TOWN OF PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS. October 16, 2006

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1 TOWN OF PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS October 16, 2006 The Plainfield Board of Zoning appeals met on Monday, October 16, In attendance were Mr. Monnett; Ms. Duffer; Mr. Cavanaugh; Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Matrana. ROLL CALL/DETERMINATION OF QUORUM Mr. Carlucci administered the Roll Call. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mr. Gibbs made a motion to approve the minutes of the Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals of September 18, 2006 as submitted. Second by Mr. Monnett. Motion carried. Mr. Cavanaugh abstained from voting on the above minutes because he was not present at that meeting. OATH OF TESTIMONY Mr. Daniel administered the Oath of Testimony PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Matrana reviewed the Guidelines Governing the conduct of Public Hearings. The first matter before the board tonight concerns Southwest Hotel Partners. Mr. James said the representative is not here so we probably should move this petition to the end of the agenda but they just came in so the first request tonight is for a Special Exception to allow serving of alcoholic beverages for the Staybridge Suites at 6295 Cambridge Way in the General Commercial District. Here is the location of the site; Cambridge Way and I-70. The Staybridge Suites is in the General Commercial zoning. The petitioner would like to serve alcohol to hotel guests in the lobby. In order to do this a Special Exception has to be granted by the Board of Zoning Appeals. The Zoning Ordinance does allow this with a Special Exception in the General Commercial District. This request is compatible with other uses in the area around the interchange and hotels and restaurants. Similar requests have been approved with conditions limiting serving hours in the days of the week. A couple of Staff Comments: To allow this a license from the Indiana Alcohol and Beverage Commission is required. The petitioner states that the serving hours will be 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday only in the lobby area and only to hotel guests. As a condition, we have done this with similar requests in the past, that approval is limited to Staybridge Suites and shall not be transferred to a subsequent owner or operator of the facility. The petitioner is here representing the Southwest Hotel Partners and I m sure he would be glad to answer any questions that you might have. Mr. Daniel swore in the petitioners for the Southwest Hotel Partners. Mr. Greg Eslick said I m the General Manager for the hotel. Basically just kind of an amenity for the travelers we have a beer and wine bar in the lobby served by an employee for the hotel two hours in the evening during the week. They are owned by the Door Brothers Hospitality Group, which has about 12 hotels. They have several licenses already and there have been no violations to my knowledge. Mr. Matrana said so you are not asking for permission for alcohol sales for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Mr. Eslick said that is correct. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone in the audience who has any comments regarding this petition? Lady from the audience asked, (inaudible).! 1

2 Mr. Matrana said it says Monday through Thursday. Lady said (inaudible). Mr. Matrana said it does say Friday. My petition here says only Thursday but they did specify no alcohol on Friday, Saturday or Sunday; just four days. Being no one else stepping forward with a public comment I would like to close the public portion of this meeting at this time and open this matter up to the board for discussion and a possible motion. Mr. Monnett said in the past I remember some of them that came through here, but as far as the license from the Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the ones that have been before, are you waiting for us or have you already applied to the State? Mr. Eslick said (inaudible). Mr. Monnett asked, do we need a copy or does it matter? Mr. Carlucci said if they don t have it, they are violating State law and it is a lot worse than what we could do to them. Mr. Daniel said I think condition one also restricts them. Mr. Carlucci said we have a couple of hotels out there, Homestead Suites does this; the new hotel on Gateway Drive all the way around the corner, Wingate has it and maybe one or two more. They all are doing about the same thing; it s two hours and it s just for the guests. It s short term. Ms. Duffer said and this isn t selling alcohol; you are just providing it to the guests. With that I make a motion that the Board of Zoning appeals approve BZA as filed by Southwest Hotels Partners, LLC requesting a Special Exception to allow the serving of alcoholic beverages for on site consumption for the Staybridge Suites at 6295 Cambridge Way located within the GC, General Commercial District subject to the following conditions: 1. A license to serve alcohol is granted by the Indiana Alcohol and Beverage Commission. 2. The serving of alcoholic beverages for on site consumption shall be limited to hotel guests in the lobby area only Monday through Thursday from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. 3. This approval is limited to the Staybridge Suites and shall not be transferred to a subsequent owner or operator of the facility. Second by Mr. Monnett. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett yes Ms. Duffer yes Mr. Cavanaugh yes Mr. Gibbs yes Mr. Matrana yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said the next matter before the board concerns Tami Ratliff. Mr. James said this request is for a Variance of Use to allow a hair salon/day spa in the OD, Office District at 3918 Clarks Creek Road. Here is the site. It is a non-conforming house that has been converted into office space. Prior to this proposed use it has been used as an insurance office. Here is Clarks Creek Road; on the west side is all of the OD District, Office District, which does not allow a beauty salon. The only districts that allow beauty salons are the General Commercial and the Commercial/Industrial. Here is a better look at the aerial of the house and site. It has a two-car garage. It is only about a 1,200 square foot house. There is a gravel parking lot. No site plan has been submitted but in looking at the aerial and based on the square footage of the house only four spaces are needed. It is three and a half spaces for every 1,000 square feet. So, it is a two-car garage. The employees can park in the garage and customers could park in the gravel parking lot as a preexisting use. So, there is enough room for the parking. That is the only development standards! 2

