June 19, 2008

The Ellettsville, Indiana, Redevelopment Commission met in regular session on Thursday, June 19, at the Fire Department Training and Conference Room. Frank Nierzwicki called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M., leading the Pledge of Allegiance.

Roll Call: Members present were Frank Buczolich, Darby McCarty, Mathew Stille, Darlyne Sowder, with Phill Rogers absent.

Frank Nierzwicki- We need to select officers, since this is the first meeting of the year. Is there anyone willing to nominate anyone for President? Frank.

Frank Buczolich- I would like to nominate Darby McCarty for the office of President. Daryne Sowder seconded the motion.

Frank Nierzwicki- All those in favor, all in favor, none opposed. The meeting was turned over to the new president Darby McCarty.

Darby McCarty- Do I have any nominations for Vice President? I would like to nominate Frank Buczolich for Vice President. Mathew Stille seconded the motion. All in favor, none opposed, Frank Buczolich nominated Vice President.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Darby McCarty- Motion to approve the minutes of the December 13, 2007 meeting. Any corrections?

Frank Nierzwicki- If the two members, which attended the December 13, 2007 Redevelopment meeting would vote on the approval of the minutes we could have a tentative approval and have David Drake or Amber Ragle sign off on the minutes. We do need a motion.

Frank Buczolich- Motion to approve of the meeting minutes from the December 13, 2007 meeting.

Darby McCarty- Seconded the approval, none opposed, minutes approved.

Frank Nierzwicki- With minutes approved pending approval of Amber Ragle or David Drake.

Old Business- None

New Business

Heritage Crossing Redevelopment Area background information – Discussion

Plan Commission rezoning report-Discussion

Frank Nierzwicki- Frank provided information from the prior 1 to 2 years of Redevelopment meeting information. He explained the documents and their importance. An article actually ran in the Journal. I’ll work with the Journal to get the date that the article ran - Frequently asked questions about a Redevelopment Commission.

He read each of the 10 questions. Other documents discussed.

May 31, 2007 meeting minutes, this is when we designated the redevelopment area.

Darlyne Sowder- Question. I noticed names that are not on the commission, were they members or people that made statements? Dana Kerr and Russ Ryle.

Frank Nierzwicki- We had an advisory committee; they were both on the advisory committee.

Another issue, Indiana State Law is changing. As of July 1, 2008 a new member will be added to the Redevelopment Commission. The new member will be a non-voting member from the school board.

You also have a copy of the redevelopment plan from May 31, 2007. The maps show the area, and you will see a listing of projects, with a costing analysis of each project discussed.

Frank discussed the parcel listings, map of zoning changes in the downtown area, which were put together as a starting point. Do you have any questions, directed to the commission?

I’ll go ahead and discuss where we are right now with the Redevelopment Commission. We’ve designated the area, now we go to the Plan Commission. The Plan Commission will look at the zoning within the area to see if it is consistent with the redevelopment and comprehensive plan in the area.

The policy, once approved by the Plan Commission goes to Town Council with two readings unless unanimous on the first reading. After Town Council approves rezoning, they will look at and approve the redevelopment area. Once this is approved, it goes back to the Redevelopment Commission for a public hearing. If approved then it has a review for overlapping taxing units.

We’ll do a study on the impacts and give the study to various groups for public comments. After a period of time, then it is finalized and submitted to the county for recording and then it goes to the state.

The status with heritage crossing, passed May 31. The redevelopment area has been established. It went to Plan Commission for a number of meetings, we had a number of votes last meeting. Six members attended, we have to have four members to vote a positive vote for passage.

We had an amendment to change some of the zoning. The first amendment did not pass, the next amendment, didn’t pass, then the Plan Commission decided to vote on the motion and that was defeated as well. So, we are back to square one on this. We’ll go ahead and start working on this again, I’ll start with a draft and we’ll start with the process. We’ll contact the property owners. Any questions?

Frank Buczolich- Are there any time constraints placed on this by other government agencies?

Frank Nierzwicki- No. The only time limit I have is with appointments to the Redevelopment Commission, they are for one year. If they are not reappointed we may have to start all over again. We need to start showing some movement.

Mathew Stille- So, we are basically starting all over?

Frank Nierzwicki- We are starting all over on the rezoning issue, which is like phase two. We will work with the Journal to make sure everything is out. Certified mail will be tracked; we are following the Indiana Code strictly on this.

NON AGENDA ITEMS

Don Calvert- First of all, is this the committee that is responsible for the new rezoning?

Frank Nierzwicki- No.

Don Calvert- What committee is responsible for the new rezoning?

Frank Nierzwicki- All rezoning goes through the Plan Commission. The Plan Commission review is to make sure everything fits together and that the zoning matches the plans.

Don Calvert- We’ve had many discussions on changing some of the zones. Who recommended the change in the zones?

Frank Nierzwicki- The recommendation, I had to start somewhere, because there had to be a draft to start the process, so I started it using the language from the redevelopment plan and also from the comprehensive plan.

The comprehensive plan calls for limiting the number of gas stations and auto repair and warehousing in the downtown area, and to try to have it more as commercial businesses between the one way pair areas. It wasn’t anything I pulled out of thin air.

