Culver
Remote Workers
Inside Indiana Business reported that three Indiana Cities took positions in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Ten Places for Remote Workers: Evansville was #3, Lafayette was #5 and Fort Wayne was #10. The topic of remote workers comes up often at the Culver Crossroads meetings. While Culver has done a lot to become attractive to remote workers, I’m not sure we’ve done much to actually attract remote workers.
Culver saw a lot of remote workers during the pandemic. Not surprising that a community of second homes became a desirable location to shelter-in-place. One advantage that Culver had over the cities listed above (for sheltering in place) was our small size. We have many of the necessary amenities without the large population. We undoubtedly missed an opportunity to capture more of those remote workers.
While we have boosted our amenities, we can’t compete with small city amenities such as colleges. (Though to some extend, Culver Academies fills a lot of that gap. That’s not necessarily obvious to someone looking in from the outside.) What we should do is promote our proximity to these. Two of the above cities, Lafayette and Fort Wayne, are within 75 miles of Culver. Lafayette gives us proximity to Purdue. South Bend and Notre Dame are 45 miles away. Chicago is only 76 miles away! Michigan Wine Country is only 76 miles away. We’re only 100 miles of Indianapolis. Yet we only continue to promote Culver as a destination. The Culver Visitors Center promotes itself as Find Culver.
What if we were to also promote Culver as a hub? Marshall County Economic Development Corporation has been doing this with manufacturers for years, pointing out the manufacturing centers and vast population within a 200 mile radius of Marshall County. (One of those interesting statistics is that there are more people within 200 miles of Marshall County, IN than within 200 miles of Atlanta, GA.)
I know we’re still working on things and there are some issues, such as broadband, yet to be solved, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about why Culver is a great place to live, not just a great place to visit. This is an across the board thing. Look at the sign CabinetWorks has promoting working in Culver (above) and the image from their website promoting Culver itself (right). How do we extend their suggestion of working in Culver to living in Culver. Culver assisted Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks bringing in workforce housing. They are in the process of helping two other developers bring in upper income housing. Is it possible to broaden the Culver Visitors Center’s mission to include finding new residents, not just visitors?
Culver Thoughts
I met some Culverites for dinner recently and they asked some questions that got me thinking. I thought I would share some of my thoughts here. I would credit them for some of this, but since I didn’t ask their permission, they get to remain anonymous. Probably safer for them anyway! Ha!
They wanted my thoughts on a new development in Culver. (One they wanted to pursue, not one of the current ones moving through the processes.) To be honest, I found myself struggling to stay positive. That was not the case 6 years ago when Culver was in the middle of their two Stellar applications. I was on those two committees and while there were some naysayers, as there always are, they were far outweighed by those with a sense of enthusiasm and camaraderie that pulled the community together.
To be clear, I don’t want to belittle what has been accomplished in the last few years. Culver’s Stellar designation has been parlayed into two grants awarded through the Regional Cities Initiative, at least five grants from the Marshall County Community Foundation and matching grants from OCRA, IHDCA and INDOT. So far this has resulted in a new Amphitheater in the Park, major renovations to the Beach Lodge, a new sports park with a playground on school property, new walking/biking trails as well as ancillary benefits not directly funded tied to Stellar, but resulting from Stellar.
When we first started down the path of toward Stellar designation, the scuttlebutt was that Stellar had the reputation of a “Mayor Killer”. In several communities that had attempted or received Stellar designations, the Mayor that promoted the effort was voted out in the next term. OCRA’s assessment of this was that this was mostly due to things not happening quickly enough, allowing opponents to point to the outlays involved with Stellar and profess there was no return on the investment.
Culver didn’t really have that issue as there were enough people involved in Stellar and enough of them understood the time lines in order to refute those claims. Ginny Munroe as our de facto Mayor didn’t let things languish and the town remained well informed about the progress. We’ve lost Ginny’s leadership at this point and there is a void with the Council.
Ginny began Culver Crossroads to chart the next steps for Culver, but I feel that it is losing it’s momentum. I initially served on two Culver Crossroads subcommittees which have fizzled out. One is gone and the second is really down to one person doing the work of the committee. The Culver Crossroads steering committee is also serving as the steering committee to revise the comprehensive plan and that feels like it is losing steam as well. It is odd, because I know there are people on that committee that are still motivated and excited about change, but my feeling is that this isn’t translating into much action between meetings.