3 that would be effective is the required parking. Here is a photograph of the house. The Comprehensive Plan recommends Mixed Use Office Commercial for this area, which includes a General Commercial in C-I Zoning. The petitioner is proposing only two chairs or workstations. Staff Comments: There are similar uses to the east of I-2 and then to the south in the Office District. No site plan was provided but based on the aerial there is enough space for the required off street parking. Similar uses in the Office District that generate a similar amount of trips are banks; nursery schools and professional offices. There is a professional office here; professional offices over here; this is the I-2; you have three different uses on the site here and three or four uses in the side up here. Down here is some more professional office space. Here is the Metropolis Parkway is currently under construction to the south of the site and once it is completed and opened it will have an impact on surrounding traffic in the area. There will be access to Clarks Creek Road from the Metropolis Parkway. Staff recommends approval limited to two chairs or workstations. It should be limited to the petitioner and not transferred to a subsequent owner and then what conditions is needed by the board to give more of a satisfactory comfort level for approval of this request. Ms. Ratliff is here to answer any questions that you might have. Ms. Tami Ratliff at 6862 E. CR825S, Mooresville said I just wanted to say that I have been a hair stylist in Plainfield since 1985 and I have worked on Clarks Creek Road for about nine years. The house is owned by Mark Keutzer and it was an insurance company and it is not zoned for a hair salon. I would like to seek your approval for a variance and I would like to be a business owner. Mr. Carlucci said it says on the report that it is a hair salon and day spa. What is a day spa? etc. Ms. Ratliff said you can have a massage therapist do facials, Mr. Carlucci said it is good that those things are listed there because you are granting a use variance. Are you going to have nails and things like that? Ms. Ratliff said maybe in the future but not right now. Mr. Carlucci said it is good that you tell us now so that you don t have to come back in in the future. So, other than the hair it would be massage therapy and maybe a manicurist. Ms. Ratliff said I can be a manicurist too. Mr. Carlucci asked, what else do you want listed? Ms. Ratliff said I guess facials. Ms. Duffer said it states here that you are working with two workstations currently. Ms. Ratliff said yes. Ms. Duffer asked, does the house allow for you to have expansion to put in another station or two more stations or does the space limit you to the two? Ms. Ratliff said no I could if I wanted to, I could have more. Mr. Gibbs asked, is there too much restrictions by having only two chairs? Ms. Ratliff said right now I m just going to have two but I could have room to do more if I wanted to later. Mr. Gibbs said if you say two, you will be restricted to that. (Inaudible). Mr. James said she could state that it could be expanded to three. Ms. Ratliff said yes.! 3

4 Mr. Cavanaugh said regardless what services are provided by hair salon or day spa that if it is limited to two workstations, any of those services could apply. So, if you expand it to three, you wouldn t have to worry about a particular service; just the number of stations where you can provide them. By going to three it probably gives you more flexibility and I think that is pretty reasonable. I don t know that we would want someone to have to come back for every new kind of service inside. I think three workstations is probably a good idea. Does it require any type of State license? Ms. Ratliff said yes. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to speak on this matter? Mr. Mark Keutzer said I m the owner of the property that Tami Ratliff is requesting a variance for. I just wanted to let you know that there are several others in the neighborhood, several other day spas and beauty shops, and I don t believe this would, in any way, be a detriment to the neighborhood. I think it would be better than the house setting. I m also the owner of the property adjacent on the south side. I purchased that property for plans in the future. I have discussed this with Mrs. Ratliff. The beauty salon will probably be a short-term affair. At some time in the future I will probably bulldoze this house and I have told her that. But she is willing to take it in the meantime. If this is a viable use that can be made of the building in the meantime, I think it would be beneficial to everybody. If she does open one more chair, I have extra parking next door. If it becomes a problem, there are spaces available over there, if necessary, to bring in a cross parking easement or whatever would be necessary to satisfy the board. I just came up to say I support what she is doing and if you have any questions for me, I will be happy to answer them. Mr. Matrana said with no one else coming forward I will now close the public portion of this meeting and open this matter up to the board for further discussion or a possible motion. Mr. Gibbs made a motion that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve BZA as filed by Tami Ratliff requesting a Variance of Use to allow a Hair Salon/Day Spa in the OD, Office District at 3918 Clarks Creek Road subject to the following conditions: 1. This approval is limited to the petitioner, Tami Ratliff and shall not be transferred to a subsequent owner/user of the facility. 2. The Hair Salon/Day Spa, as described above, shall be limited to only three chairs or workstations. Second by Mr. Cavanaugh. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett yes Ms. Duffer yes Mr. Cavanaugh yes Mr. Gibbs yes Mr. Matrana yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said the next matter before the board concerns Airwest Partners. Mr. James said this is an unusual request because this site straddles Hendricks County and Marion County. So, bear with me as I go through this and explain the proposal. Before we get started we have to take care of one matter and that is to waive the 15-day requirement, the BZA requirement of the public notice. The petitioner was still able to do the required 10-day notice by State statute. Mr. Matrana asked, are we allowed to make that decision to waive the public notice? Mr. James said just the 15-day requirement; it is sent out 15 days prior to the meeting. Mr. Matrana said so it was noticed. Mr. James said the parking was noticed to meet the 15-day requirement but the landscaping and the bufferyard setback variance! 4

