TOWN OF PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS. July 21, 2003

Transcription

1 TOWN OF PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS July 21, 2003 The Board of Zoning Appeals met on Monday, July 21, 2003 at 7:30 p.m. In attendance were Mr. Monnett, Mr. Haase, Mr. Matrana, Mr. Shrum and Mr. Blevins. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mr. Shrum made a motion to approve the May 19, 2003 minutes of the Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals as submitted. Second by Mr. Blevins. Motion carried. Mr. Haase said I would like the record to show that was I absent and I m not voting on those minutes. Mr. Matrana said at this time I would like to welcome a new member to the Board of Zoning Appeals, Mr. Gregory Monnett. Thank you for joining us and at this time I would like Mr. Carlucci to administer the Oath of Office for the BZA. Mr. Carlucci administered the Oath of Office for Mr. Gregory Monnett. OATH OF TESTIMONY Mr. Carlucci administered the Oath of Testimony. PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Matrana reviewed the Guidelines Governing the Conduct of Public Hearings. At this time I would ask Mr. Higbee to please come forward and tell us a little bit about BZA , Primo Catering. Mr. Higbee said this is a Variance of Development Standards request for a location out on Hadley Road near where the commercial blends into the industrial area, the Primo Catering facility that I think that you are all aware of. You have seen a request like this at a couple of other locations in Town. There is a requirement in our Zoning Ordinance where it says that a landscape area cannot have more than 20% of its area covered by rock. Or have what I refer to as the base of the landscape bed be rock. In other words it is encouraged that most of that area be organic mulch or something like that. However, we found that several commercial folks around Town have not found it possible or desirable to meet that requirement. Taco Bell was one. The Sports Center was another that you have actually granted variances from that requirement. In this particular case if you go out there and look at the building, we are talking about the front of the building facing Hadley Road. I believe it is two sides of the building and then there is an area underneath where the drive-under canopy near the front entrance, which is now organic mulch, does not have rock in it. But the areas closer to the building foundation do have rock and has had rock in it for awhile. So, that is what the variance request is. I would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Mr. Matrana said it says the maximum allowable is 20%. Approximately what percentage would you think that they have now? Mr. Higbee said those building foundations are virtually all rock base. Of course, with shrubs planted in them. Mr. Shrum said rocks verses organic mulch, which is most desirable for plant growth? Mr. Higbee said I have been told different things. I will give you what I have been told and what I have observed, which can be two different things. What I was told is that rock can be undesirable because it attracts heat and can get harder for the plants to survive there. However, I have observed rock at a number of locations where the plants have survived just fine. I have also observed the opposite scenario where you have trees and shrubs planted in areas where it is completely natural and no rock and they don t survive. So, in my experience in looking at them I m not really seeing the relationship between the health of the landscaping and the rock areas. However, the! 1

2 ordinance still has that requirement in it as of today. I think the intent is that you don t have people eliminating landscaping in favor of rock. And there are instances where people will try to cover an entire yard with rock and not have any landscaping or any grass so that they don t have to maintain it. So, you try to find that balance. Mr. Shrum said the rock is very durable and the termites don t eat it. Mr. David Gillman with Development Services said I m representing Primo Catering at Hadley Road. This has been stone mulch, which is what our landscape architect refers to. It has been installed since day one and I really don t think my clients or the landscaper were aware that they were restricted to the 20%. But after we installed it in talking to the manager of the facility the wood mulch has a tendency of also having a lot of weed seeds in it when they buy it on a year to year basis. It attracts certain types of insects and if you have any kind of wind and/or heavy rain, it has a tendency to wash out over the curb and out into the canopy area. Our vocal point is weddings and retirement parties and get-togethers. We really want that to be our best presentations. So, we have asked the board to go ahead and allow us to keep the stone mulch in front of the building. And then the canopy out in front of the building right now has the wood mulch. We would like to be able to have the opportunity to do that in stone mulch. But everywhere else on our property around our landscape islands around the perimeters along Hadley Road has organic mulch in place. We would ask the board to go ahead and allow us to keep that stone mulch there. If we are allowed to keep what is out there in a small section in the canopy, we think that would be satisfactory to us. We think it would give us a stronger presentation and a cleaner presentation when people come in our front facility. I have submitted a revised landscape plan to Mr. Higbee and that is on file should this variance get approved. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak about Primo Catering? