The clock is ticking for Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc. (SEH), the consultant under contract with the Town of Chesterton to prepare a new Comprehensive Plan.

The contract deadline for completing both the Comprehensive Plan and a Downtown Overlay District is March 31 and at least one member of the Plan Commission fears that SEH could blow that deadline by a bunch.

At the commission’s meeting Thursday night, planner Emerson DeLaney—who also sits on the Town Council, R-5th—enumerated several deficiencies in the draft version of the Comprehensive Plan and noted that to date he hasn’t even seen a rough draft of the Downtown Overlay District.

In fact the commission was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the new Comprehensive Plan on Thursday, so it’s rather a good thing that no one showed up to speak up, as Town Manager Bernie Doyle recommended postponing the public hearing to give SEH time to put some finishing touches on the document as well as staff time to review it.

Planners duly voted 4-0 to continue the public hearing at its next meeting, April 15, but DeLaney wanted to know why no one from SEH was in attendance on Thursday.

Doyle told DeLaney that he told SEH to take the night off, given the likelihood that planners would continue the public hearing.

DeLaney, however, made it clear that he really wants to talk to SEH, all the more so because SEH is probably going to have to petition the Town Council formally for an extension of the contract deadline. And inasmuch as the Town Council meets only once more before March 31—on Monday, March 22—SEH has only one chance to make that petition or risk defaulting on the contract, DeLaney said.

Among other problems, the draft version of the new Comprehensive Plan does not provide a timeline for certain objectives nor a list of the responsible parties for pursuing those objectives, DeLaney noted. It also fails to include the Dickinson Road extension in “Transportation Plan Recommendations” on page 66, although it does include among those recommendations an “Indian Boundary Road Sub-Area Plan,” whatever that is, DeLaney said.

And then there’s the matter of the Downtown Overlay District. “It’s of the utmost importance,” DeLaney said. “That’s over 10 percent of the plan and I haven’t even seen a rough draft of it yet.”

Forget the public hearing scheduled for Thursday’s meeting. “I don’t see (SEH) being ready by April,” DeLaney concluded.

In other business, planners voted 4-0 to endorse several amendments to the Zoning Ordinance permitting new kinds of signage in town:

•Projecting or blade signs: A business may erect one such sign, so long as it is at least seven feet and no more than nine feet in height as measured from grade; no greater than four square feet in gross surface area; and not internally illuminated. The total size of a blade sign will not count against the maximum gross surface area allowed a business for signage.

•Sandwich signs: A business may display one such sign, not exceeding 10 square feet, at least one foot off the street or curb line and permitting at least three feet of passage for pedestrians. The total size of a sandwich sign will not count against the maximum gross surface area allowed a business for signage.

•Window signs or displays: A business may place “on the interior portion of a window” any “non-illuminated” sign or display, and it will not count against the maximum gross surface area allowed a business for signage.

•Legal nonconforming signs: The amendment establishes five conditions under which a legally nonconforming sign must be removed. For instance: when the height, gross surface area, or location of the sign is changed.

The amendments in question were recommended to the commission by a group of Downtown businesspeople, one of whom, Machelle Blount, spoke briefly in favor of the ordinance at a public hearing which preceded the vote. No one spoke in opposition to the ordinance.

Planner Fred Owens, not in attendance, had previously submitted a note to the commission in which he expressed his support of the ordinance.

Planners George Stone and Jeff Trout were not in attendance.

The ordinance will now go before the Town Council for consideration.

Posted 3/19/2010