5 request did not meet the 15-day requirement but it did meet the State statute of the 10-day requirement. Mr. Daniel asked, did all of those go to the same people? Mr. James said yes. Mr. Harstad said that was for the published notice. Mr. James said that is correct. Mr. Harstad said the published notice; the second published notice was 10 days prior, the green cards, etc. They were sent out by certified mail. Mr. Matrana asked, does this require a motion? Mr. James said yes. Mr. Cavanaugh made a motion to waive the 15-day notice requirement and accept the 10-day State statute requirement in this case. Second by Mr. Gibbs. Motion carried. Mr. James said the request is for several variances; reduced offstreet parking variance; a variance for the perimeter landscaping and setbacks and bufferyard standards from the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance standards. So, that the petitioner can use the Ameriplex Industrial Park development standards for a proposed 1,119,195 square foot warehouse/distribution facility with a possible 500,346 square foot addition. It is located south of Ameriplex Parkway and east of CR1075 and partially in Hendricks County and partially in Marion County. I think it is approximately 71 acres that are located in Plainfield. Here is the site. The County Line I think is right here. So, the total site is about 103 acres. Seventy-one acres were recently rezoned from AG to I-2 and it was also petitioned for annexation on the Plainfield side and then the Hendricks County/Indianapolis side is zoned Commercial Service Ameriplex. When it was originally zoned in 1998, it was done so with the Ameriplex standards sort of like a PUD. Here is the old zoning map, which it is now I-2, which has been petitioned for annexation. Here is another photograph that gets you better oriented with the site. Ameriplex Parkway; Six Points Road or Ronald Reagan Parkway; I-70; CR600S is right here; CR1075 is right here, which this has been petitioned to vacate this portion of CR1075E. Here is the original 1.1 million development and then the proposed half million square foot expansion that would be right here. This road would need to be extended to potentially connect to another road to provide access to Plainfield west of the site and then also a good road around to the north and connect to CR600S but in the meantime they would just terminate with a cul-de-sac. It is an unusual request in the fact that it straddles Marion County and Hendricks County. So, which standards apply? This is being worked out with an interlocal agreement. During the rezoning Plainfield requested that we do the development plan approval so that is why they are requesting the variance from the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance standards for parking and for the setbacks and for the landscaping. The surrounding zoning is AG to the west and AG to the north. This is Ameriplex zoning over here and this is still in Hendricks County, rural residential. The Plainfield parking standard is pretty extreme compared to the Ameriplex standard. The Plainfield standard is one per 3,000 square feet for warehouse office space. The Ameriplex or Indy standard is just based on employees. It would be one parking space for one and a half employees. Setbacks; I will show you the site plan and maybe I can explain that a little better. Under Plainfield standards, because of the orientation of the loading spaces, between building and a street, we require it has to be done with a development incentive, which means you have to increase perimeter landscaping. So, under the Plainfield standard they would have to do a Level 5 landscaping on the north perimeter and down here on the south perimeter this is a protected district and Indianapolis zoning. So, it is residential so the bufferyard is required down here so when you have perimeter landscaping next to a bufferyard or residential, that increases the landscaping.! 5

6 So, with the orientation of a loading space incentive this has to be called a Level 6 or a plant unit value of 6 per 100 feet. So, you have a required five-year; six down here but then over here you only have, Plainfield standards, you only have to do a one. On the west over here, since it is adjacent to Agricultural, they would have to do a 2. As far as setbacks, I believe this is a second arterial and that would require a 90-foot setback in the Plainfield standards and this is going to be an industrial collector, which would require a 60-foot front yard setback in the Plainfield standards. Instead of doing the 60 and the 90 and 60 here they would like to use the Ameriplex standard, which would be a 50-foot front setback and a bufferyard down here around the whole perimeter or at least three frontages. I will go to the table. This is a comparison of the Plainfield standard and the Ameriplex standard. So, there is the variance for parking; the bufferyard landscaping and the front setback. So, the Plainfield standard would be one per 3,000 verses Ameriplex, which is 1 per 1.5 employees. With the combined half million square footage that would be about 483 parking spaces in the Plainfield standard and under the Ameriplex standard, based on the number of employees, they would have to have 164 parking spaces. The front setbacks would be 60 and 90 and Ameriplex would be 50. The bufferyard would be the same as the front setback of Plainfield. Ameriplex would be 50. Plainfield does not require a landscape easement; Ameriplex does; a 45 landscape