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing. The Chair would accept any discussion amongst board members or entertain a motion. Mr. Haase made a motion to approve BZA subject to the following condition: 1. Subject to substantial compliance with the originally approved landscape plans for the development with the addition of the stone base as proposed in the new landscape plan that was given to Mr. Higbee dated April 1, Second by Mr. Blevins. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett yes Mr. Blevins yes Mr. Shrum yes Mr. Haase yes Mr. Matrana yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said the next public hearing before the board is BZA , Driggers Colony Park Office Building. Mr. Higbee said this is also a Variance of Development Standards for a site located at Township Line Road and Dan Jones Road. It is a site that is zoned Office District. The proposal is for an office building I think that has been anticipated to be put there for a number of years or something similar to it because of the Office District zoning. The development plan is here both for you to look at this variance and it is also going to be going to the Plan Commission. As I stated in the Staff Report, the office building would be 7,280 square feet. You will note from the plans that you have in your packets that there were two entrances. One of them was on Township Line Road proposed and one on Dan Jones Road that is proposed. The variance comes in because the driveway coming in from the north side or Township Line Road kind of curves around and takes up a portion of the required bufferyard. A bufferyard is required when you have residential zoning adjacent to a commercial site like this. This has R-2 residential zoning on three sides, the north, west and south. Then it has a! 2

3 Hendricks County area, a vacant lot in Hendricks County to the east. A bufferyard is required on the north, therefore, meaning that the 30 feet is supposed to be a landscaped yard without any interior drives or any type of operations going on within that 30-foot bufferyard other than the driveway itself. The entrance from the road is permitted but where the drive kind of curves around and constitutes more than a driveway, it becomes what we call an interior access drive, which encroaches into that required bufferyard. So, that is the variance request. I noted in the report that there was some discussion about sharing a drive with the neighbor to the west. Obviously, that would require that neighbor s cooperation. I think there may have been some discussion on the petitioner s part but I don t know the status of that, if any. So, that question was raised. It clearly would be preferable to have a shared drive and not have an entrance on this side on Township Line Road and then another entrance right next to it where the church is. If you have been in that area, there is a small church to the west. I also noted the location of the dumpster located north of the building and the gates facing Township Line Road and that is all that I have. Mr. Larry McIntire with Banning Engineering at 698 Tower Road, Plainfield said I m here tonight to represent Mr. Driggers and the office building that he has proposed for this corner. As Mr. Higbee pointed out, this has been zoned office for some time. Probably the biggest hurdle that we have been waiting to get over is the infrastructure to get to the corner. We were told that the new sewer will be coming in just southwest of this location to allow us to work with that. Water has been there for some time. We were able to hook into that. As the Town is probably aware, they have a very large street improvement project going out in this intersection, which has taken a considerable amount of right-of-way from this parcel and farther pushed us into some boxes here. But surprising enough even with the right-of-way we were able to come up with a good building that is very useful that Mr. Driggers wants to use on that corner. We have all of our parking and a sufficient number of parking spaces to work with that building size. All of our landscaping works out and our sign. We have all of buffers met on the southeast and west sides. The only one that we had some trouble with is on this north portion. Ordinarily a drive like this would come straight out to the street, which is where Mr. Higbee pointed out that you can have a drive in a buffer area but the shortest route possible to minimize the amount of asphalt that you see in that buffer. After reviewing things here and going to TAC and being with the traffic people here, both their consultant and the Town Engineer who have looked at this layout, are pretty much in favor of this. Because it gets this as back to the property line as they can and getting it off this corner of Township Line Road. Also, it will eliminate from their own plan a drive that was proposed to be right here onto Dan Jones. Their plan would have called for each of these lots to have a drive. This will not be here and instead we will have a drive over here. They did look at this plan with the drive not combined with the neighbor, which we would all love to see that as a better route to go. But they did not put that in as a requirement. They have said that this is at least what they want to see. I believe that they have talked to the neighbor and he really wasn t interested in having a combined situation at this time. One of the things that we are looking at is as Mr. Higbee points out the buffer is to project residential from non-residential type uses. One of the things that we have going on in this area now is in this residential area at the moment the houses have been torn down. I m not sure what will be coming back in there but this buffer is still good anyway. These two corners here are actually bordered by nonresidential uses, which we are hoping works into it being more favorable to grant this variance. It really is not impacting, with any seriousness, these two properties for the reason that the buffer was put into place. Also, with all of the street improvements that are coming out there, it is going to be a pretty big area in here for paving anyway. Also, it is important to note that usually as you are driving through Town, your right-of-way line is right at the back of the walk. The Town likes to see some green space between the back of the walk to the next area of paving. The nice thing about this is when the Town came through and bought the right-of-way off this corner, they picked up extra, maybe 6-8 feet extra behind the walk probably for their back sloops, which is still going to give you plenty of green space to show.! 3

