Commissioners discuss new Subdivision Control Ordinance
- Nathaniel Smith | Editor-in-Chief
- Oct 23
- 5 min read
The October 21 Commissioners Meeting, which once again featured Commissioner Phillip Marshall’s absence, began with an alteration to the agenda. The agenda item “Memorandum of Understanding – Washington County Fair Board & Washington County” was tabled by Commissioner Todd Ewen and Commissioner Tony Cardwell. It is likely to be discussed at the next meeting on November 4. Following this and the approval of the agenda, Commissioner Ewen moved on to public comments and invited Max Greene forward to speak.
“I was hoping to have the third commissioner here so that it might make a difference, but I’m going to go ahead and present anyway,” began Max Greene. “The public meeting on the ordinance, best I can tell, did not meet the state requirements under IC 5-14-1.5-2.9 which requires that they comply with Section 2 (D): ‘a governing body shall include the website of the live stream transmission, archived copies and live stream transmissions for all meetings and meeting notices.’ It also Section (E): ‘a governing body may instead record if they do not have internet capacities.’ And some of the boards have live stream capacities and still haven’t been compliant with state law yet. It’s been in effect since July.
“I’m going to say that these failures are what caused the court to overturn the county in the Turner case just last year,” Greene continued. “Judge Medlock decided that they couldn’t have a 60 foot setback because they couldn’t prove they had a legal notification to the public. It appears that you’re just opening up for the same thing all over again. The new subdivision control ordinance for Washington County is to replace the old ordinance, which was in effect from May 2011. The problem is that the new ordinance does not meet the legal requirements under Indiana Code 36-7-4-702 which states:
minimum width, depth, and area of lots in the subdivision;
public way widths, grades, curves, and the coordination of subdivision public ways with current and planned public ways; and
the extension of water, sewer, and other municipal services.
The old ordinance that the county has right now has all of that written out. It has the grades and the curves and everything that is required, but the new one doesn’t have that. I’m asking us to go back to the committee and actually take the new ideas and combine them with the old, which is actually legal, instead of replacing it with a new ordinance that does not comply with state law. And in saying that also. We have three commissioners in the county. One of them who is actually sitting on the board right now, doesn't reside within the jurisdiction of the board and doesn't have a skin in the game. I think the other commissioner, the one who actually does have skin in the game, should be considered to be put on this planning board when it goes back to be reevaluated and written in a proper way for the public. That's not to say that the commissioner doesn't have the ability and authority to serve on that board, but it's the rest of the members that have to reside or in the jurisdiction of the board and and abide by the same rules where in the two mile fringe they have, for instance, a 1,500 foot setback from confined feeding operations, when out in the county it's only 400 feet. I think they should provide the same statutes that the rest of the county does on anything they go forward with.”
Following Max Greene, Lucy Brenton then approached the stand to utilize her time.
“Good morning Todd. Good morning Tony,” Brenton said. “I'm sorry to see Phillip's not here, so I hope we all keep him in our thoughts and prayers. He's got some rough roads to handle. So, I'm coming before us this morning to talk about the subdivision plan. I sit on the planning commission, and I voted against the subdivision the way it is currently sitting for a number of reasons. There are a number of anomalies that are in the current subdivision plan that has been proposed and contradictions. For example, in the administrative section on page four, it says that 'the section shall provide procedures including less than five parcels.' So, less than five by definition would be four, three, two or one, including the parent tract. But yet when we go just a few sentences down to applicability, it says the division of land into no more than five parcels, including the remainder of the parent tract, at least one.
“So, here we have one. That's an internal contradiction there,” Brenton continued. “If we go to the minor subdivision, it has something which I think is kind of similar. So, the section shall provide procedures for subdivisions that include more than five, but no more than eight. So that would be by definition six, seven and eight because it has to be more than five. But if we go back to the minor subdivision, it said that it had to be less than five. So, we literally have a situation where the administration says it has to be four, three, two or one, and then the minor says it has to be six, seven or eight. We literally don't have a plan for somebody having five, which is kind of weird. I didn't catch that in the Planning Commission when we were looking at that. So, that's something that we need to catch. We need to be looking for more of those anomalies. Another thing that I think is really unfair and not well thought out, is that there's a rule in there that there would be no more than three parcels per easement. And that really restricts the ability to subdivide property in such a way that is useful to the people who are using it.
“The whole point of this is to have guidelines so that people can have their property divided in a way that works for them,” added Brenton. “And by putting these kinds of restrictions there, ahead of having an actual situation where we can see how that actually applies, we're putting ourselves in a situation that might affect you later. As I talked about at the Planning Commission with regards to surveys letter H says under minor that plot plans prepared by a surveyor must be submitted. Right now, if I had 100 acres, I could just put a line right through the middle of it, and they would take that line that's written on a piece of paper. I wouldn't have to go and have a survey done for thousands and thousands of dollars. The thing that I would like to see most in this is the removal of the number of parcels that things are subdivided into. Because there's really very little difference between the less than five and more than five, leaving number five orphaned. And, I'd like to see a complete and utter exemption and waiver for families that are dividing. No family should be affected by this.”
“We will take all these things under advisement. I've spoken to Mr. Cardwell about one in particular. I appreciate that. Thank you for your time,” said Commissioner Ewen.
Ewen then invited Attorney Lisa Fleming forward to read through the entirety of the new proposed Subdivision Control Ordinance. The full ordinance can be found below:
Following a brief Health Board reappointment for Janet Hinds and short updates from Paul Eckart and Rick Voyles, the October 21 Board of Commissioners meeting was promptly adjourned.
Comments