By KEVIN NEVERS

George Stone, president of the Chesterton Plan Commission, has never been shy about voicing his dislike of gated communities.

They are, he has lost no opportunity to argue, elitist and undemocratic and as such have no place in the fair Town of Chesterton. On those grounds, moreover, Stone has routinely voted against Estates of Sand Creek (ESC) VI: when it came time, for instance, to endorse the planned unit development ordinance which governs that gated project and more recently when it came time to endorse an amendment to that PUD ordinance.

So at the commission’s meeting Thursday, Stone positively bubbled over with gotcha when he thought he’d found a chance to deliver a kill shot to the gates of ESC VI, located south of Porter Ave., west of Friday Road, and north of Sand Creek.

The circumstances: Kevin Warren, director of land development for the Lake Erie Land Company, was appearing before the commission for the concept review of ESC VII, a 7.5-acre parcel slated for 38 single-family homes.

The problem, as Stone saw it: ESC VII is located immediately west of and adjacent to ESC VI and is, for all practical purposes, landlocked—unless, that is, its residents can access it via the same drive which the residents of ESC VII will use, off Friday Road and aligned with Burdick Road.

But, as Stone noted with something like glee, if ESC VI is gated, then the residents of ESC VII would appear not to have access to their homes. “At a minimum,” he told Warren, a binding easement needs to be written into the ESC VI PUD to allow the residents of ESC VII to travel through that development on their way to their own. Or—better yet—the Lake Erie Land Company could simply forgo the gates altogether.

An easement, Warren replied, is “not a problem at all. We can put the language in.”

Stone indicated that he would have preferred the other alternative.

Public Hearings

In other business, planners convened four public hearings:

•The first petition was on the planners’ own petition, for a proposed correction to the Chesterton Zone Map which would remedy a mistake made when the map was last updated, in July 2002, when three parcels in the area east of Ind. 49 and south of Tremont Road supposed to be zoned light-industrial I-1 were inadvertently change to single-family residential R-1. Planners voted 7-0 to endorse that correction and it will now go to the Town Council for action. At the public hearing which preceded the vote, no one spoke in favor of the petition and no one in opposition to it.

•The second public hearing was on the primary plat for Dogwood Estates, an 88-lot single-family project under development by Bob and Shane Mitchell on a 37-acre parcel located north of C.R. 1100N, east of Pearson Road, and adjacent to the Brassie Golf Club to the west and Dogwood Park soccer field to the east. Planners voted 7-0 to approve the primary plat. At the public hearing which preceded the vote, no one spoke in favor of the petition and no one in opposition to it.

•The third public hearing was on the primary plat for Abercrombie Woods, a 288-unit double-family project under development by Dale and Mary Hiteman on a 75-acre parcel located between C.R. 1050N and C.R. 1000N and west of C.R. 200W. Planners voted 6-1 to approve the primary plat, contingent on the receipt of a “regional permit” from the Army Corps of Engineers, a document issued when less than 10 percent of an acre of wetland will be disturbed by development. Planner Mike Furois voted against the motion. At the public hearing which preceded the vote, no one spoke in favor of the petition and no one against it.

•The fourth public hearing was on the primary plat for Block 29 of the Second Addition to Coffee Creek Center, a 1.5-acre parcel located west of Dickinson Road between Sidewalk Road and Voyage Blvd. and consisting of 10 smallish single-family lots and one lot reserved for open space. Although planners voted 7-0 to continue the public hearing to its next meeting, Sept. 18, they did voice their appreciation of a change made by Lake Erie Land in the configuration of the access drive, an extension of Gossett Mill Ave. in Morgan’s Corner which planners suggested at their July meeting might have turning radii too sharp for fire engines and other large vehicles. Warren told planners Thursday that those radii had been duly softened. Prior to planners’ continuance, no one spoke in opposition to the petition but one person did speak in favor of it. “I’m in favor of the project,” Cliff Fleming said. “I think it’s a nice little neighborhood that’s being created.”

Preliminary Hearings

By 7-0 votes planners also agreed to schedule two public hearings at their next meeting. The first will be on the petition of Tom Roberts for an amendment to the planned unit development ordinance which governs the Pumpkin Patch. That amendment would modify the plan of development for the project by removing Apple Way, a north-south access drive at the western edge of the development which was supposed to have linked the east-west Victor Drive on the northern edge of the development to an access drive in the site immediately to the west of the Pumpkin Patch. But the developer of the site to the west, 370 Indian Boundary LLC, has agreed to re-locate its own access road, linking it directly to Victor Drive and thus eliminating the need for the Apple Way jog.

The Pumpkin Patch will be built in two phases. Phase I will consist of a four-lot commercial strip along Indian Boundary Road; Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar and City Savings Bank, formerly Michigan City Savings and Loan, have begun construction on two of those lots, while a third business, Advance Auto Parts, has indicated an interest in a third lot. Phase II will consist of a fifth lot—Lot 5—located north of the strip, on which Roberts has proposed tentative plans to build 12 four-plexes, for a total of 48 units, designed chiefly for seniors interested in downsizing.

The second public hearing scheduled for the planners’ next meeting will be on the primary plat for 370 Indian Boundary LLC, whose partners are developing Phase II of the Jewel/Osco PUD district at the northeastern corner of the intersection of Indian Boundary and Council Drive.

As it happens, the Town Council is scheduled to consider at its meeting at 7 p.m. today an amendment to the PUD ordinance which governs Phase II. That amendment would reduce the number of permitted buildings on the parcel from four to three but increase the total square footage allowed by the ordinance from approximately 20,200 to 29,200; would add several uses to those already permitted by the ordinance, namely, a bank or credit union with a three-lane drive-through, an ATM machine with a fourth drive-through lane, and drive-in/drive-through establishment; and would re-locate to the north end of the parcel a 31-foot utility easement which currently bisects the site and has complicated parking there.

Bits and Pieces

•Planners voted 7-0 to extend to Sept. 1, 2004, the deadline for the completion of sidewalks at Parkview Place, contingent on the receipt of a revised letter of credit by Sept. 8.

•Town Engineer Mark O’Dell advised planners that he has prepared for their review a land-use map as part of the ongoing revision of the Chesterton Comprehensive Plan.

•Mike Aylesworth, executive director of the Porter County Builders Association, took a moment at the end of the meeting to introduce himself and open the lines of communication between planners and the PCBA.

Posted 8/25/2003