4 So, really as you are driving through here, it is not going to look any different than you would normally see, which is typically a 10-foot green space. We have something more like green space between the walk plus we have put in quite a substantial amount of landscaping on our portion. I m not sure there is anything else that I need to point out in relation to the variance, which is why we are here. I don t know if anyone needs any background on the site itself to know about the building. I would be happy to answer those questions or if there is anyone in the audience who may not be as familiar with the project, I would be happy to answer them. Mr. Haase said you talked about a second drive out onto the Dan Jones Road. Isn t that too close to the corner for that to happen? Mr. McIntire said that will never happen for what we are trying to propose. We are saying that the Town proposed a drive there in their original plans on Dan Jones. There are two lots there actually. Each one would get a drive. With our setup the one drive closest to the intersection on Dan Jones would be eliminated. So, you are not getting more drives. You are actually getting them farther away from your intersection. Mr. Haase said in other words if these lots were separate, they both would still have access. Mr. McIntire said right. Mr. Haase said the one on Township Line Road is a new access point. Mr. McIntire said that would be the newer of those yes. Mr. Haase asked, Mr. McIntire would you show us exactly what you are asking for tonight? Mr. McIntire said what we are asking for tonight in this scenario normally is when you do a corner lot like this, you have access usually to both streets. You would come straight out here. Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem has looked at this and would rather have this drive farther back. To do that we need to kind of come around here. There is a 30-foot buffer required behind the right-of-way when you are buffering residential property, which would be all the way to the edge of this drive. Mr. Haase said really all of this right here is what you are asking for. Mr. McIntire said yes. Mr. Shrum asked, are you proposing to put a driveway in the buffer area? Mr. McIntire said yes. We are having to buffer in. Now if we were against a commercial use, I don t believe it even has a buffer. You would just have the 10-foot green space requirement. Mr. Haase asked, what about sidewalks? Mr. McIntire said the Town is putting a sidewalk here. Mr. Haase asked, is that what that dash line is? Mr. McIntire said that is actually a storm sewer. The sidewalk is on each side of that. We have six feet of our own here. So, you are actually getting close to feet of green where in a situation normally on a corridor closer to Town you would only have 10 feet. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak about the Driggers Colony Park office building? Pastor Stewart from the Living Word Church said we are located just west of the said property that we are talking about. We are the ones that they had some suggestions for the merging of the two driveways. I have some information for you. It is a little hard to tell from just looking at sketches of the building as to what there is going to be and how tall everything is going to be. So, what I did is! 4

5 to look at some of the similar things that Mr. Driggers already has. He already has an office building similar to this one over in Avon. I took a look at some of the things over there. We are concerned about the buffering with our church. We are going to be facing the back of his building. That concerns us somewhat as to what we are going to be seeing and Sunday School children are going to be playing around there and what is going to happen? So, what I did was to take some pictures and I wanted to show you about some of the things over there. The buffering over there is not great at all and I hope if this building gets built, that it will be much better than what it is over there. Mr. Carlucci said just for a point of clarification Mr. Higbee when they bring a building in, which they have not done yet, that has a separate public hearing is that correct? Mr. Higbee said it goes to the Plan Commission also yes. Mr. Carlucci said it goes through the Design Review. There is nothing about that building for tonight. I m not trying to hurt Mr. Stewart and I m not trying to stop him from talking but the issue here tonight is putting in that driveway and the bufferyard. It has nothing to do with the building. Mr. Stewart said if you will bear with me a little bit I think I can clarify what I m talking about. Just like Elizabeth Taylor told her nine husbands I won t keep you long. Mr. Haase asked, have you seen his landscape plan that he has proposed? Mr. Stewart said yes. If I m allowed to pass these around, you might want to look at those. I have a couple of more and then I will talk about it. That plan, which I have here, if you will notice off of Township Line Road, right here is the driveway that they are