The Ellettsville, Indiana
Roll Call: Members
present were: Sandra Hash, President; Terry Baker, Vice
President; Dan Swafford, Don Calvert (came in a few minutes late),
Members Absent: Phil Smith and the Director of
Planning-
2009 Election
of New Officers
Sandra Hash-
I nominate Terry Baker for President
of the
Dan Swafford- I nominate Sandra Hash for Vice President of the
Approval of
the Minutes
The order of
the agenda was changed, first New Business.
Terry Baker-
Do I have a motion to approve the
minutes, December 4, 2008 meeting.
Dan
Swafford- I make a motion to approve
of the
New Business
Request to
rezone parcel 009-09260-04 and 009-09260-03 at 5920 W. SR 46 from R-1 to C-3
Jay Richardson Petitioner
Jay
Richardson- The property we want to
rezone is right on SR 46. I own the lot
and 2/3 of the lot behind my shop lot. I
want to rezone these to commercial. The
back lot behind my shop has an easement through my front lot, so I would like
both to be commercial.
Dan
Swafford- Connie could you go over
the legal notice and if there is any confusion on that address.
Jay
Richardson- I’ve been to the court
house twice to have them change the address on the property tax bills to 5290
W. SR 46. For some reason it hasn’t been
done. The people at 5922 do not own the
property that we are trying to get rezoned.
Sandra Hash- I reviewed the
Sandra Hash- I haven’t received a zoning fee from the
Mrs.
Richardson- Frank is waiving the
fee.
Sandra Hash- Why?
Mrs.
Richardson- When the original come
through for the radio station address, they came to the finalization that it
wasn’t zoned commercial. So, they had to
go back to stage one, they asked Jay if we would go ahead and do the shop 5920
W. SR 46 at the same time, and that the fee would be waived. If we would do that, then Frank ended up
transposing the numbers for the hearing notice of the address. Frank called me on 1/6, so we got here and it
wouldn’t go through, and then it went through and then it ended up being
postponed until today. Frank called me
two days ago to verify everything. He
said he would put both parcels in, and I asked him about the fee and he said it
was 200.00, is that for both, because originally the shop parcel was going to
be done at no charge, it was going through at the same time as the radio
station. He said I’ll tell you what we
can normally do three parcels at a time, and since there has been so much
confusion I’ll waive the fee. It has
been confusing and continues to be.
Dan
Swafford- It has been advertised for
these two parcels.
Jay
Richardson- We still own the three lots;
we sold the triangle lot with the house a few years ago. The people at 5922 don’t have anything to do
with this.
Sandra Hash- There are no improvements on the lot. I’m not sure if it would have an
address. Both of the parcels are
included, the legal notice was in the paper, all the neighbors have been
notified, and there are no neighbors here to complain or ask any questions. I’m thinking to tie this into together; there
was the thought that this was all already commercial. That added to the problem, so this is really
just cleaning this up for us, because this all should be commercial. It’s been used as commercial as long as I can
remember, so I think all of our bases have been covered.
I make a motion that we approve the request to rezone
parcel 009-09260-04 and 009-09260-03 at 5920 W. SR 46 from R-1 to C-3 Jay
Richardson Petitioner.
Dan
Swafford- I’ll second.
Terry Baker- All in favor say aye, all in favor, no
opposition. Motion passed.
Sandra Hash-
Does Frank have your legal description?
Jay
Richardson- Yes.
Old Business
Proposed
changes to the
Page 3- We need to discuss
Under 152.143
This is where the page 7 insert will come up. I added an abatement suggestion for fixing or
repairing the violation. The director
suggested 10 days for the abatement. We
state a 10 day repair, but you couldn’t do repairs of this nature during this
time of the year. This is a suggestion;
we will work with the violator on the cleanup abatement date. It will be very situational.
Don Calvert-
Does it say anything about contacting
you before a certain period of time?
Sandra Hash- Their 10 days would start after the letter or posted
notice.
Sandra Hash- Have you talked to the
Terry Baker-
I was reading in the other code that
you sent us on condemned property, and they had a good wording it had the 10
days, and then another statement that allowed for some flexibility there if it
couldn’t be corrected before the 10 days.
We need to have it stated in here, something that gives us the latitude
to extend the date or more control.
I’ll continue with new code additions. Some additional work was done on sign
regulations. Page 11, this is a new
code. After doing some research on
political signs we decided to add non-opinion sign code. The non-commercial opinion sign definition is
used in
Sandra Hash- It looks fine to me.
I’ll read it so Russ and Evelyn can hear the
definition:
Noncommercial opinion sign. A sign,
which does not advertise products, goods, businesses, or services and which
expresses an opinion or point of view, such as, a political, religious, or
other ideological sentiment or support or opposition to a candidate or
proposition for a public election. A sign which meets the definition of an
on-premise sign, an off-premise sign, and/or an advertising sign, shall not be
considered a noncommercial opinion sign.
The reason why I added this
to code is because of the political signs.
On page 13, temporary signs, I added this section, which covers the
condition of the sign. This code was
also from
Temporary sign. Any sign or
sign structure which is not permanently affixed or installed, and is intended
to be displayed for a limited period only. Examples of such signs include, but
are not limited to, the following: real estate, construction, special event,
political, garage sale, home improvement/remodeling, model home and seasonal
(holiday) signs. Condition of the
sign add in: If the condition of a sign becomes unsightly, torn, faded
or in the process of decline, the sign shall be considered a public nuisance
and litter and will be removed by the Planning Department.
That is the only way we can
get rid of damaged and older political signs, once they start getting old.
On page 14, based on the
research I sent you on Political Signs:
Several municipalities in
the state of
Sandra Hash- So,
you would strike it completely.
