By KEVIN NEVERS

The land needed for additional right-of-way for Phase I of the South Calumet Business District project will cost the Town of Chesterton a total of $336,675.50.

So Town Attorney Chuck Lukmann informed the Town Council at its meeting Monday night.

Members voted 5-0 to approve a resolution authorizing Lukmann to make offers, based on the appraisal of the land, to the owners of the eight parcels in question. Four of those offers, per state statute, are based on the average of two appraisals because the parcels are valued at more than $25,000.

The largest offer is one of $184,000; the smallest, one of $200. The other six: $69,650; $32,767.50; $32,690; $6,750; $6,550; and $4,050.

Phase I of the project consists largely of the connector road linking South Calumet Road and C.R. 100E and an upgraded stormwater system.

Lukmann said that the property owners have 30 days to accept the town’s offers. Should a property owner decline an offer, the town will then pursue an eminent domain action.

Lukmann added that the cost of land needed for Phase II of the project, scheduled for 2009, should be substantially less than the cost of that need for Phase I. Funding for the land acquisition will come from the revenues of the town’s tax increment financing district, administered by the Redevelopment Commission.

Aerial Bid Under Advisement

In other business, members voted 5-0 to take under advisement Fire Chief Warren “Skip” Highwood’s recommendation to award the bid for a new aerial to Central States Fire Apparatus LLC. Central States, which bid $749,950 for a Rosenbaugher aerial, was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, Lukmann told the council.

Deputy Fire Chief Mike Orlich has said that he expects to make a down payment on the new aerial of $200,000: $100,000 previously committed by Westchester Township and $100,000 from Cumulative Capital Development (CCD), a fund with a dedicated tax rate used exclusively for the purchase of police and fire vehicles.

Under a 10-year lease-purchase, the town would probably pay a maximum of $90,000 per annum in CCD moneys. Clerk-Treasurer Gayle Polakowski has said that sufficient moneys would remain available to the Chesterton Police Department to make its annual purchase of new squads.

New Truck, Gear

For the Street Department

Members also voted 5-0 to authorize Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg to advertise for bids for a new dump truck, to be opened at the council’s April 14 meeting. Schnadenberg has said that it’s his general policy to replace dump trucks in the fleet after 12 years of service and that he would like to rotate his oldest, a 1991 truck, out of the fleet and put it up for auction, move a 1995 truck into its place, and acquire a new one on a lease-purchase, at an estimated cost of $115,000.

In addition, members voted 5-0 to authorize Schnadenberg to acquire some diagnostic computer equipment as well as some other gear and tools for Central Services, which maintains and repairs the town’s fleet of vehicles, at an estimated cost of $10,000. At a special meeting earlier in the evening, members agreed to use CEDIT funds to defray those purchases.

Springdale

Members did not vote, however, on a proposed amendment to the ordinance which governs the Springdale planned unit development ordinance, after Lukmann said that a notice to consider the ordinance at Monday’s meeting appears not to have been published.

That amendment—endorsed by the Advisory Plan Commission by a 5-1 vote—would provide for a variance from the Zoning Ordinance which mandates a maximum lot coverage of 30 percent for interior lots and 40 percent for corner lots. Depending on the floor plan of the house and the kind of lot, coverages for specified lots would vary from 32.3 percent to 43.6 percent under that amendment. Attorney Greg Babcock, representing developers Larry Wright and Don Coker, said that the amendment “would allow for larger units, smaller yards and less maintenance, and more amenities inside.”

The council will consider the amendment at its next meeting, March 24.

Last Thoughts

Member Jeff Trout, R-2nd, took a moment at the end of the meeting to voice his desire to keep the re-modeling of the former United Tractor facility at 116 N. 15th St. on the “front burner.”

For his part Member Emerson DeLaney asked his colleagues to consider scheduling a special meeting, early in April, on a service evaluation study of the Chesterton Fire Department. That study would address the level of service which the CFD currently provides as well as “look into the future,” DeLaney said.

Posted 3/12/2008