talking about. Anyway that driveway is right near our property because our property is just to the west. What I m concerned about is right in that section is where all of the traffic is going to come through there. We wouldn t want to put our driveway any closer to the intersection because I think that is going to cause a traffic problem for us getting in and out of the church. I think it is going to cause a traffic problem for this office building also. The other thing is right here is the dumpster and they are going to pull right into that dumpster and unload and there is going to be trash and everything there. If we would put a driveway that would be adjacent or combined with their driveway, then we would have no buffering for any of that trash that is there and that dumpster, etc. So, we are not going to have anything that will buffer us from that building because that is a commercial building. It is a 7,280 square foot building. It is a large building. It is not like any of the other things right close to us. All of the rest of them are residential, small houses and that thing is probably 35-foot tall. That is the limitation to it in that office zoning. That is going to be a large building. It is going to be a large commercial building so we are going to have to have some buffering. In fact, if they begin the construction to this building, we will probably have to put some sort of fence up to buffer there so that all of that large machinery and everything does not tear up our parking lot. And tear up our lawn as has happened to us in the past with other construction that has gone on around there. The other thing, like people have said well the dumpster is all enclosed and you have something all around it to keep it from being a nuisance and being any problem or showing anything bad. That sounds all well and good but it doesn t happen in practice a lot. In fact, I went over to Driggers building over there and I took a picture of his dumpster. You can get right into it. There is nothing keeping anything from getting into it. You can take a look at it for yourself. Mr. Carlucci asked, these are located where? Pastor Stewart said this is located in Avon. It is up on U.S. 36 and Rockville Road. That is where he has his office building. Mr. Carlucci said you also understand that whatever Hendricks County has or Avon has is certainly not what the Town of Plainfield has in their ordinances. Pastor Stewart said that is our concern. Number one that if we would try to put our driveway closer to the intersection, that it is! 5

6 not going to be feasible because it will cause a problem with us getting in and out of there. I think it will cause him a problem because it is too close to the intersection. They are making a right turn lane there and widening that whole thing so that is going to make it difficult. The second thing is we need a buffering there. We just can t have something that allows people to drive in our parking lot and drive into theirs and go around and have all of things in the back of the building like the trash, etc. So, those are our comments. Mr. Matrana said so you probably do not want to share a driveway. Pastor Stewart said no. I have given him some other alternatives but he is at the point that he doesn t want to consider those right now. Mr. Larry Steinmetz at 2860 Colony Lake East Drive said I m president of the Colony Lake Homeowners Association. We have approximately six units that are close enough and can see the mentioned properties from their units. We are concerned about the closeness of the new outlet onto Township Line Road. If you come to our area between 5:00 and 6:00, traffic is backed up in all directions. I think that is going to be a problem at the intersection. It is too close to the Township Line and Dan Jones Road. So, we would like as much space in there as possible so when cars are stopped to make a left hand turn in there, they are going to be back toward the Dan Jones intersection. So, we think that could be a problem. We are also not too keen about the location of the dumpster. When I looked at the plans downstairs a couple of weeks ago, and I m not an expert at reading those, I thought it was going to be on the west side of the unit. But I must have had the map turned the wrong direction. But on the north side that is going to be right in the windows of some of the people that live in that area and I don t think they are too fond of that. So, those are our main concerns. Where the outlet would be in relationship to the main intersection at Dan Jones and Township Line Road. Mr. Carlucci asked, are you aware that there is going to be a traffic signal there? Mr. Steinmetz said right. We didn t know when this was being done or the order of what is going to be done. Mr. Carlucci said we wish it was being done now but we have two houses that Mr. McIntire referred to, those on the southeast corner were purchased by the Town and demolished as part of that. We are still in the process of where we have to go to court on two or three property owners. We don t need to raise any money but we need to get part of the federal dollar. That project will also include turn lanes at the intersection and it will extend all the way down to U.S. 40. Mr. Driggers may have not been in that big of a hurry to develop the property because in the current situation you can t get in and out of there at certain times of the day. It just blocks up the intersection. Mr. Steinmetz said I hope they don t improve the intersection and then do this and it would cause where they would not have to dig up the new road. Mr. Carlucci said Mr. Belcher is our Town Engineer and Mr. McGillem is our Traffic Consultant. They would recommend anything to this board that would interfere with a million-dollar project and make it