Stellar

New Comp Plan for Culver

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For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to get Culver to consider a Comprehensive Plan update. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. It’s just good practice. Most of the time it is recommended that a town’s comprehensive plan is reviewed and updated every five years with a new one completed every ten to fifteen years. Culver’s current comp plan was completed in 2014. I really thought we should have done this in 2020 since we could have called it Culver’s 20/20 vision, but last year was, um, challenging, to say the least. I bet there would have been good Zoom participation just out of boredom though!
  2. Stellar… The two Stellar Strategic Action Plans that brought us Stellar designation used the 2014 comp plan as a jumping off point. (As they should have.) For that reason, most of the readily achievable goals and even a few aspirational goals have been met or at least advanced. No sense sitting our our laurels. What are the next things we need to achieve?
  3. Future grants will require an updated comprehensive plan. The Stellar program required a comp plan no more than five years old. Other grant opportunities may hinge on that as well. If that’s the case, a comp plan can’t be updated overnight.
  4. Our community has changed physically. We’ve added the housing at Sand Hill Farm. There are 72 new residences there since the last comp plan and many of those are new faces in Culver. The Maple Ridge housing was not here in 2014. More than a few infill lots have seen homes constructed, while we have lost the trailer park, the City Tavern building, the Evil Czech building and the Boetsma property has been partially destroyed by fire. We have annexed new property on the northwest side of town. We have accepted the East Shore Sewer Corporation into Culver’s wastewater system.
  5. Our Community leadership has changed. Ginny Munroe has stepped down from the Town Council. Her leadership in spearheading the Stellar effort was invaluable. Tammy Shaffer stepped out of town leadership after being an important part of the Town Council and Redevelopment Commission. Pete Peterson, a long time Plan Commission stalwart has retired and sadly, some community leaders like Ralph Winters have passed away… New people have stepped up to replace them and their voices need to be represented in a new comp plan.
  6. Building Commissioner Chuck DeWitt has asked the Plan Commission to start a monthly review of the Comprehensive Plan in advance of an update or new plan. The Plan Commission will take up a couple of chapters a month. As always, the Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals are seeing new challenges to the Zoning Ordinance, which is based on the goals and aspirations of the Comprehensive Plan. We have new types of development occurring, such as the RV storage facilities planned at the end of Main Street, which will involve another annexation. These things need to be addressed in the comp plan.

Some things on my agenda?

  • I was disappointed that Culver didn’t work harder to obtain our allowed 2 mile extraterritorial boundary. We were already sorely below the allowable area, but since the last comp plan, we have annexed land to the north and west and we’re about to annex land to the south. There has been no expansion of our extraterritorial boundary with this growth.
  • Since I served on the previous Comprehensive Plan Committee, I have become more in tune to housing and housing needs. The video below is an example of how we could adjust our zoning requirements to allow new and different affordable housing. Should we be a bit more progressive, consider new urbanism and other non-traditional zoning options?
  • Little was done to advance zoning changes to reflect the land use planning included in the last comp plan. We need to be more proactive.
  • More education is needed on the use of the comp plan. (Part of this is due to the change over talked about above, so there are new people involved.) The Plan Commission has done better with it’s referencing of the comp plan, but it is still not regularly referred to by the Town Council when decisions are being made regarding infrastructure. It is still too common to see projects that address today’s needs without addressing future potential. The sewer lines at Sand Hill Farm were not extended nor at the correct depth for future growth in the area. Can we do better with the annexation and infrastructure extensions we’re getting ready to do to the south? When the (now defunct) PUD was created for housing on the west side, the comp plan’s goal of extending Academy Road to S.R. 17 was ignored. (The developer should have been required to plan for it on his property and Culver could have worked on the remaining pieces needed as development progressed in the future.)

I was pleased to hear that the Plan Commission is starting the discussion. A revised comp plan will lead to a zoning ordinance update, a new strategic plan and hopefully a new list of accomplishments for Culver to start working on. Jim Dicke once told me, “Towns are growing or dying. There is no way to remain the same.” Culver is on a growth trajectory. We need to keep that going!