easement. Perimeter screening south would be a 6.0; north would be a 5.0 and the Ameriplex perimeter landscaping equals about a 2.5 per 100 feet based on Plainfield s standards. So, actually it is at a Level 3 per 100 feet. What does this mean? How many plants does this require? Plainfield it would be about nine evergreens at least 6 tall and one overstory tree with a 2.5 caliper. And then with the Ameriplex standard that would be about two overstory at 2.5 caliper and three evergreens about 6 tall or three understory. Other landscaping they are going to use Plainfield standards for perimeter parking and for the interior parking. Staff Comments: There is enough land to provide the ordinance required parking. The proposed building is for a specific user. That is one reason why they are requesting the Ameriplex standards. The proposed user has an estimate of the number of employees that they are going to need. So, based on that they can estimate the number of parking spaces that they are going to need. Less parking would mean less impervious surface. There would be less stormwater runoff. What hardships, if any, are created by the ordinance and associated with the site. There is a power line easement on the north and to the south you have the Flynn Creek. So, there are some site restrictions. To allow the site plan, as proposed, they would need approval by the Plan Commission for a development plan. An interlocal agreement is also in the works to specify who does inspections, permitting, road standards, etc. When we have had these parking variances in the past, we have asked for an acceptable exit strategy just in case PepsiCo backs out and they will not be the user of the building. So, we have asked that they commit to Plainfield standards just in case that does happen. The petitioner has asked to defer the installation of the west perimeter landscaping to be a Level 2 until the time of development of the proposed expansion. And then Staff recommends that we strike condition number one. We feel that is already being covered with condition number two. Here is the site. It is not very clear. The parking would be over here and then we would have truck docks on both the north and south sides and even on the west side of the building. I believe this is the site plan. Using the Ameriplex standards perimeter parking is with parking just over here for auto parking. It includes the landscaping. The landscaping to the west elevation they are going to include that down here with the south perimeter. Here are some photos of the Ameriplex part just to give you an idea of what their standards look like. Here is the foundation landscaping and yards. Here is a shot of the building with the entrance foundation landscaping and then here is a good view of the front yards and the bufferyards. They do have street trees. Here is another view of the front yard. So, with that I will wrap it up. Dave Harstad is here representing the petitioner and I m sure he would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. Mr. Carlucci said it is my understanding if they some day build the expansion, then most of that building would be in Plainfield, Hendricks County, is that correct?! 6

7 Mr. James said that is correct. Mr. Carlucci said I was kind of surprised by these variance requests because I thought this may be something that the Town Council would like to have seen in the interlocal agreement like whose standards will be used on this instead of going to the BZA. I do remember we did this with Becton-Dickinson. They did not like the number of parking spaces that we required and I think they did come in and get a variance for that. But I also think we made them show, for example, they say they only need this many parking spaces, I can t remember off the top of my head how many employees they wanted, but we made Becton-Dickson show us where they would put additional parking in the future, if they needed it. Have they shown that at all? Mr. James said no they have not proposed land banking or where they would put the Plainfield required parking. I will say the proposed expansion is on 23 acres and then they have 34 acres, which I think part of this is in the bat habitat. So, I believe they would have more than enough room to provide the Plainfield required parking. Mr. Carlucci said they don t always control what happens in these buildings. Some of the buildings that have been built in Plainfield have had six or seven different owners since I have been here. So, land banking may be an issue. It ought to be addressed somewhere given the number of employees they have over there. The other part of all of this is the way our Tax Abatement Ordinance is, this is for the BZA s knowledge, we gave a lot of power in our Tax Abatement Ordinance to the Design Review Committee. The Design Review Committee can make their decisions on what they want or they can make certain requirements even if they grant them an abatement. If they can t get DRC approval, according to our ordinance, they cannot get an Improvement Location Permit. So, that is another hurdle to go over. The DRC has basically been given authority by the Town Council to grant an abatement and approve the project and if they can t get the DRC approval, they cannot get an Improvement Location Permit. So, the DRC is important that they have to go through. I really did think the interlocal agreement should have covered some of these items because the majority of that building is going to be in Plainfield at some point. I have been out to Ameriplex a lot and I haven t seen a mound out there yet, a landscape mound. Don t they have landscape mounding out there somewhere? I can tell you we didn t pattern our ordinances for the industrial parks on what Marion County was doing with Ameriplex. We spent a lot of time and effort to make sure our ordinances were good for Plainfield. A majority of that building is going to be in Plainfield at some point. They can choose carefully which one we are going to grant variances on because I don t think we should be taking a step backwards as far as the way this building is going to look. That is just an opinion. Mr. Matrana asked, have they been to the Plan Commission yet? Mr. James said no; just for the zoning; not for architectural site design review. Mr. Dave Harstad said I was a few minutes late and I