worse. So, I think they feel comfortable making that recommendation to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Mr. Haase said that is probably one of my questions for Mr. Higbee. Is there a recommendation from Mr. McGillem and Mr. Belcher? Mr. Higbee said technically we really don t make recommendations here. There was a lot of discussion. I can give you what their attitude about it was but I don t really think it constitutes a recommendation. What their attitude was they would rather see that combined drive on the site to the west but they could live with what is being proposed. That is kind of my synopsis of what I caught from Mr. McGillem in the TAC meetings. If you read the recommendation from the DRC, they said the same thing. They said this drive is probably acceptable but we would prefer the combined drive scenario with the site to the west.! 6

7 Mr. Haase asked, how far is the east edge of the drive from the corner basically? Mr. McIntire said I would say probably 125 feet. Mr. Kent McPhail at 7764 Harnessmaker Ct., Plainfield said I m a member of the Plainfield Town Council and I have been involved a little bit in this process. In talking with our Town Engineer and our Traffic Consultant and looking at this site they felt that it would be advantageous if we could combine the two drives with the church and with the office building. So, I initiated a meeting between myself and Pastor Stewart to discuss this issue. He feels that he does not want to do that and I think he has a right to do that, if he doesn t want to share that drive. I certainly want to represent all of the citizens and I was not aware of the concerns of the folks in Colony Lake in terms of the dumpster. I believe that is an issue that needs to come before the Plan Commission and is not part of this hearing tonight. The hearing tonight is the buffer area. In discussing this project with our Town Engineer and our Traffic Consultant they believe that for public safety that it needs to have this entrance off of Township Line Road to have egress from that area. I believe that the small area that we are talking about that impedes the buffer is very minimal and that the loss of that buffer will not be detrimental to anybody. The Plainfield Christian Church is across Township Line Road. It has sufficient landscaping along its area. There isn t a residential home that would be effected by this small reduction in buffer. So, because of the public safety issue of this site it is my understanding all of the proposals from the petitioner meet our Zoning Ordinances. I would ask this board to grant this variance. I believe that there is nothing detrimental about it. I will discuss the dumpster issue and those things with the folks from Colony Lake and Pastor Stewart and come back at the proper time, if need be, to represent him there. But I believe that it is in the best interests of the Town of Plainfield to have this variance approved. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on this matter? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this meeting and the Chair would entertain a motion. Mr. Shrum made a motion to approve BZA subject to the following condition: 1. Subject to substantial compliance of the site plan file dated July 18, Second by Mr. Haase. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett yes Mr. Blevins yes Mr. Shrum yes Mr. Haase yes Mr. Matrana yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said the next hearing to come before this board is BZA , Cracker Barrel Restaurant. Mr. Higbee said you are all familiar with this because we had a variance request before us in December. This situation, if you will recall, there has been a tall interstate oriented pole sign there for a number of years that is 150 feet tall and I think around 652 square feet in size. There was an incident within the past year where we saw the cabinet being removed from that sign. When a sign cabinet pole or part of the structure is removed and it is a legal non-conforming sign, in other words it is no longer permitted under today s Zoning Ordinance, then they lose that status as a legal non-conforming sign at that point and time. We had some discussion with the sign companies and the Cracker Barrel Company prior of the removal of that cabinet and advising them of that. Unfortunately, there was some kind of miscommunication with the sign contractor and that cabinet got removed or something like that happened. So, we saw the cabinet come down. They lost that status and they came before the Board of Zoning Appeals in December attempting to re-obtain the right to have that sign there. They were not approved for that. So, they are now back today asking for a different variance to still have a tall interstate oriented sign there but instead of being 150 feet/652 square foot sign it would be a! 7

8 smaller version of that type of sign. It would be only 90 feet in height and 420 square feet in size. They had suggested in their application of a temporary period of time of up to 20 years. As I told you in the original hearing back in December, and also I think I repeated it in today s Staff Report, on a commercial outlot what we permit under today s ordinance is a signal ground sign up to 48 square feet tall and six feet high. This sign is being requested and then on the Cambridge Way side of the building there is a 25-foot tall pole sign that has existed for a number of years as well as some wall signs on the building as well. Hopefully, that catches you up on what they are asking for. One thing that I had mentioned in the Staff Report was giving you a report on observations based on going out and doing some inspections and driving the interstate, etc. Instead of handing that out I m just going to report verbally what I found and where