On top of that, we have community members actively trying to sabotage input surveys with negativity. We have decent projects being opposed in public meetings and in some cases derailed by procedural attacks. We have seen project support pulled without discussion. All of these things are troubling.
To go back to the conversation I referenced above, I don’t feel like the town’s elected leaders and appointed boards have the same appetite for change that they did when Stellar started. They are still moving some things forward, but it feels like it’s being done with a more scatter-shot approach. We’re going back to dealing with individual things in lieu of pursuing our aspirations of bigger and better things. (Blue Zones is an aspirational project and the recent handling of that didn’t look good.) The three largest projects that are being worked on by the town are all projects brought to them by developers rather than projects they have specifically pursued to meet new goals. That’s a switch in mindset.
It’s not hopeless. It’s just harder than it was and harder than it needs to be. Culver Crossroads is working to create new aspirations for the town. Hopefully the town officials will embrace them and move them forward.
Co-Promotion for Culver
The downtown merchants are constantly hitting up the Culver Town Council and Culver Redevelopment Committee for advertising funds and other assistance. (I’m still flabbergasted that the Town is paying to have their sidewalks cleared. That’s an extremely selective benefit!) Meanwhile, I’ve noticed that CabinetWorks has put up several billboards looking to hire. (See Right) There maybe more, but this one was just south of Plymouth on 31 south and there’s another I saw just north of Rochester on 31 north. I also noticed that Lucrezia Trattoria has a billboard on 31 north headed to Plymouth. (Odd placement, but still gets the point across.)
A few thoughts here:
- In terms of return on investment, the Town should really be stepping up to help CabinetWorks. They are one of our top employers, a TIF contributor and probably one of the largest taxpayers. These billboards promote Culver and any & all promotion has to be good for the whole. Has the Town Council checked in on them recently? Are they having trouble and can the Town help?
- CabinetWorks’ position as a major employer also means every one of their employees that does not currently live in Culver is a potential Culver resident. Towns are growing or dying, so if want to continue to grow, we need to help our employers grow and try and capture those employees as residents.
- The Lucrezia Trattoria billboard hits a similar, but different set of eyes. One thing is certain… everyone that comes to eat there is a potential shopper in the surrounding businesses. How those businesses capitalize on that traffic makes a huge difference to our downtown. With a billboard like this, Lucrezia Trattoria is specifically targeting diners from outside Culver and not just the ones with lake homes that already know about Culver.
I have often promoted the idea that downtowns should work like malls to be thrive. To be successful, they need to work together, keep the same hours, run sales on the same days, etc. Culver does this selectively, i.e. sidewalk sale days, but not consistently. On busy restaurant evenings, shops should be open to promote something to do while waiting for a reservation or an option to walk off dinner before heading home. There has been a successful Cupid’s Crawl for Valentine’s Day. How about a St. Patrick’s Day Stumble? We have two Marina’s in Town. How about shutting the street down for an outdoor boat show? The Chamber is no longer doing the Taste of Culver, but I think that’s due to lack of organizers, not because it wasn’t successful. Can the Library be better utilized to have downtown events?
CabinetWorks and Lucrezia Trattoria are going it alone in promoting their businesses, but all of Culver benefits from this exposure. I can’t help but wonder if they know the Town has been using funds for promotions? Can Culver offer to help? Can some co-promotion with other Culver business benefit everyone?
Thoughts on Zoning Hierarchy
So, in the past few months, the Culver Plan Commission has rezoned several properties in what they would have considered spot zoning in the past. Two of these were on the main commercial corridors of Main Street and Lake Shore Drive. The first was at 303 North Main Street. This as the former Easterday Dental Office. The Plan Commission rezoned the property from C-2 to R-1 allowing the former residence turned dental office addition returned to residence to receive a permit for remodeling. The second was at 114 Lake Shore Drive. This was a older house used as a triplex. The Plan Commission rezoned the property from R-1 to R-2 allowing the current use to be legal. (They also rezoned 217 South Ohio Street and 810 South Main Street from R-1 to R-2.) I don’t particularly have an issue with any of these uses, but I think they could have been handled better.