Don Calvert- My confusion came from a situation when one of the members from the Redevelopment Commission showed up with a petition against a change in the zoning. If it came from here, I was going to say perhaps you could look at that, but if it didn’t come from here, then that isn’t an issue to me.

Darby McCarty- Any comments from the floor or the commissioners?

Mathew Stille- Will we be re-visiting this re-zoning, since it is obviously affecting so many of the citizens, and they are so against it. I understand where you are coming from; we want to beautify the downtown area, but, is there a way we can do it and keep the majority of the people happy.

Frank Nierzwicki- We have over 100 parcels. We number of the parcels didn’t change under the proposal. A number of parcels were up-zoned and some down-zoned. 22% were down zoned, 26% remained the same and 52% were up-zoned. We had 3 to 5 people that were very strong concerning the re-zoning, some people in the end were not considered for the rezone, such as the Anderson’s. Out of the 100 parcels, I’m not sure if we will get 100% buy in.

Mathew Stille- But the map in the packet shows they are included.

Frank Nierzwicki- They (Anderson’s) have been voted out as well as Guizik’s.

Mathew Stille- But, how did we come to the justification that side of the street is ok and this side of the street isn’t?

Frank Nierzwicki- I was trying to create a one parcel deep corridor on both the inside and outside of Temperance and Main Street. The issue on having a district is to have it compatible with each other. Every present business would be allowed to stay in under the same zoning that they have right now. It is only when the next owner comes in that the zoning changes would take effect. I don’t know if there will ever be a 100% agreement on things, we’ve tried to minimize and will try to minimize more.

Mathew Stille- Are we here to work it out, so you can get this pushed thru. This is just paper, until you get the majority of the people backing what you are saying you can plan until you are blue in the face.

Frank Nierzwicki- We have disagreements on different items and zoning and uses. It’s best to do it now when it is approved instead of years later. What is consensus?

A petition was passed around town, but these people don’t attend the meetings, I’ve had some conversations with some of those people. The people who are against it have been consistent, and attend the meetings and are vocal on their concerns, but, I haven’t seen other written or verbal comments on this issue much at all.

Darlyne Sowder- I have a question about your map. There is a place on Main Street next to Ed Bitner, that he says was rezoned C-3 at some point in the past, that doesn’t show up on here does it?

Frank Nierzwicki- I know which property you are speaking of, it is the Zerface property that is actually a C-3 classification.

Darlyne Sowder- But, it isn’t showing that on this map.

Frank Nierzwicki- Frank approached the commissioners to show them the changes to the map area. We’ve changed the map around and made the district smaller. The black line represents the area of re-zoning.

The planning staff has worked a lot of hours on this, as we go thru this we have a detailed list of all of the parcels and the values of the parcels. We need to with the numbers, we need to re-check some of this and we will actually have the zoning to each parcel on this. Rick Coppock keeps the official zoning map of the town. So, I have to go to Rick to get the map produced for me. We will go ahead and do some more work on this to clarify this as much as possible.

Don Calvert- 711 sold out because they couldn’t make it on a one way street. I’m wondering what affect the one way traffic had on the property values on those properties that line the two one way streets. Are there any records or feedback on that?

Frank Nierzwicki- It is mixed. We’ve had one person very vocal that lives on Main Street and preferred not to have the highway right in front of his house and that is understandable.

The value of the property as a residential home has probably gone down somewhat. I’m not saying they aren’t good homes, but getting in and out of the driveways may be somewhat difficult. They could be more valuable as commercial use.

We are looking at this in the future for those property owners. With small parcels you could do home businesses in that area, but having an area rezoned like this gives more opportunity to redevelopment, and different uses, that may use 1 to 3 parcels.

The more traffic is good, and the opportunity to come in and shop. It is a mixed bag. We have some national chains settling in to Ellettsville, because of the traffic volume. We are trying to help the downtown come back to more business; it hasn’t been very vital for the last 20 years or longer.

The one way pair did a major job on the downtown; it will never be quite the same as it was before. We are looking at options and opportunities for businesses to locate there.

Kenny Anderson- I was just wondering, you talk about the comprehensive plan for redevelopment, do you have anything drawn up that shows what you want to do in these areas?

Frank Nierzwicki- We have the comprehensive plan, which sets out the general plan of what should happen in the Town of Ellettsville.

Kenny Anderson- Does it show a super market here……

Frank Nierzwicki- The redevelopment plan calls for public improvements at different areas in town, the other part of this is we don’t have developers behind us, that want to come in or anything.

Kenny Anderson- You don’t have anything drawn up to show the public what you want to do to draw people in?

Frank Nierzwicki- We have diagrams and sketches of the trail and possible types of development.

Kenny Anderson- Wouldn’t it be good to have this out for the public to view that will help with the theory of changing.

Frank Nierzwicki- We can go ahead and do that. We tried to have a work session, and it was poorly attended. We can go ahead and look at some more drawings, and reproduce the Ball State study.

