By PAULENE POPARAD

Despite new concessions from the developers, the Porter Plan Commission sent an unfavorable recommendation Wednesday to the Town Council on The Trails, a 190-home planned unit development for the 63-acre Iron Triangle.

The council is scheduled to meet Dec. 27 but typically zoning matters aren’t taken up at the first meeting following Plan Commission action. A new Town Council will take office Jan. 1 with only one returning member.

The Trails would be located on the east side of South Mineral Springs Road at Old Porter Road. The parcel is bounded by two railroads and Interstate 94 with access hampering previous development efforts. Town planner Jim Mandon spoke in strong support of B&R Development’s current plan, calling it “really the best proposal you have seen and probably will see for this property.”

Nevertheless, some commission members said 190 single-family homes was too many and having Mineral Springs as the only access point for the subdivision would cause traffic problems at the Old Porter intersection, which is near a CSX railroad crossing.

Member Ken Timm moved the commission send a favorable recommendation on the PUD to the council. That failed with he and Brenda Brueckheimer voting yes and Paul Childress, Greg Stinson, Jim Eriksson and president Lorain Bell voting no.

Childress then moved to send no recommendation to the council, which town attorney Patrick Lyp said was allowed. That vote resulted in a 3-3 tie resulting in no action with member Sandi Snyder absent.

Eriksson’s motion to forward an unfavorable recommendation finally passed 4-2 with Timm voting in favor. He later said he changed his position to get the PUD before the council. Also voting yes were Stinson, Eriksson and Bell; Childress and Brueckheimer were opposed.

Prior to the votes attorney Karen Tallian said developers Bob Gorgei and Rich Brennan now were offering to purchase an additional 5 acres southwest of their parcel for a conventional park that would abut the original 6-acre wetland park they proposed, both paralleling the CSX tracks north of Wood Street.

The Porter Park Board had been approached about accepting the park but no decision was made.

Tallian also said Lots 44-73 on the site’s northern boundary would become patio homes with zero lot lines on one side; this was done at the suggestion of town department heads to cluster like-size lots in one area, bringing the total lots to 191.

Mandon later cited Lots 181-187 where sizes varied from 9,000 square feet to 6,600 square feet and the developers agreed to drop one lot and enlarge the undersized ones there.

Tallian also said since the developers were offering to enlarge the park, their contribution to help upgrade the Porter Avenue lift station for The Trails sanitary sewage would be reduced to about $350,000. Developers previously offered approximately $400,000 to help pay for a pedestrian bridge for the Porter Brickyard hike/bike trail but the town later shifted the trail away from the B&R development.

Brueckheimer, who is Porter’s Public Works director, said the lift-station upgrade needs to take place before any connection is made and the total cost could reach $800,000.

The commission conducted a public hearing Nov. 15 for the Trails and a special meeting Nov. 29 to review the PUD’s traffic study, which indicated no intersection modifications other than the addition of a right-turn lane on Mineral Springs and on Old Porter were needed.

Childress said he isn’t opposed to the density of the subdivision but having only one access at two entrances on Mineral Springs “scares me to death.” He inquired how much a vehicular bridge or tunnel spanning I-94 would cost. The Trails project manager Matt Keiser estimated about $10 million.

Eriksson asked what the planned houses would look like. Developers said a mix of one- and two-story, tri-level and ranch homes ranging from the upper $150,000 to low $200,000 range. Gorgei and Brennan have built The Trails of Portage abutting the Prairie Duneland Trail and a subdivision east of Locust Street in Chesterton.

While conceding the B&R plans for the Iron Triangle were the best he’s seen, Eriksson said the density is still too high. Bell echoed that concern adding that he questioned the proposed drainage plans; he said it’s hard to believe the traffic study’s finding that the Mineral Springs/Old Porter three-way intersection won’t suffer if 190 homes are built there.

Mandon countered each point. He said by adding five acres to the project for the park, 190 lots were being proposed for 68 acres, not 63, reducing the density. As for the traffic, “I don’t see how you can determine this will cause a traffic problem just by thinking it without evidence supporting that conclusion.”

Mandon called 11 acres of parkland “a very exciting feature of this development” and reminded the commission there currently is no stormwater plan for the parcel as opposed to one being in place post-construction. Overall, the project has been massaged to the point it will have the least amount of impact to surrounding properties, he advised.

Eriksson said mistakes have been made in the past and he doesn’t want to repeat them. “I’m looking at the future."

Posted 12/20/2007