The property on North Main Street is probably the most problematic to me. The Main Street corridor from the current Main Street business district north to Lake Shore Drive has been designated “Commercial” in the last two Comprehensive Plans. This has been followed up with a zoning district designation of C-2 in the Culver Zoning Ordinance. This has allowed the existing homes to remain, “grandfathered” in their current use; thus allowing the house at 303 North Main Street to be used as a dentist office, the house at 307 North Main Street to be used as a residence & art gallery, the house at 313 North Main Street to be used as a beauty parlor with second floor apartments, and the house at 212 North Main Street to be used as a law office with second floor apartment. This also allowed the expansion of Good-To-Go into the adjacent lot to the north without issue a few years ago.
In the case of 307 North Main Street, there was no issue when the owners of the art gallery sold the property and the new owners returned the use to residential only. The problem occurred with 303 North Main Street when the new owners wanted to use the property as a home (allowed), but also wanted to remodel. Remodeling required a building permit and residential use is not allowed in a C-2 district. The solution proposed by the then Building Commissioner and accepted by the Plan Commission was to rezone the property as R-1. When it was brought up that this violated the direction of the Comp Plan, the Comp Plan’s recommendations for this area were questioned. I felt the rezoning was a mistake and that considering rezoning that corridor would just compound that mistake. For one quick example, the Rezoning of 303 North Main Street to R-1 placed a buffer restriction that will be imposed if anything is done with 307 North Main Street: “Any property line abutting said residential district shall be required to be effectively screened in one of the following ways, or a combination thereof: buffering by a dense strip of natural plantings or by a solid of opaque fence.” – Culver Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 3, page 32. This buffer requirement doesn’t exist between commercial properties.
I have paraphrased something Jim Dicke II told me several times in this blog: “Communities are growing or dying. The Status quo cannot remain.” I think this is salient because I know of only two commercial properties that are currently for sale, i.e. 107 & 109 South Main Street and I would not say they are priced to sell. If we want Culver to grow and grow in a controlled manner, we need to provide areas for this to happen. It makes sense to expand our commercial corridor and move towards tying the two commercial districts together. The first step is the corridor from downtown Main Street to Lake Shore Drive.
Within the Culver Zoning Ordinance there is some existing hierarchy of uses. While not a 100% applicable rule, for the most part The I-2 district acceptable uses are allowed in the more restrictive I-1 district. The C-2 district acceptable uses are allowed in the more restrictive C-1 district. The R-1 district uses are allowed in the R-2 district. I think this would be worth considering across zoning districts as well. If this were the case, it would not have been necessary to rezone 303 North Main Street since the residential, R-1, use would have been a lesser use than the C-2 District allows. My rational is that this would have allowed the existing house to continue to be used and remodeled without losing the Town’s long-term goal of expanding the commercial corridor. It would have also kept it abundantly obvious to the land owners that the goal is commercial and not leave them thinking that their future neighbors will automatically be residential. That said, when a cross use is made, it would be easy enough to require any of the more restrictive requirements to be followed, whether it’s the lower use or the higher use, i.e. if a property owner wants to put a house in a C-1 district, this would be allowed, but the R-1 setbacks, impervious surface requirements, etc. of the R-1 district would apply as the more restrictive land use. This idea would require further examination and consideration, but it might be a good first step into some of the more mixed uses being considered in the upcoming Comprehensive Plan.
Personally, I would not only keep this corridor commercial, but would expand the Main Street Commercial Corridor on down to Davis Street and expand the Lake Shore Drive Commercial Corridor west to Main Street. On the south end, there is already commercial property at the corner of Main & Davis. There is already commercial property on both sides of the street on all corners of the Main and Lake Shore Drive intersection. Linking these together makes planning sense. It opens the opportunity for more mixed use little shops and businesses such as the former art gallery at 307 North Main Street and the law office at 212 North Main Street. This would promote more foot traffic between the two commercial areas of town. I am not sure I would find fault in making this C-1 while we’re at it…
Sometimes the desire to be helpful overcomes the mission of long term planning and the vision that involves. It was helpful to the new owners of 303 North Main Street to rezone the property, but there were other options. Sending them to the BZA for a “Variance of Use” would have made more sense. Rezoning is the more radical choice.
