Porter County Plan Commission to ask detailed questions of petitioners, but one case Wednesday was a little different in that the planners put their own colleagues through the wringer.

For about 30 minutes, planners questioned their executive director, Robert Thompson, and County Highway Superintendent Al Hoagland about the plans for the new North Porter County Highway Garage off C.R. 250E in Westchester Township. Joining them was North Porter County Commissioner John Evans.

The plan commission approved the development review plans for the new garage unanimously -- a review required of all projects in commercial or institutional zones -- but only after a line of questioning. As Plan Commission member Robert Detert characterized it, the planners “put our own people through the hoops.”

The county commissioners approved the new highway garage back in March of 2005, Hoagland said. Just last year, the county acquired the approximately four-acre parcel across the road from the current garage. The new facility, to be designed like the south county highway facility, will allow all equipment to be stored on the inside.

The highway department has had to secure approvals from the County Board of Zoning Appeals related to the facility’s well and septic and stormwater plans.

Plan commission member Elizabeth Marshall said the existing road is substandard, as she raised a concern about highway truck use on the road. She also said she’s hearing reports that many trucks are violating the county’s frost law and questioned if county highway department vehicles “get a special pass” when the frost law is in effect.

Hoagland said the county tries as best it can to enforce the frost law, but that it’s virtually impossible to block all truck traffic on all county roads during the frost law season. But he also said that typically, the county highway crews aren’t doing road construction when the frost law is in effect and so would not be running as many trucks to and from the garage.

Planner Herb Read noted that county taxpayers will have to pay the utility costs for the new garage, as he called for adding more attic insulation. He said the added cost of boosting the insulation will be quickly recouped in lower energy bills.

Hoagland assured him that the insulation planned complies with the industry standard. “I don’t care what their standard is,” Read said, adding that the county should surpass the minimum when it comes to energy conservation. Thompson and Hoagland pledged to see what the added cost would be for more insulation and to seek commissioner funding if needed.

Planner and county council member Rita Stevenson asked if the new garage will take care of the department’s needs in north county. There was a long pause before Hoagland would answer. He said the new facility has been planned to take into account growth in north Porter County, but that it probably won’t meet all the needs in 20 years or so. As a long-time county resident, he added that he’s still amazed at how much Porter County has grown.

Posted 4/10/2008