Disappointing…
Well, this is disappointing as I struggle through a second bleary-eyed week… Doesn’t sound like Rubio and Kennedy are going to swing this for me…
DST – 2025
How do I feel? Pretty much as crappy as the Daylight Savings Time (DST) change always makes me feel. To add insult to injury, we were at a conference in Vancouver, Washington, the end of last week and just got back yesterday, so DST got multiplied by the three hour time difference to make it all the more fun!
I know President Trump has made some comments about ending DST. I have a little bit of hope that the nonsense could end. Marco Rubio is in the cabinet and as Senator, he championed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would do away with DST. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement surely would support this as well, considering the negative health effects related to DST, i.e. increased heart attacks and strokes.
As always, this is your warning to give me a little leeway for the next week or so. I’ll be grumpy (grumpier) in the morning as my internal clock is slow to reset.
The Remnant Trust
Somewhat a Blast from the Past last week was the discovery of a display of artifacts from The Remnant Trust at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Their mission to preserve historic documents promoting individual liberty and human dignity led them to possess original copies of the Declaration of Independence and others even older, written by the likes of Isaac Newton and Aristotle.
In 2010, we met with the founder of The Remnant Trust, Brian Bex, to discuss an OrthoWorx project to house some of their documents in the former Billy Sunday Museum in Winona Lake. (Billy Sunday was a professional baseball player from the Warsaw area, turned evangelist.) OrthoWorx considered this project part of their effort to address the “trailing spouse” issue they had when attracting employees for the Warsaw Orthopedics industry. Executives being recruited to work in Warsaw reported pushback from their spouses who would rather live in a more urban environment with the associated amenities.
The existing building had a lot of rustic shiplap pine woodwork and didn’t have the feel they wanted for a scholarly museum. Office space was limited and the HVAC was inadequate. It also still had much of the Billy Sunday memorabilia in place. Despite all of this, the price was right and we were hired to implement the renovation. The plans for this renovation were completed by Scearce Rudisel Architects (now SRKM Architecture), under the direction of Mary Ellen Rudisel.
New lighting, office space and flooring were part of the overall renovation giving the space a more updated feel. Some of the woodwork was salvaged and relocated to keep the theme consistent. But the main focus was the vault.
The vault would be where the documents would be stored. Most of these would be stored on shelving in standard library manner, while others were placed in their own cases. It was designed to look unassuming, but that belied the underlying construction. Special effort was made to seal the space so that it was protected from the elements. Walls were steel stud construction with double layers of abuse resistant drywall. The door was designed to look like a standard door, but serve as a high security vault door with environmental seals. Special lighting was installed to assure that no detrimental affects to the documents would be caused. The space was also environmentally controlled by a redundant, high-end HVAC system with temperature control that would keep the vault within 1 degree of temperature set point and within 1 percent of humidity set point whether the vault was empty or occupied. Occupancy varied, since it was vacant the majority of the time, but also allowed for visiting scholars as well as school classes and the occasional Remnant Trust party of 30 or more.
One of the interesting tenets of The Remnant Trust is that these works, while revered, should be accessible. Visiting scholars could be seen wearing gloves and turning pages with microspatulas while visitors from the public are allowed to touch these documents, some many hundreds of years old.
Unfortunately, after a few years at this location, The Remnant Trust found a university benefactor and moved the collection to another location. Warsaw did not prove out to be the best location for visiting scholars and for sharing their collection. It’s a loss to our area. But seeing the smaller display in the Columbia Club reminded me of their work. You can make an appointment to for a private tour here, though it’s open to guests and members to walk through anytime.
Come to Culver. We have too much stuff!
Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to give you community insight. I was having a conversation with a new friend that has acquired several properties in Culver, but isn’t as full time resident. He commented that we have storage facilities at all the entrances to Culver. It was kind of a light bulb moment for me. If you come from the north, there’s Culver Storage near the intersection of 10 & 17. If you come from the west, there’s Culver Storage Solutions at the end of Jefferson Street. If you come from the South, you have the new Executive Storage at the end of South Main Street. We have two marinas with large boat storage facilities. At a recent Redevelopment Commission meeting, a member was complaining that some of the downtown commercial buildings are being used for storage in lieu of retail. We apparently have more stuff than we have garage and closet space!
Now I wouldn’t say that storage is our only above average area. For example, we also have more gymnasiums per capita than the average community. Currently Culver Community Schools has three and plans for a Fourth and Culver Academies has three… or more, depending on your definition, i.e. basketball court or not… (Microsoft Co-Pilot says Culver Academies has 6 gymnasiums.) This kind of data is interesting, but it becomes more concerning if it begins to define us.
This is just commentary, not judgement on whether this is good or bad. But it is, sometimes, valuable to have someone from the outside remind us of what we look like. Just like the Culver Community Charrette pointing out that we had a lot of field stone accents throughout town and that it was something to embrace. Since the Charrette, the Welcome to Culver sign at 10 & 17 was built with field stone, the wall at the LSD curve was covered with field stone and several residents and businesses have incorporated field stone into their landscape walls and building facades.
The storage observation may not be as valuable or something that we want to expand on like the fieldstone theme, but it is something notable. If it’s not something we want to be noticed, maybe we encourage landscaping, screening or buffers. There’s a huge difference in appearance and price between the functional units on the north and the premium units on the south. If somehow this is a Culver trend, how do we embrace it and make it blend into our community?
The 2040 Vision Comprehensive Plan addressed some of these things regarding how we want to be perceived. Now we just need to take some of those goals and make them happen.
Our Customers Say…
MacKenzie Ledley - Executive Director, Pulaski County Public Library
Housing Density Answers from the Past
March 17, 2025
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver, Plymouth
Affordable Housing, Community, Culver, government, housing, Multi-family, Plymouth, Workforce Housing
This is an interesting video with examples of multifamily housing on small lots (3 Flats) as seen in Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. It discusses some of the benefits as well as some of the drawbacks to this type of construction. It also briefly discusses some of the zoning barriers that were put in place to prevent this kind of construction.
It’s interesting that both Culver and Plymouth are looking into how to increase housing density right now, but are facing some pushback on the zoning changes that would be necessary to make this viable. Both communities seem to have active CAVE societies. I’m pretty sure every community has it’s own chapter. Years ago Erik Freeman and I proclaimed Culver’s unofficial motto to be, “Change is Bad; Even if it is Change for the Better”. Cast that as counterpoint to the underlying drumbeat for affordable housing.
Along with the basic zoning barriers, there are are other social and regulatory barriers that would increase challenges. Three story apartment construction would likely force the installation of fire sprinklers. Accessibility might need to be addressed due to the “walk-up” configuration with half a flight or more of stairs. Fire resistant construction between buildings would conflict with escape window requirements for bedrooms. All of these things would make the units safer and universally accessible, but would also drive up the cost. Meanwhile the three examples discussed are still in use in their respective cities; sometimes revered due to their place in the city’s history.
Greater density, even with the cost-increasing challenges listed above, does reduce costs of infrastructure, another big factor in housing affordability. Fewer linear feet of infrastructure is needed per dwelling unit. When this is done for infill properties, it makes better use of infrastructure, including roads, water lines and sewer lines. The one caveat to that is it may well increase impervious surface, further taxing storm water systems, though that is not a given. (They don’t have to be built cheek to jowl as was done historically, particularly in an infill situation.)
Reinventing the wheel can result in some improvements, but also can create some difficulties that were solved in the past. Looking back on what worked, may be part of our solution to the housing shortage problem as we move forward.
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