missed the swearing in so it would probably be appropriate for me to be sworn. Mr. Matrana said I think there were a number of other people that walked in late as well. Mr. Daniel said anyone who expects to testify tonight that has not been sworn please stand and raise your right hand. (Mr. Daniel continued to swear in individuals who came in late.) Mr. Harstad said thank you for the opportunity to testify. Again, I am Dave Harstad. I am with Dennison Properties. We are the owners of Airwest, which is a 50% joint venture;partner in this project. Before going into a presentation let me just briefly address Mr. Carlucci s comments and concerns and see if we can get some resolution of those. First of all regarding the request and requirement that we submit a plan showing the parking and how it would work my recollection is that we did submit such a plan and that the Town has that. I believe you have two 24 x 36 site plans. One of those site plans shows both the parking and the landscaping as we are requesting it. The other one shows the parking and landscaping as it would be required if we followed the Plainfield ordinance. I just first want to make that clear. If you want to get into particulars as to how we addressed the parking, we can certainly get into that but the big picture we can make! 7

8 it work and we can commit to make it work and show you that we have the sufficient land to do that. The second comment that Mr. Carlucci made was regarding the interlocal agreement and we obviously want to have an interlocal agreement that makes sense for everyone. This may be a question for Mr. Daniel but we applied to the BZA with the assumption that the BZA could not, for a lack of a better term, contract away its power. If it is the opinion of the Town that we can simply inter into an interlocal agreement and avoid the necessity of variances, we will certainly be willing to do that but our interpretation was that we had a requirement to do that to apply to the BZA for these variances. Mr. Daniel said you are correct from the standpoint of contracting away their authority, the BZA, and granting variances. I think what Mr. Carlucci was probably thinking that the interlocal agreement would have all of these things in it; not just the variance part but it would also include variances that would be required and all of the items that would make this project work rather than what is before this board tonight. Is that a fair statement Mr. Carlucci? Mr. Carlucci said yes. At some point the Town Council could say we will use the requirements that Indianapolis/Marion County have were these items and they will use our requirements for development plan approval, which is exactly what we are doing. But since we haven t seen the agreement, none of us have, we don t know what is in it. So, it is hard to get to that point from the variance point of it. Mr. Harstad said we sent it out last Thursday so if you don t have it, that is a problem. I will make sure in the morning that we will get electronically and otherwise copies of the interlocal to you and to everyone else who needs a copy of it. Obviously, we apologize for taking as long as it did and if you still don t have it, it is a problem. With that, obviously, each and every point, as you say, needs to be part of that agreement. We carefully, through the help of a consultant, compared the two zoning codes and tried to determine what standards are higher than one. So, we have worked on that and tried to make that as part of the interlocal agreement so it is something that we put a lot of thought into. Just to orient you briefly, obviously, the primary goal here for us is to build a massive warehouse for PepsiCo. There is a secondary goal here that is important for the Town, probably more so important to the Town. I m sure all or some of you were involved in this interchange when it was funded years ago. It too was an issue between Hendricks County and Indianapolis. The big picture of what we are doing here is creating a project whereby Hendricks County, and Plainfield in particular, is served by that interchange. Whereas, Raceway Road there used to be a bridge here on Six Points Road over the freeway. It is gone now. What we have tried to do is when you come down Ameriplex Parkway off the freeway, come down here, and then you have a choice whether you come up here and go CR600 into Plainfield or come down here and eventually get to Camby. The goal is to create a connection from that interchange to Plainfield. In order to do that though one of the issues here is that we create a site that is not even a double frontage lot but it is a triple frontage lot. When we were first laying this thing out, we called this area the Pepsi Peninsula. Literally it is a unique piece of land in that it is not just a cornfield where we sliced it up into rectangles but we followed this creek and we followed these high power transmission lines here. They are Duke lines and we are actually meeting with them to talk about whether we can put ponds underneath them and how far away we can be away from their towers. They are real protective of their easement rights there. The point is that we wanted to get the building here as closely to the power lines as possible to be efficient and to get the road here and utilize this corridor with something useful. That s the big picture. As I passed out at the beginning of the meeting you have a line right here. That is Raceway Road or the Hendricks County/Marion County Line. That is the dividing line and Mr. Carlucci is absolutely correct; the pond expansion you can see just by the naked eye upon the expansion the Plainfield side of the equation will eventually be the bigger side. In fact, when I was talking to the architects recently, they had Indianapolis on the elevations; they didn t have Plainfield. I said you have to get Plainfield on there; that is a big problem; this is as much or more of a Plainfield project as it is an Indianapolis project. So, we have that on there now.! 8