The Paddocks Ribbon Cutting

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The ribbon cutting for The Paddocks Apartments in Culver is scheduled for July 24th. We’re working on making this a town event. We have sent out invitation to local civic groups and the Chamber of Commerce is working on recruiting businesses to participate.

The Paddocks is the result of years of local work to solve Culver’s Workforce Housing issue. This began with with citizen input pointing out the need in the last Comprehensive Plan effort. That lead to the creation of a Workforce Housing Committee. From that committee came the research that lead Culver to pursue Stellar designation. The main goal in pursuing Stellar was to qualify for a tax credit set-aside for a Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) project. That project is The Paddocks.

506 Cavalier Drive under construction

From its construction start to in 2019 to its completion this year, The Paddocks has been observed closely. It has prompted Plymouth and LaPaz to pursue a LIHTC project under Marshall County. This ribbon cutting is the culmination of this.

As we’ve discussed in our invitations, The Paddocks has brought 25 new families to Culver so far. It is up to the rest of Culver’s citizens, businesses and civic groups to make these new residents into community members and good citizens.

L.G. Suzanne Crouch

Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch will be here to help celebrate the project Part of her duties as Lieutenant Governor is to oversee OCRA and IHCDA. OCRA oversees the Stellar program and IHCDA oversees the tax credit program. L.G. Crouch was here when Culver first achieved Stellar designation, so we’re pleased that she can come back and see the fruits of our labor.

We’re hoping this is an event that is the start of something good for Culver. Those 25 new families have brought 20 new kids to Culver Schools and some of these new residents are already working in local businesses. This is a great opportunity for Culver to come together.

Update on The Paddocks 5-20-20

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Fieldstone facade at The Paddocks

Progress has continued on The Paddocks Apartments and Townhouses over the past month. The first building erected was a townhouse building. The exterior is not complete with the exception of the garage doors which are scheduled to be installed within the next week. We upgraded the initially specified faux stone facade accents to actual fieldstone. It looks great! This also follows Culver’s Charrette recommendations for continuing a fieldstone theme on new construction in Culver wherever possible. The driveway base is in place and we are working on scheduling asphalt. Paving may have to wait until the second drive is complete, but Phend & Brown is looking at ways to expedite this for us.

Kitchen with Prime Paint

Inside the townhouse building, the walls have been insulated, drywall has been hung & finished and painting is underway. We are expecting delivery of cabinets in the next day or two. Things will be changing rapidly there as we move through finishes.

First Apartment Building Insulation Underway

The three apartment buildings are all under roof and are at various stages of completion for infrastructure. We are currently waiting on siding to arrive for installation to begin on those exteriors. All interior infrastructure is in place on the west apartment building and insulation is underway this week. Drywall installation should follow shortly.

Preparing for Slap Pour tomorrow

The second townhouse building at the far end of the site has footings, frostwalls and underslab infrastructure in place. All of the wall panels are on site and framing should begin as soon as the slab has been poured. We expect that to happen yet this week.

The other exciting news here is the finalization of a landscape plan. This project is going for NGBS Silver status and part of that point system requires a Sustainable Landscape. We have contracted with Cardno to provide this for us. We asked them to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council, since some elements differ from current ordinance requirements. That presentation was made on the 12th. You can find more on that, including a short video of that presentation in a previous post here. The plan will go through some additional tweaking, but we have a great start here. We hope to have plantings completed by the end of this year.

Draft Sustainable Landscape Plan as of 5-1-20

We’re pleased with how things are coming together and the kind comments we’re receiving about the project. We continue to feel that this will be a great addition to the Culver community and our proud that this is our contribution to Culver’s Stellar designation.

New Culver Information Sign

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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:

Fieldstone facade at The Paddocks
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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?
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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!

A Sustainable Landscape for The Paddocks

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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.

Draft Sustainable Landscape Plan as of 5-1-20

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.