Terry Baker- One
of the things I liked in the political sign research document was the comments
on
Terry Baker-
Yes.
Sandra Hash-
Carl Salzman did come to a council meeting and the planning and zoning meeting
to talk to us about political signs. The code was added in 2005.
Dan Swafford-
I agree with Ron. Instead of putting a
time line on it, we can put a condition on them. When they start looking torn, like you said,
and that may fix it.
Dan Swafford-
They are about $10.00 each, they are expensive to keep replacing. I don't know what the answer is.
Sandra Hash-
When I campaigned I didn't put signs up until 30 days before the election and
then after the election I pulled all of the signs, but I knew the code, so I
was being conscientious by removing them, not everyone knows the code.
Dan Swafford-
Now we have absentee voting and early voting, so then the code wasn't good,
because they opened up ballots in October.
Sandra Hash-
That's what Carl was challenging. He
questioned what day do you consider the election because of these issues.
Sandra Hash- The
state highway went through twice and cleaned up along the highway.
Dan Swafford-
That was because the signs were displayed in the state right of way.
New additions special
promotion-
A permit will be required
to display a special promotion sign. This
permit will be $10.00.
(9)
SPECIAL PROMOTION. A non-permanent
free-standing sign used as special advertising for not more than two weeks per
occasion and not more than four weeks total per year. The SPECIAL PROMOTION sign shall not
measure and measuring not more than 24 square feet in sign face area
and six feet in height. A permit
will be required to display a SPECIAL PROMOTION sign. This permit will be obtained from the
Department of Planning Services. A
Special Promotion sign permit will be $10.
All legally licensed 501(c) non-profit organizations and schools are not
required to pay a Special Promotion sign permit fee.
Sandra Hash-
I like the special promotion additions.
Dan Swafford-
Can they get this on line.
Page 17, Exempt Signs,
clarified that schools will not be required to pay for a sign permit.
We agreed on time and
temperature at a prior meeting.
In the scrolling sign
section, we added a new addition. We
have a couple of businesses in town Stop and Go Muffler, and the Mexican
Restaurant have scrolling signs. I
looked up interior scrolling signs, which would fit in a window and not be
obtrusive. I think a fair size would be 9x
32, so we do not hurt local businesses, which I know is a concern to Dan. I submitted some research on interior signs
to you.
Don Calvert-
Do you think the businesses you mentioned would fall in this dimension for a
scrolling sign?
Dan Swafford-
If you go any larger, the cost is astronomical.
When a business does close,
it would be nice if they removed the sign.
We may want to have them sign a document that states they are aware of
the sign removal. The only problem would
be with very large signs, such as what you see at a gas station. The sign face would be the only thing that
would need changed. So, this is still in
work.
The Board of Zoning
Appeals, we added back in Conditional Use Special Exemption Variance. This code had been dropped and just needed
added back in.
That concludes the code
changes for the evening, and if you have any questions please let me know.
Sandra Hash- What
about the vaults definition. The
definition Ron found was good.
The last thing that I have,
I been placed in charge of stormwater education. I'll be having night and day time
presentations. I will be working with
the Town's departments, some more than others.
The permit is up for review in the fall of 2009.
The first presentation will
be a video called "After the Storm."
There will be a pre and post test, so I can track the results to see if
the program contributes to an increased awareness with water quality
issues. The tests will be very easy, the
tests aren't meant to be hard or intimidating, it's all about increasing an
awareness of water quality.
Sandra Hash-
The reason for the tests is to give you a second layer to help retain the
knowledge?
Sandra Hash-
Will you be talking about recycling.
Once the program gets
started I would like to start "Rain Mail", which will be an e-mail
program to send to staff or interested citizens. The e-mail will have stormwater and water
quality facts. They will have a short
paragraph to read weekly, which will assist with educating, and I won't have to
pull staff away as often for programs. I
have to work with the community and have presentations at the library and at the
local schools. I'll be distributing a
survey to the community in the spring of 2009.
The survey will be given again after a few years, to see if an
improvement has occurred in the community.
Sandra Hash- The
Sandra Hash-
The training is paid for through the I-69 grant?
Dan Swafford-
We could have a tail gate.
Terry Baker-
We will continue the Spring's Valley Condo's until next month.
Terry Baker- Does
anyone have any comments from the
Privilege of
the Floor- Non Agenda Items
Russ Ryle- Why you are discussing codes, I'm questioning what is
the status of our rental advisory group, what is the status of that
project. I would also like to ask if our
codes have a section for unoccupied residential units that aren't occupied for
a period of time. We need some form of
monitoring and intervention before we get to a point of the property getting
ran down and becoming a safety concern.
Terry Baker- Connie is this covered in the unsafe building law?
Russ Ryle- We need to approach the codes from a public health
and safety concern, we get the most complaints when we go beyond health and
safety, not just public opinion.
Sandra Hash- The unsafe building code is enforced by Monroe County
Building Dept.
Russ Ryle- Does this cover fire codes.
Terry Baker-
Not the fire code, fire codes would
be the fire dept.
Russ Ryle- Do we have a smoke detector ordinance? In rentals?
Terry Baker- Yes.
Sandra Hash- Someone with the State Fire Inspectors reviewed our
code and gave the Town information to update our code.
Don Calvert- I think this is for new construction. I don't think this is retro-active.
Russ Ryle- That's my point. When you get into rentals and
commercial spaces where the public will congregate we need something. It bothers me that people don't have a fire
and CO 2 detector.
Evelyn Ryle- A question of wording. Some wording needs to be
changed so lay people reading the code can understand and not try to get around
what the meaning is you are presenting.
Adjournment