it comes from as we went out with the petitioner some months ago. They actually rented a crane and raised some flags up to the height of the top of the existing sign. They had placed the flags at different levels to see where they would be visible from as they come up and down the interstate. They wanted to try to ascertain what is a reasonable height to be able to see an interstate sign if you indeed want an interstate sign and you think it is needed. After driving with me up and down the interstate they felt the sign at 90 feet would still serve them. That they didn t necessarily have to have the 150 foot sign but they felt because a substantial portion of their business is interstate business that they still needed a sign and that it would have to be at least 90 feet. As I went both directions up and down the interstate, what I noticed is if you take into account the different obstructions that you see coming from either direction, if you can imagine, for instance, coming from Indianapolis coming from the east, you will see billboard signs, tree lines, etc. and obstructions in the way. Keeping in mind that I did this during the daytime so I don t have a nighttime experience. An experience at nighttime might have been different. But my personal opinion coming from the east was that you essentially can t see and recognize that sign until you are on the ramp coming in from the east. You can see a square and you can see a pole sticking up in the sky but to be able to actually look at it and read and say this is Cracker Barrel I was personally never able to see it long enough to do that until I got on the interstate ramp. However, there are two signs as you come in from that direction. There is one of those blue highway signs that has multiple restaurants advertised on it. Cracker Barrel is placed on one of those and there is also a billboard sign east of the ramp. Coming from the other direction there was more visibility, perhaps 1,500 to 2,000 feet, out from the interstate ramp. You can see the sign in my opinion, recognize it and then read and be able to make a calculated decision of I m going to get in the other lane and get on that ramp. So, I think there may be as much as a 1,000 to 3,000 feet of visibility there before you hit the ramp but at 60 mph or 55 mph whatever people are traveling you are dealing with 20 seconds or something like that. That is my personal report. It is not scientific. It is just a daytime test. Again, I don t know if a lit up sign at night might be a very different scenario that you could see and be able to read it. That is all that I have. Mr. Joe Calderon at One American Square, Indianapolis said I m here representing Cracker Barrel. Mr. Joe Jaynes from Cracker Barrel who was with me last December is also with me tonight. No doubt we came to you last December basically seeking to preserve the status quo. I think you told us, maybe not explicitly but certainly implicitly in the discussion, that you weren t terribly interested in seeking the status quo given the facts that Mr. Higbee had discussed. What we think you told us that night was this, maybe if the sign was a little smaller, maybe if it wasn t going to be around forever and you had some certainly that eventually the Town Ordinance would be complied with, you might be comfortable. I think the first motion that night was a two/two tie and there was another motion where we were defeated three to one. Unfortunately, during the discussion at the hearing neither Mr. Jaynes nor myself really had any authority to chime in or get into a discussion with you as to what might be acceptable. We had no authority and for that I apologize and I think Mr. Jaynes does as well because I think it now puts us in a situation where it looks like we are trying to stick our hands in the same cookie jar and we are really not. I will kind of get into that in a minute. What basically happened after the December meeting, after we lost the variance request, is we could have done one of two things as! 8

9 Cracker Barrel. We could have engaged with Mr. Daniel and said let s just go to court over the non-conforming issue or we could attempt to work particularly with Mr. Carlucci and Mr. Higbee and Mr. Daniel toward seeing if there was something that might be a little more comfortable from the Town policy standpoint and come back before you. We chose the latter because Cracker Barrel has been here for a long time and I think most people have a pretty favorable impression of it. They are a pretty good established local business. We can debate whether we like or dislike their sign program but the fact of the matter is, and we brought this out in December, Cracker Barrel is an interstate based business. Including in this Town they rely very heavily, 50% of its business, is interstate travel. The reason that they are successful is because they do have a consistent sign program. That really brings us down, as Mr. Higbee said, what might be palatable from the board s standpoint and from the Town s policy standpoint and Cracker Barrel s viability standpoint? We met actually for lunch at Cracker Barrel with Mr. Carlucci and Mr. Higbee and talked about a framework about what makes sense. What would we come to you with that would not be arbitrary or just something quote that we wanted or Cracker Barrel wanted? So, Mr. Jaynes came up after that March meeting. I m not actually sure when the meeting took place and they did their drive-by and they flagged the site and looked and saw what might make some sense. That is kind of the driving force behind why we are proposing a 90-foot tall sign tonight, which is still tall and it is taller than your ordinance provides. But we think that it is certainly a significant reduction, in fact, it is a 40% reduction from the status