Kenny Anderson- I think that would be good, because I came to the rezoning meetings knowing I didn’t want my property rezoned and a lot of other people as well. I don’t think a lot of people know what you are trying to do.

Frank Nierzwicki- That is something we can go ahead and actually do for a work session. Would that be something the Redevelopment Commissioners would be interested in?

Frank Buczolich- I think he is also asking if there is a place this could be on public display for a period of time.

Frank Nierzwicki- We could do that. Connie can we reproduce some of the items and blow them up? And have quality items?

Connie Griffin- We would have to obtain the original files, because these are letter sized images, jpegs.

Frank Buczolich- It would be nice to have them on easel displays or something like that.

Mathew Stille- It is so difficult to know where things are, it should be made so people can easily understand.

Darlyne Sowder- How are you going to put these things into effect when the properties are owned by someone else? I went around and looked at empty properties the car wash and the house at First Street and Temperance looks empty. She mentioned other vacant looking properties. Some of these homes are historic; these are the only ones available. So, would the town go in and ask to buy these properties?

Frank Nierzwicki- It would be the Redevelopment Commission and not the Town. There are a couple of options on this, they could buy property, accept property, accept donated land to the town or Redevelopment Commission. We could then try to get developers in to change the downtown area.

Pre-zoning is important. We’ve had a number of developers in town looking at various things. The developer may ask, is it zoned properly for this, and it may be yes or no. We want it pre-zoned, so it is ready for development.

Darby McCarty- You’re really looking 10 to 30 years into the future.

Frank Nierzwicki- We have limited staff and a small budget. I would have liked to have another study done, say for $30,000 to $40,000 to have all of these diagrams made up, but we didn’t have that option at that point to do that.

We try to do as much as we can with what staffing we do have. There are a number of things we can do to improve this issue. The other issue we have, once the zoning is completed, we can have a TIF district. We have an area that may start to be developed, but I would like to have the TIF district set up first. Then we could get revenue to do some public improvements. The longer we wait, we may lose tax revenue.

Frank Buczolich- It is important to designate what you would like to see happen in this area, it would be good if we had the zoning approved for a doctor’s office, if we don’t have that ready, and they look at existing zoning, then someone could put in another block plant. If the zoning is correct, we, as the Plan Commission, can’t really deny it, you may have a business that is more beneficial financially.

I think what confuses a lot of people is that they look at the process as if this group or the town is coming in and saying the Town or the Commission is somehow going to acquire property and put a depot or something else in an area, where we are actually trying to encourage good things to happen in this area. The town doesn’t have money to go out and buy parcels. We are looking at trying to encourage and promote what the Town or group would like to see as a whole.

Frank Nierzwicki- We need a center point or focal point in town. We started this with the gateways, but we need something else. That is what we are trying to do, compose a center in the old town area. With gas prices the way they are, more people will walk, we are trying to look at having more sidewalks.

Frank Buczolich- When you walk in town you get to see many things. Unless state mandated we have very few sidewalks, and there are no places to sit and rest along the way. We don’t accommodate pedestrians that way.

Darby McCarty- What would it take if we were to have a farmer’s market here?

Frank Nierzwicki- Does Eagle’s Landing have a farmer’s market on the weekend?

Darlyne Sowder- A vegetable stand sets up out front, but not a complete market.

Frank Nierzwicki- Yes, we could have a farmer’s market. We would also have to have parking to go along with this.

I’ve been working with the Monroe County Planning Department looking at alternative transportation plans for the county. We are part of this plan, to have a rail to trail connection from Ellettsville to Bloomington. They are making progress to the south.

I have to show some movement here. We’ve had a grant for some time and we have not been able to get any movement on the grant. I have city utilities telling me they could pave it in two weeks, if I go ahead and give them the go ahead. Well, we have to make sure of the ownership of the land and environmental studies need to be conducted, it’s not that easy.

Frank Buczolich- Where does Main Street fit into all of this?

Frank Nierzwicki- They have been very strong in trying to revitalize downtown. They put some money together for studies and they asked for donations for street lights, we’re also trying to raise over $37,500 from the local community to receive a $12,500 match from the Bloomington Monroe County Community Foundation. This is an endowment that would be ongoing forever. The three stated goals would be to help the Town maintain the gateways, maintaining the trail, and to help merchants with beautification downtown.

Kenny Anderson- How large is this area.

Frank Nierzwicki- About 12 acres.

Kenny Anderson- Is it large enough for people to bring in RV’s?

Frank Nierzwicki- Some of this property is in the floodplain, which restricts its use to some degree.

Frank Buczolich- What control does the state have on this area?

Frank Nierzwicki- I’m going to be getting phone calls from the state, asking when we are going to spend this grant money.

Mathew Stille- How is the trail going to cross 46?

Frank Nierzwicki- The original design called for a bridge over 46, but it would be impossible to afford a bridge. We want the trail head around the limestone stage with a pedestrian bridge to the rail road bed and go up around First Street, this is all conceptual at this stage.

Darby McCarty- Any other comments? Seeing none.

Adjournment

Darby McCarty entertained a motion to adjourn at 8:45 P.M. Mathew Stille seconded. Motion carried.