A Sustainable Landscape for The Paddocks
One of the things that IHCDA wanted to see in our RHTC application for The Paddocks Apartments was a Sustainable Landscape Plan. We chose to meet NGBS Silver status for this project.
To help us with this, we contacted Chris Kline, Sustainability Manager, at Cardno. I have personally worked with Chris and Cardno in the past on various projects through my association with the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Fund. Chris brought in Christine Dittmar as the project manager. We had several conversations regarding our goals and preferences including a couple of site visits and several plan reiterations. The current version is what you see below.
The key is a bit hard to read at this scale, so briefly: Green is standard lawn turf. Dark green is a low-mow fescue similar to what you would find in the rough of a golf course. The orange area is a prairie buffer between The Paddocks and the adjacent property. The pink is a detention pond planted as a pollinator garden with native wild flower plants that will have rotating blooms. The dark purple at the top is another detention pond which will have a variety of native plantings that can tolerate the fluctuation of water associated with the pond.
The goal was to have the best of both worlds here. Because this complex is geared towards families, we wanted adequate areas of turf where children would have the opportunity to play. These areas of turf are also used to border the native, naturalized areas, thus giving them definition. In some of the transition areas, we have included fruit trees for interest. Signage will be included to explain to residents and passersby what they are seeing.
Along with the turf recreation areas, Cardno has included a natural playground area, a fire pit and a community garden. An area for a second community garden has been set aside if a second is warranted; otherwise it will remain another area of turf.
We asked Chris to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council which was made at the May 12th meeting via Microsoft Teams. Since this was an online presentation, We also requested that it be recorded to be shared. The presentation to the Council was abbreviated in order to be cognizant of their time, but the long version was recorded here:
It will be interesting to see this come to fruition. We expect the majority of this landscape to be in place yet this year as the site work wraps up. The first units should be available for rent sometime late this summer.
New Culver Information Sign
Marty Oosterbaan gave an Stellar Update to the Culver merchants on the weekly Zoom call Friday. The item that caught my attention was the community sign project. I remembered that from the Stellar presentation and I think it’s a good idea. Basically, the plan is to establish electronic signs in all of the Marshall County communities, similar to the existing Lions Club sign in Culver, where community and regional messages can be displayed. This would be a just another form of communication supplementing internet and newspapers. Community events can be listed and can be cross-listed between the communities to promote local events.
I am working on a similar project for the Francesville Salem Township Public Library so I shared some of those cost estimates. (An electronic sign runs between $25k & $35k per Vanadco Sign) I have a few more thoughts on how this sign should be handled in Culver, so I thought I would share them here:
- I would like to see Culver follow the Charrette recommendations when they think about this and continue the fieldstone theme. The Chamber and the Second Century Committee really pushed this early on and I think it’s worth carrying forward. Their efforts resulted in the fieldstone theme for the Culver sign at 10 & 17, the Lion’s Club sign at the Depot and the stone wall at the turn across from The Root Beer Stand. We’ve gotten away from this, but I think things like that make a statement. We’re using fieldstone accents on the townhomes at The Paddocks for that reason. Personally I was very disappointed when the Firemen went with the faux stone in lieu of the fieldstone that was proposed for their memorial.
- The Chamber of Commerce thought long and hard about the sign at the corner of S.R. 17 and S.R. 10. Other communities were putting up the smaller plastic signs. Marshall County Tourism was giving away some of these and they were installed at three of our other entrances to Town. The Chamber wanted to make a statement with the sign they installed and they wanted that sign to be something substantial and permanent. Stellar should consider this permanence too. Culver should consider kicking in money if the budget is too tight. We should make this one of the things that commemorates the Stellar effort for decades.
- I think there needs to be a lot of care in decisions about where we place this:
- While the best visible place might be above the above mentioned wall on the Lake Shore Drive turn, it should not be placed where it detracts from the Lake, Park or other current picturesque views and vistas.
- The Lions Club sign already serves this function to some extent, so providing some separation to expand the audience, and frankly, space out the visual clutter, would be preferable.
- We have a sign ordinance and while this would be a municipal sign and therefore exempt, those criteria were memorialized in the Zoning Ordinance for a reason and should be considered.
- We should not get hung up on this being a free standing sign. There are options for placing this on buildings where it would be highly visible and such a location would be more cost effective if it work.
- The Francesville Library wants to use the sign to communicate to their community about the library, but then will put community messages on it at other times. Maybe Culver Union Township Public Library is another potential partner?
- There have been efforts in the past to create information kiosks in town. The cost has always turned out to be prohibitive, but this might be an opportunity to combine things like this. Even if it’s not part of the original project, if access to the electrical service can be made available for future uses, that expands the bang for the buck.