9 To get to the substance of what we are doing here Mr. Carlucci talked about Becton-Dickenson making this request. The big picture on the parking is we want to meet the Indianapolis standard on the parking. PepsiCo and these people do a tremendous amount of planning in how their facilities are laid out and what they need and what they don t need. The bottom line is they know from experience how many parking spots they are going to need to operate this facility because of how many employees are going to be there. Our desire is to provide what they need. Certainly there was a lot of thought that went into the creation of your code but in this case perhaps it is more than what is required. If you are talking about a lot of additional parking stalls, you are talking about a lot more impervious surface; a lot more runoff. Water quality issues; obviously we addressed Plainfield. As you know, it is the MS4 and you certainly do a good job of making sure that we install water quality type devices but still rainfall that falls on grass and wooded areas is a lot better than water that falls onto an impervious surface and goes into a catch basin and shoots out a pipe into a creek. So, that is really the crux of our request for the parking variance. As I explained earlier, if PepsiCo leaves and we need to build more parking for another user, we have to come back for a variance. If they don t need that much parking or we have to build it, we have shown that we can do that. Regarding the landscaping in addition to the hardship that is created by just simply having different standards it is trying to figure out whose standards applies to what situation. We have the situation that I mentioned earlier. I don t want to make too much out of it but we don t have a situation where we have a really front or a back of a building. We have to put our loading some place. So, there is a site-specific reason for us requesting this. We just simply can t put it at the back of the building because there really isn t one. In terms of the actual hardship that will be created our neighbors are basically a freeway interchange and some airport ground; some high powered transmission lines and down here we have a creek bed. Eventually this parcel is actually currently owned by the airport. We are swapping it for some land that is off the map that will be permanent bat habitat so it is not as if you are going to have a homeowner there that is going to be looking at this. Maybe there will be some Indiana bats there but otherwise it will be a creek bed and a three-way interchange. Lastly on the landscaping issue in meeting with Duke today they said you are proposing landscaping for this side of the building? We said, of course, we are. We need the landscaping and they are going to get us an approved list of plants and it will add another whole layer of complexity both for us and for the Town to have to work through. For example, one of the things that they said is that they will need to have an area to be able to get through this road, which we are tentatively calling CR600. We will call it CR600 for now. They need to have a way to get to their transmission towers, which are here and here. So, they want to have enough of a break to be able to get a truck in there in the event of a tornado or something like that. Obviously, first and foremost I m here to answer any questions you have. We have had a wonderful experience working with the Town so far, which is complicated to do a big project in the first place but particularly complicated to do a big project that spans two counties and two different zoning jurisdictions. I m available for any questions you might have and thank you for considering our request. As Mr. James mentioned, if you do look favorably on our request, we respectfully request that in the motion that if you see it is appropriate, that you strike condition number one. Thank you very much. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to speak on this matter? Being no one stepping forward, I would like to close the public portion of this meeting and open this matter up to the board for further discussion and a possible motion. Mr. Carlucci asked, how many employees are they going to have in the building? Mr. Harstad said at this time it is projected that there would be 175 employees at the peak shift and we are proposing 150 parking stalls. Mr. Carlucci asked, are there more than one shifts?! 9

10 Mr. Harstad said that is correct. Mr. Carlucci asked, are you going to have two shifts? Mr. Harstad said I think it is three. Mr. Gibbs asked, are they basically saying that they want the Plainfield standards verses the Ameriplex standards with the exception of parking and our required 60 setback; they would want 50 just because of the size of the building? Mr. James said that is correct. They are going to use the Ameriplex or Indianapolis setbacks, which would be 50 instead of 60 for the north and the east and 90 for the south because Plainfield s setbacks are based on the road street classification. The road to the north would be an industrial collector, which would require 60. The road to the south would be a secondary arterial, which requires a 90. To allow the loading spaces oriented on the north and south they would need the 50 setbacks. I want to clarify something. I did ask for the site plans showing Plainfield standards and then also showing Ameriplex standards but I m not sure if the Plainfield standards include the expansion. Mr. Harstad said the additional parking stalls; that is a good point. I m not sure either to be honest with you. Mr. James said so they would have to show the additional parking required for the expansion, the half million-foot expansion. Mr. Harstad said if you want to condition a motion on that with us providing plans that shows that, we can certainly do that. Mr. Carlucci asked, could you put your table one back up there? Mr. Gibbs asked the question on standards. One on that list is Indianapolis and one is Plainfield. Which ones would be the Plainfield standards on that table? Mr. James said this column is Plainfield standards and this column is Ameriplex. Mr. Carlucci said they are proposing that everything on that right side be Ameriplex standards, is that correct? Mr. James said just parking; setback and bufferyard and perimeter landscaping. You ve got four variances. Ms. Duffer said I have a question on the parking. You said at the peak time you have 175 employees assuming everybody has one car and you are proposing 150 spots. Is that a little short? Mr. Harstad said it is and they know from experience that workers carpool or have alternate ways, get dropped