By KEVIN NEVERS

This is the concept which I-80 LLC is likely to pitch to the Chesterton Advisory Plan Commission should the Town Council agree to annex 75 acres of land owned by I-80 and located immediately south of the Indiana Toll Road and east of Ind. 49.

A mixed-use planned unit development consisting of 320 multi-family residential units, a hotel, and an unspecified but significant amount of square footage devoted to retail. A preliminary site plan shows a total of 846 parking spaces, which under the Zoning Ordinance would be the minimum required for a “planned business or shopping center” of 211,500 square feet.

Attorney Cliff Fleming, representing I-80 LLC principal Bob Rossman, did not introduce this concept prior to a public hearing on the proposed annexation at Monday’s meeting of the Town Council.

When asked after the meeting whether remonstrators might have been able to make more informed comments about the annexation had they been acquainted with the concept, Fleming told the Chesterton Tribune that the subject of the public hearing was the annexation itself, not the development. Fleming added that the details of the development will be negotiated later before the Advisory Plan Commission and approved or rejected by the Town Council following another public hearing on the planned unit development ordinance.

Under state statute the Town Council must wait at least 14 days after Monday’s public hearing before taking action on the annexation.

Remonstration

Five remonstrators addressed the Town Council.

Tim Cole, a Liberty Township resident and a member of the Porter County Plan Commission, objected to the proposed annexation mainly on the grounds that almost nothing about the planned unit development has been revealed. So far as he knows, Cole said, there has been no traffic study, no drainage study, no soil study, no one has indicated whether there are designated wetlands in the annexation area which may affect the development, and no one has addressed the issue whether such a development, whatever it may be, is the “highest and best use of the land.”

Cole also referred to what he called “a lack of cooperation” between the Town of Chesterton and the Porter County Plan Commission. “God and Nature,” he said, “don’t build brick walls between communities. . . . This is a rural setting. It needs to grow gradually. Change is not always progress. And progress is not always in the best interests of all people.”

Katherin Hale echoed Cole, ventured that “not a lot of thought has gone into this development,” and suggested that traffic along North Calumet Ave. will increase for the worst.

J.F. Schroeder argued that the private and unregulated drain at the east end of the property will be unable to handle stormwater from the parcel. He said that roughly one third of the property is a designated wetland and that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers may have objections to its development. And he reminded the Town Council that residents living in close proximity to agricultural uses often end up “resenting” their neighbors the farmers.

Dale Wingate voiced his concern about trespassers and drainage.

And Paul Tharp cautioned the Town Council about the hazards of increasing traffic volume along North Calumet Ave. and Ind. 49.

Response

Fleming did not specifically reply to any of the remonstrators. Instead he said that the purpose of the public hearing was to invite comments on the annexation itself, not on the development, and that the Advisory Plan Commission will have the responsibility later of crafting a planned unit development ordinance which addresses remonstrators’ concerns.

Member Mike Bannon, R-5th, said much the same thing. But he also took a moment to respond to Cole as a member of the Porter County Plan Commission. “You’d like nothing better than to tell us what to do in our town,” Bannon remarked. The Town of Chesterton is “not grabbing land” but hearing the petition of a property owner who wants to be annexed, he added, and to think that this property will never be developed is “naive at best.”

The Fiscal Plan

According to a fiscal plan submitted by I-80 LLC and prepared by H.J. Umbaugh & Associates—a copy of which the Tribune obtained after the meeting—the total annual estimated cost of providing municipal services to the annexation area would be $277,486 plus additional equipment purchases totaling $62,631.

•An additional police officer at an annual cost of $72,000.

•Three additional firefighters at an annual cost of $165,000.

•Street maintenance at an annual cost of $1,486.

•An additional quarter of a code enforcement officer at an annual cost of $9,000.

•Two additional park employees at an annual cost of $30,000.

•A new squad car, $30,000.

•A portion of the cost of a new aerial, $12,131.

•A new mower, $15,000.

•A quarter of a new vehicle for the Building Department, $5,500.

A chief assumption of the fiscal plan is that the Town of Chesterton will apply for an excess levy appeal of $331,281 to pay for these additional municipal services. If the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance were to approve that excess levy appeal and the one contemplated for the Olson Farms LLC annexation, Chesterton property owners would pay, beginning in 2009, an extra $860,583 in property taxes.

Another assumption of the fiscal plan is that total revenues accruing from the annexation—in the form of sanitary sewer bills and fees, stormwater fees, solid waste user fees, and property taxes—would outstrip the total costs of providing municipal service to the annexation area, for a surplus of $274,979 in 2009 and by $127,178 in 2015.

Posted 7/10/2007