- Because this will draw some electricity, working with the various utilities up front may garner free service if they get some accolades. I know NIPSCO and IMPA give economic development grants for things and this could be applicable.
- And a final caution that we do our best to make the back-end bullet proof or as much so as possible. I have been working with Good Oil and they just recently told me about how a kid had figured out how to hack into their network from his cell phone and patch in porn on the TV’s at one of their stores. If you are going to set this up so that the message can be programmed remotely by MC Tourism or other, then it has internet connections and is a target for hackers.
I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential. As always, the Devil is in the Details. Good luck, Marty!
Quote from Larry P. Arnn
“The sacrifices that are demanded of Americans today may be necessary, but they must never become customary. The purpose of our government is to keep us alive, yes, but also to keep us living and working, as is our right.”
Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College – Excerpt from the Imprimis, March/April 2020, Volume 49, Number 3/4
The Paddocks Apartments Progress Article
Jamie Fleury did a nice article on The Paddocks that appeared in the Pilot News and Culver Citizen this past week. As always, we appreciate the press. We continue to get emails from people interested in these apartments so it would appear the need is there. The last I check, there are 15 on the list for when things open up. It’s always good to have that confirmed beyond the market study and the Stellar Committee’s (and before that the Entry Level Housing Committee’s) gut feeling.
The Paddocks, though not known by that name at that time, was the signature project in Culver’s Stellar Communities application in 2016 & 2017. Seeing it come to fruition should be a great boon to Culver and the Town’s efforts to boost our population by providing housing for Culver Community School teachers, Culver Academies staff and ACPI employees.
All the siding is on the first townhome building. As you can see in the above picture, we’re preparing to install the stone veneer accents. Those will be field stone following Culver’s Design Charrette recommendations.
The first building passed it’s NGBS inspection from Energy Diagnostics last week. That’s the outside consulting firm we are using to verify compliance. That allows the first building to move forward with drywall installation next week.
We’ve also been having meetings with Cardno regarding the landscaping. The project will have a sustainable landscape. There will be some limited turf, but there will be other areas with prairie plantings, low-mow fescue and pollinator plantings. We are planning a presentation to the Town since this will fall outside their normal ordinance requirements.
Keep checking here and at the Sand Hill Farm site for updates.
Strange Days Indeed
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed
John Lennon from Nobody Told Me
The above lyrics are a bit of an understatement lately. Everyone’s anxiety is showing. Stress levels are high.
Personally, I’m not stressed about getting sick; I’m stressed about all of the other craziness surrounding Covid-19. The disease itself currently has a surreal feel to me. It has not touched me personally closer than a friend of a friend’s friend. I am cognizant of the threat because my parents are in their eighties. Dad has had heart problems. Both of my siblings have had lung issues. There are health issues with Becky’s family as well. The threat to them is real… but still surreal…
The current top stress for me though is taking care of employees. Construction is considered an essential service and three of our current projects are for businesses that are essential services. Fortunately most of our work is open air at this time, which minimizes the risk. On The Paddocks project, we have multiple buildings under construction. We’re striving to separate the subcontractor crews into different buildings and are providing separate temporary toilet facilities for each building to help with separation. Everyone wants to work, but there is starting to become an issue obtaining materials. Aside from that, the biggest drag on the projects is discussing the virus. That’s probably cut productivity by 10%-15%! Despite being considered essential today, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be considered essential tomorrow. The changes have come fast and the rumors preceding them have varied. Everyone that is still working, is concerned that the next day could be their last.
The other stress right now revolves around what is being imposed by various politicians, government agencies and bureaucracies. (I wonder how many of them understand the thinking behind “Chesterton’s Fence”…) I am averaging one webinar or call per day discussing what has changed since the day before, i.e. what is being done to us. I’ve navigated the SBA morass to try and figure out PPP, both here and for Berger Audiology. I’ve sat in on conference calls with businesses that have been shutdown. I’m buying lunch once a week for employees to try and support local businesses. Some of the stories are heartbreaking and some of those businesses may not survive this.
I’m also very concerned with the three to four trillion dollars in debt that the Federal government assumed with the various virus bills over the last few weeks. It always helps me visualize that when I write it out, so $3,000,000,000,000 That’s a lot of zeros. And that’s on top of a $1,000,000,000,000 deficit already projected for this year. (An interesting/depressing article here.) That debt is real and may well affect me personally in retirement as well as the livelihoods of future generations.
And then there’s the more existential stress. What are we allowing to be done to us out of fear? Businesses are being told to close. Churches can’t hold services… even with social distancing. We’re not allowed to gather in groups greater than 10? The Bill of Rights, Article I, states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Is the loophole here that the State Governors and City Mayors are ordering and enforcing a prohibition on assembly, not Congress? That’s not the way that usually works.
Stress is high all around. We can’t succumb to the fear though. Things CAN be worse…