off, ride their bikes, etc. They know from the experience around the country that people tend to carpool. time. Mr. Carlucci said you said they are not all there at the same Mr. Harstad said at any peak the standard we are shooting for is that we have to meet is one parking stall per 1.5 employee on the largest shift. Mr. Gibbs said my concern on this parking is you are running truly three shifts and there is that overlap period, which would not be enough parking. Mr. Harstad said this is an operations issue and I apologize because I m not an operations expert but I do know that they know that it works. I guess I will also mention that there is a lot of trailer parking on the site; not that we are trying to say we can turn employee parking into trailer parking or vice versa so I guess all I can offer you is assurance that at least from the operations perspective they say that is all that they need. Mr. Carlucci said you made one good point. We look closely at where the employee parking is verses the trailer parking. A lot of the employee parking areas, as far as the development plan approval goes, are approved that way plus they have the big yellow bars. So, you just! 10

11 can t put employee parking anywhere. You have to protect it from the trailers so that the tractor-trailers are not mixing with those cars but the cars can go out separately from where the tractor-trailers are going. That is pretty basic with a lot of ordinances. So, probably the big issue is what happens because we don t know if those numbers include the expansion either? Mr. James asked, can they exchange the trailer parking for auto parking and extend this one down and around? Mr. Carlucci said I m a little less concerned about the expansion because that just starts it back through the process again. When you expand the building, you will have to come back anyway so I don t want to borrow some trouble down the road because that will just come back to the Plan Commission and BZA anyway. Because at that point it will all be in Plainfield. Mr. Harstad said the expansion will be. Just to be clear we are requesting the variance apply to the expansion. We are estimating that the expansion will add an additional 70 employees and if we meet the Indianapolis standards. We are exceeding the Indianapolis standards is the point at the front end. We would be required to add another 14 parking stalls in order to meet that further expansion. But again I go back to the submission. There is ample room in terms of excess trailer parking that in the event it is a problem trailer parking can be converted into passenger vehicles. I understand your point that it needs to be done in a safe manner to make sure that they are not intermingling. Mr. Carlucci said I can understand the issue of not having any more hard surface than you need because both Marion County and Plainfield stormwater fees are based on impervious surfaces. So, if you don t need it, you don t want to build it because that is a cost to the property owner or somebody is paying those bills; I don t know exactly who so I can understand trying to minimize that. I just don t want to minimize it to the point where it doesn t function well out there in terms of the parking. There are probably some questions that need to be clarified on that. Ms. Duffer said I have a question for Mr. Carlucci. With the differences between what they are requesting and what the Town of Plainfield requests is it an all or nothing? Mr. Carlucci said no. You can say you believe there needs to be 25 more than what they are showing; you can do that. There never has been in planning and zoning, it is not a science on the parking spaces and the way we got around it with Becton-Dickinson is show us where if you had to expand your parking, where it would be. You say you have a map like that? Mr. Harstad said we have submitted that. copy in your packets. I believe you have a Mr. Cavanaugh said in the package we have it is the standard and not the expanded building. Mr. James said correct. Mr. Daniel said the packet shows two different parking scenarios. Mr. James said sketch one is the Plainfield standard and sketch plan two is the Ameriplex standard. But it does not include the half million square foot expansion. Mr. Carlucci said, which is what they are asking for a variance for that. Mr. Cavanaugh said I m looking at the table and sketch plan one shows Plainfield standards. By my count they show a total of 406 available car parking spaces on a standard building footprint. According to the table they would be required to have 483 with the expanded building. So, they are approximately short. So, to certify that they could meet the 483 they would have to have the amended plan with the building expansion with those additional stalls. My estimate from what they are showing on the plan they are merely going to trade truck trailer spaces for car spaces. So, having the real estate available to provide the car spaces is probably not an issue. It is their choice on how they want to do the design and the! 11

12 layout and how many truck spaces they can sacrifice to provide the required car spaces. They have a couple of areas on the standard plan that have been expanded from the Indianapolis code plan for car parking. But they can make a business decision on how many truck spaces they want to give up to provide car spaces if we ask them to submit a complying plan for the expanded building to see what that looks like and there has to be an improvement; it s just a question on how they want to do. I have a question on the exit strategy. It seems it is being suggested that if PepsiCo is not the initial occupant or any occupant of this building, that then the developer would be required to come back and comply fully with the Plainfield standards. Mr. James said that is correct. Mr. Cavanaugh said I m assuming that would be only for the part of the building that was in Plainfield. Do we have any requirement to make them comply with the part that is in Indianapolis? Mr. Daniel said it depends on the interlocal agreement. Mr. James said it could be detailed in the interlocal agreement but the way that I read it it is for the whole site. If PepsiCo is not the tenant, then they would have to meet the Plainfield parking statute for the whole site; not just for the Plainfield site. If they