This also applies to the other three rezonings that were completed, changing R-1 zoned properties to R-2. This is undoubtedly spot zoning creating a future problem where a problem didn’t exist. All of these properties were grandfathered in their current non-conforming use, but now they are allowed to remodel, upgrade or even tear down and build something that solidifies the use, that doesn’t fit the long range plan, for the foreseeable future. While these property owners believe this “fixed” their problem, in reality, all of these properties would require variance for any changes they want to make as they don’t meet the R-2 requirements either!
Before this escalates from commentary to rant, I’ll leave it at here. It will be interesting to bring these things up as the Comprehensive Plan proceeds.
Our Customers Say…
Ronald W Liechty - President, Garden Court, Inc.
Connections to Culver
March 29, 2023
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver, Tips
Community, Culver, Development, government, Plan Commission, Planned Unit Development, Trends
It came to my attention the other day that there are people suggesting that The Dunes not have a street connection to the Town and only connect to S.R. 17 to the west. This seems ludicrous to me, from a planning standpoint, an economic development standpoint and a citizen involvement standpoint. Aside from the bad planning involved with this idea, it is probably a logistical moot point. 1) S.R. 17 is a limited access highway and INDOT is rather jealous with their driveway permits and 2) Cabinetworks owns the parcel to the west between The Dunes and S.R. 17 and are unlikely to want to bisect it with a road. *The picture to the right shows the relationship between the property being developed as The Dunes and S.R. 17.)
Interestingly though, this seems to be a recurring “problem” in Culver. This goes back to at least the early mid 2000’s when The Riggings were initially developed on the north side of town with its street, Anchors Way. At the time of the initial development, the town required a connection to State Street, but later the development was allowed to void that connection. Similarly, there were no connections required between The Riggings and the adjacent vacant property to the west.
West of the The Riggings, the Maple Ridge PUD subdivision was built a few years later. It again does not connect back into Culver, but only connects out to S.R. 10. Maple Ridge was not required to provide any connection points to adjacent properties.
This came up again with The Paddocks with a suggestion that it connect with S.R. 17 in lieu of Jefferson Street. (The Paddocks connects to Culver on Jefferson Street and includes long range plans to connect back to Academy Road to the north.) And then again, the Culver Meadows development proposed on the NW corner of town by Culver Investment Corp (CIC) was allowed to proceed through the primary PUD process with no connections back to Culver.
The Culver Meadows project was particularly troubling since it was allowed to ignore the Culver Comprehensive Plan recommendations for the extension of Academy Road to S.R.17. The reasoning given for not making the connection a requirement was that there were property owners between Culver Meadows and Academy Road that were opposed to the connection. But that is short-sighted. The Town of Culver is theoretically here in perpetuity. Those homeowners will change over time. Culver Meadows should have been required to provide their portion of the required Right-of-Way through their property and Culver could have waited for the right time to make the connection using that Right-of-Way. CIC was already planning a connection to S.R. 17, so it was just a matter of making that connection where it could serve both needs.
From the developer’s standpoint, these controlled entrances are the next best thing to creating gated communities, but with the benefit of dedicating the streets for municipal maintenance. Theoretically they are reducing traffic in the development to their residents only. This is part of the mindset where we’re seeing more privacy fences and complaints at Council meetings about street traffic. The last drawing I saw for The Dunes has a single entrance and that didn’t even align with adjacent streets. (That drawing is several months old.) There are reasons why towns are laid out on grids and Cul-de-Sac developments lead to more sprawl. (See previous post here.) Grids don’t always work, but the connections are still important.
Connected streets cut down on traffic bottlenecks. What are the residents of The Dunes going to do when street work is required at the entrance? That’s 200 residences with no redundant connection. There is a reason water lines are looped. The same principle applies to streets.
Connected streets promote walking and biking. They invite current residents into the new neighborhoods and vice versa. This is how connections are made. This is where a new resident might get invited to a local Church or civic club. This is how they hear about town initiatives.
Connected streets promote block parties, garage sales and other community involvement activities. The goal of new development goes beyond the head count and ad valorem increase. Culver should want the new residents to become community members. We don’t need more part-time residents and we don’t want to be a bedroom community.
I talked about changing The Dunes’ connections to the town before. (here) I think that idea should be expanded to include additional connections. Make them part of our community for the future. Maybe this is another case made for an Infrastructure Czar… And as far as a connection to S.R. 17? Let’s suggest connection points to the west and south for future development. It’s just good planning.
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