Greenwood council keeps 1 Walker Farms commitment, despite legal questions

Two restrictions placed on the developer seeking to build a housing development on the Walker Farms properties were removed Monday night by the Greenwood City Council.

However, council members opted to keep one restriction in place despite questions about its legality and accusations they were usurping the authority of another city board.

Apollo Developers has planned housing projects on about 113.5 acres of land on both the north and south sides of Main Street next to Greenwood Christian Academy High School and the Community Church of Greenwood. The city council placed three commitments on the developer during a city council meeting in February over the concerns of city planning staff.

The commitments passed by the council then were as follows:

• No vehicular connection at Faith Street in Villa Heights, at Green Valley Drive and to Lea Lane in Green Valley Estates;
• Adding a four-way stop at the intersection of Covered Bridge Road and Timber Trail; and
• Making a southern exit at Smith Valley Road to be a right turn in and out only.

The council was asked to reconsider the commitments, which led to a lengthy discussion during Monday’s city council meeting. Both the developer and city planning staff gave presentations on why they should be removed.

Council members ultimately kept restriction on vehicular connections, after a vote to remove it failed 3-5. A vote to remove the four-way stop requirement passed 5-3, while a vote to remove the right-in, right-out restriction passed 8-0. Council member Michael Williams was absent from the meeting.

Keeping the status quo

Dozens of nearby residents came to Monday’s council meeting, asking the council to keep the commitments in place during public comments before the modification request was heard.

Those who spoke all expressed safety concerns, saying any changes would put them at risk. Resident Mark Webb talked about how the city’s website tells those looking to move to Greenwood that it has safe streets and walkable neighborhoods. Changing the commitments would put this at risk, he said.

Webb also said the council members who voted in favor of the commitments “made the right choice.”

Another resident, Kyle Jones, argued that connecting the new development’s streets to old subdivisions will lead to more cars, which would make it harder to safely teach children how to ride their bikes.

“I would encourage you to not connect vehicular traffic to the neighborhoods that do not have sidewalks,” Jones said. “There’s a thousand ways to connect the streets and neighborhoods in the new development.”

Patrick Olmstead, an attorney who previously advocated for the commitments, found it ironic that city staff were arguing against the council’s decision. There are plenty of neighborhoods that already have only a single entrance in Greenwood, he said.

Patricia Chaney, a long-time Villa Heights resident, asked the council to seriously consider the decision they’ll make. She also expressed concerns about how increased traffic would impact kids getting safely to a playground at the nearby Church of God.

“… How can they go safely to a church when the streets are going to be so crowded with additional traffic?” Chaney said.

Barry Clardy, a bishop at the church, told the council he was concerned about how close a connected street would cut into properties near Love Avenue and Faith Street. The stub street there is already very short, and the extension would be very close to homes, he said

He was concerned about possible property devaluations for those in this area too, he said.

Asking for changes

After Apollo Developers Principal Ed Hamilton informed the city council of which commitments they wanted to be removed, council member David Hopper asked what was preventing Apollo from moving forward with them in place. The three commitments would require Apollo to get waivers from the city’s Advisory Plan Commission, as they conflict with the unified development ordinance’s requirements, he said.

Council member Erin Betron also questioned why the developer was asking for the modifications, rather than getting the waivers.

Hamilton emphasized he was there because of the UDO conflict, not because Apollo wanted the connections. However, he did say it was very atypical for them to not have connections, as it is good planning logic.

“Ultimately it’s not up for us to decide, it’s going to be up to, through the platting process,” Hamilton said.

Planning Director Gabe Nelson told the city council that having connected streets has been in the city’s zoning code for decades, with Nelson finding a reference as far back as 1962. Stub streets were intended for connectivity, he said.

“I believe we’ve committed a developer to break our own unified development ordinance, and the unified development ordinance is a local law,” Nelson said.

Street network connectivity helps reduce traffic volume, while also reducing delays on major streets. Higher street connectivity has been shown to create safer traffic too, Nelson said.

As for response times, a 2008 study in Charlotte, North Carolina, saw faster response times when more streets were connected. An analysis of the proposed development area in Greenwood showed the northern parcel seeing response times drop to four minutes with connected streets, he said.

