A month ago, at the
Chesterton Advisory Plan Commission’s September meeting, Ed Recktenwall,
land development manager of Olthof Homes LLC, told planners that a mistake
made by Olthof in calculating the lot coverage of 22 paired patio homes in
the Springdale planned unit development made them, under the Zoning
Ordinance, unbuildable.
So he asked
planners at the time to amend the PUD ordinance to increase the impervious
surface of those 22 duplexes from the 46 to 51 percent already permitted
under that ordinance, to as much as 55 percent.
Planners were taken
aback, not least because the PUD ordinance as previously approved granted
Olthof much greater lot coverage than the maximum allowed by the Zoning
Ordinance: 30 percent (40 percent for corner lots).
Planners were also
taken aback, because the Springdale PUD is being built on a historically wet
piece of ground, as Olthof is well aware, given the months the developer
spent de-watering the site last year as it was installing infrastructure.
In any case,
planners gave Recktenwall no particular reason to think last month that they
would be amenable to amending the PUD ordinance. So they were probably
pleased to hear from Recktenwall at their meeting Thursday evening, when he
told them that Olthof would appear before the Plan Commission at its meeting
in November to seek a re-plat of the paired patio homes in question.
Recktenwall,
accordingly, formally rescinded the request for the PUD amendment.