chose to vary from those, they would have to come back and do a variance. Mr. Cavanaugh said my guess is, and I would be interested in Mr. Harstad s comments on this, if they are not able to develop this site for up to a 1.6 million building, that is the ultimate target, you are going to build this site to accommodate a 1.6 million square foot building; my guess is that there are not that many potential tenants requiring 1.6 million square feet and that if PepsiCo comes off the table, you are going to reconsider what type of building to build there. Mr. Harstad said I m not sure I understand. Mr. Cavanaugh said my belief is you would not start to construct this building unless PepsiCo is going to be a tenant. Mr. Harstad said absolutely. Mr. Cavanaugh said so it is not likely that we would have a 1.1 or a 1.6 million square foot building out there without that specific tenant. Mr. Harstad said that is correct. There is going to be a year lease period unless they go bankrupt and try to cancel our lease, which I don t expect PepsiCo have happen but you never know. Mr. Cavanaugh said so if you don t get the development with PepsiCo as the tenant, are you likely to try to construct a single 1.1 or 1.6 million square foot building? Mr. Harstad said to be honest I don t think we have thought about that. We are solely focused on this. Mr. Cavanaugh said I guess I m just trying to establish in my mind if it is always going to be one building or if it might end up possibly being two buildings at some point and time with two different tenants; either one of them needing the massive square footage that PepsiCo does. I think in the Plainfield Business Park we have one building that is a million square foot. Mr. Carlucci said I don t think we have any. Mr. Cavanaugh said the 12 million square feet that we have in Plainfield now there is not one building that is a million square feet. The likelihood of having that many tenants that are going to need a building of that size is pretty small. Mr. Harstad said I agree with that. Mr. Cavanaugh said I know that you can t predict the future that well but it seems likely to me that if it is not PepsiCo, it might be! 12

13 multiple users and multiple buildings. because I know you can t tell me. I m not asking for an answer Mr. Carlucci said the issue of having a building built across the County Line will come up right now once every 18 years. And we did promise we would get it done with the least amount of problems because we want this project to go forward and we want to be able to cooperate with Indianapolis and we want to make the project good for both communities. I know what landscaping my wife makes me plant at home. When you put it around these kinds of buildings, any kind of landscaping gets kind of minimized. It is going to be set pretty far back. You won t see too much of this off the Ameriplex Parkway because you have to come down and back in and then go back around. There is nothing yet to the west. I would ask Mr. James with all of this perimeter screening is that far off from what we would normally have? What was the TAC s feeling on it? Mr. James said they would have to do the development incentive, which increases perimeter landscaping. So, what they are proposing is basically half the plant unit value of what we would require with the development incentives to allow the orientation of loading space like this. As far as the berms, there is no requirement that you have to do berms. I think that is something the DRC or the Plan Commission would request to help hide the loading docks and the trailers. I don t believe they are proposing any berms. It would be half, just the landscaping, as you saw in the pictures of the Ameriplex but it would be half the plant unit value of what is required by Plainfield. Although on that east perimeter the Plainfield standards would only be a plant unit value of one and they are proposing 2½ all the way around or the equivalent of 2½ all the way around. Mr. Carlucci said maybe this is a fair question for Mr. Harstad but you can put Plainfield standards in there as far as landscaping, is that correct? Mr. Harstad said yes. There is nothing preventing us from adding more plant material. Mr. Carlucci asked, then why don t they want to do it? Mr. Harstad said I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all it is the multi facade issue. And basically if you look at the map that I passed out that shows where the break point is, it would create sort of an absurd result to have one landscaping standard here and then transition into another landscaping standard here. Mr. Carlucci asked, why couldn t they agree to our landscaping values? What s wrong with that? Mr. Harstad said you are absolutely right you could. I guess it is just a matter of their interlocal cooperation on a lot of issues. Whose building code? In a big picture when you have a project like this, which spans county lines, does it automatically default to the highest standards in both jurisdictions? You can do that. That could be the default that you negotiate an interlocal agreement or is there some give and take? That is really what it boils down to. Mr. Carlucci said the give and take is on the setbacks for the roads versus the landscaping. It also shouldn t be the lowest standard all of the time. Mr. Harstad said I agree with that. Just so it is clear; I don t want to make too much hay of this; but we are exceeding the landscape standard here. We have a 2.5 and Plainfield only requires a 1. Ameriplex doesn t require landscaping in the parking area for employees. We are abiding by the Plainfield standards for that. As for berms, just to briefly comment on that, I can t. I just simply cannot do any berms here because we are under these power lines and they said today that any reduction in their clear height is a major problem. In addition to that a lot of developers make a big deal about berms and sometimes they are attractive but more often than not it is just a waste of topsoil rather than making some big concession on the appearance of the building. On the setback issue, Mr. Carlucci, I would have to get my scale out and look at our plan but I know that it is 110 feet in between those two power poles. If it is 110 feet from that road to here, I don t think the setback issue is an issue here. Mr. James you! 13