As for the stop sign restriction, City Engineer Mark St. John said the decision to install a stop sign should be based on an engineering study, which is not only a state requirement but a federal one. He told the council he was not there to say it shouldn’t be installed, but that it wasn’t the right phase of the process to determine that since it was just a rezoning ordinance.

Concerning the right turn restriction at the Smith Valley Road entrance, the now-completed traffic impact study found that a full-access drive operates appropriately in the area. He doesn’t believe the turn restriction is needed, he said.

Questions about legality

Planning and legal staff expressed concerns about the legal implications if the developer is forced to comply. Nelson said it could open the city to more scrutiny.

City council member Linda Gibson asked what state law stated about stub streets. Statue says the city has to have a subdivision control ordinance, and that the standards of it, including for public ways like streets, could be waived by the plan commission — not the city council, said Shawna Koons, city attorney.

“The Indiana legislature has vested the plan commission with the authority and jurisdiction to waive your subdivision control requirements. It does not lie with this body,” Koons said. “When you put a commitment on like that, you can’t order them to grant a waiver either.”

“So you don’t really have the authority to do that. It’s a concern for me,” she said.

Koons also expressed concern about the council’s attempt to regulate land use and development, which is a police power. It is against public policy for the council to contract away police power. This authority lies with the plan commission, she said.

“You don’t put in a commitment document, ‘we’re not going to enforce our ordinance,’ that would be contracting away your police power, enforcement authority,” Koon said.

Koons acknowledged she was not a judge and didn’t know what a judge would decide, however, she felt the council should have all the information for their decision because she didn’t want them to be in front of a judge, she said.

Gibson also asked what could change with the development going forward. A primary plat hasn’t been submitted yet, and while Apollo has given no indication of backing out of the project, the land has already been rezoned for residential. This means a different developer could bring a project in and the city council would have no say over what it could be, Nelson said.

Later, Gibson asked what options the council would have if this were to be the case. The council could enact a zone map change unilaterally, but it’s not something Nelson would recommend, he said.

Bad policy?

Hopper was OK with removing the stop sign and Smith Valley Road exit commitments. He was not in favor of removing the commitment that restricted street connections though, he said.

“I just think No. 1 is bad policy. We’re telling them that we want to put more cars on the road,” Hopper said.

If it is bad policy, the council should change it, Koons said in response. Hopper said they should.

Reading from his copy of the council members’ oath of office, council member Dave Lekse said he took an oath to uphold the laws. He has to uphold them whether he likes it or not, he said. Gibson agreed.

Council member Steve Moan said the council had an obligation to do what is best for the city. While he wished the land would remain farmland, he liked what the Walker developer would be, he said.

Moan lives on a street with no sidewalks that is a dead end. He said there are numerous other examples of times when the UDO wasn’t followed or was waived.

“We made this commitment to these neighborhoods that we were not going to connect this, and I think that it would be a disservice to them — the folks that put us up here, that trust in our decisions — to go back on that word,” Moan said. The dozens of residents in attendance applauded.

Betron had a similar viewpoint, saying sometimes it’s better to do the right thing than to be right.

“If we aren’t right by … not putting a change to this, then we have the ability to make it right by changing the UDO or making an amendment to the UDO,” she said.

Council member Ezra Hill said sometimes there needs to be exceptions to the rules. He’s pro-development, but council members need to keep their constituents in mind, he said.

Nelson responded to these comments by reminding the council the body responsible for making restrictions of this kind is the plan commission.

“It is not the common council. This is an overreach of the common council,” Nelson said.

Before rendering their votes, Gibson asked if the council could table action to get to the plan commission to look at the UDO and see what modifications may need to be made to the street connections section. It would be a 60-day process to submit the paperwork for the request, which includes additional expenses and engineering work. The developer would also have to be asked, Nelson said.

All of this could be skipped for the commission to give an informal opinion, but it wouldn’t be a vote, he said.

The final votes by the council were as follows:

• Removing the vehicular connection commitment — Failed 3-5, with Betron, Hill, Hopper, Moan and council member Teri Manship voting against.
• Removing the stop sign commitment — Passed 5-3, with Betron Hill and Moan voting against.
• Removing the right-in, right-out commitment — Passed unanimously in an 8-0 vote.