quo from what was permitted before. It is certainly much more consistent with other highway interchange sign sites. At the December board meeting, and I actually brought extra copies of a booklet that I gave to you, but I took a bunch of pictures from around different interstate locations to try to get you, as board members, comfortable with the concept of what we were asking. As far as tall signs at an interchange, it is not unusual. There are a number of other Cracker Barrel signs featured as well as other businesses and we looked primarily at Marion County and Hamilton County for examples of what heights might be acceptable. Typically that was in the 80-foot range as to those heights. We are certainly much closer tonight with our 90-foot proposal than we were in December with a 150-foot proposal. The second issue is time for compliance. We certainly know and recognize that your board has approved relatively shorter periods of time to allow for a site to be in compliance in a tall sign situation. We propose up to 20 years, which sounds like a long time, but keep in mind our situation is a little different than what you previously approved because what we are proposing is actually a new sign replacing the existing one. So, of course, we are asking for you to recognize that the sign might have a life as compared to strictly an amortization period for the existing sign. The benefit that you get at the end of that temporary basis for approving this sign is that the entire site would then become conforming. It didn t really have that on the table the last time. Remember Mr. Higbee said there is another pole sign that really faces Cambridge Way that doesn t do a lot of good. We are willing to put that on the table, assuming your ordinance reads the same, and get rid of it at the end. So, we want to respect the ordinance at the end of the day. We think that is a pretty good thing to be able to present to you. So, what we are really asking for you to consider tonight are the benefits of the new proposal. That would be a smaller and shorter sign than currently exists. It is a temporary time period so that you know at the end of the day the whole site is going to be in compliance as far as signage is concerned. Also, very importantly your blessing certainly eliminates any risk that if we can t satisfy you, that we end up having a judge decide whether we lost our non-conforming status or not. We really would like to work this out at this level and that is why we are here tonight with our second request. I m going to have Mr. Jaynes talk a little bit about Mr. Higbee s observations as to how the flag test went. Mr. Joe Jaynes said I m representing Cracker Barrel Old Country Store tonight. Just to follow-up on earlier points I would like to pass out a booklet that we created at the target test, which Mr. Carlucci and Mr. Higbee attended. My hope here is this will actually put you in the car. I will be very brief. On page one what this will show you is the I-70 eastbound approach. What is indicated up here on the right hand corner was taken two-tenths a mile away from the exit ramp. You will see three lines indicated there. The top line, which is red is at a 100-foot overall height. The middle line is the orange line at a 75-foot overall height. The yellow line is a sign that is at! 9

10 a 50-foot overall height. Again, for your reference our sign is 150- foot tall that currently exists today. The second page at the I-70 eastbound approach was taken onetenth of a mile away from the exit ramp. The top line indicates 100- foot visibility, the second line is 75-foot and the bottom line is a 50-foot overall height. Again, we are asking for a 90-foot structure. The third page was actually taken on the exit ramp and again the top line indicates 100 feet. You can see the other two lines are blocked out by a tree there. I might add that this photograph does not represent it correctly. You cannot make out this sign from this photograph. As everybody here takes vacation photographs and you come back and everybody is that tall when they were that tall in the viewfinder. This is a similar effect to what you are seeing here. I don t want to overlook the size of this cabinet. It is almost 20 feet tall. It is a very large cabinet at 150 feet in the air and you can make it out without any difficulty two-tenths of a mile away. In fact, in the other approach you can make it out right at a half of mile away without any problem. So, to continue onto page four this is another one taken on the exit ramp. Again, the top line indicates 100-foot, the second line indicates a 50-foot overall height of the sign. On page five that was taken on top of the exit ramp. line indicates 100-foot overall height. The top Page six gets us into the westbound approach coming out of Indianapolis. This photograph was taken three-tenths of a mile away from the site. Prior to this you can make this sign out two-tenths of a mile before this photograph was taken. You do get spotted visibility in between the billboards and the trees but you can make out the sign at the current height that it is now. On page seven that is two-tenths of a mile away from the ramp. As you can see, it is completely blocked by the trees. There is no visibility at that point. On page eight and nine there are interesting photographs for one reason. You can see where I have indicated where the sign is actually at on the trees. This photograph was taken in October so I want to show you a photograph that was taken in the springtime. This photograph actually came from the ride of Mr. Carlucci and Mr. Higbee. Even though the photograph in your books shows tree blockage, as you can see from this photograph, when the leaves are down, which is a considerable amount of time, you have visibility. The trees are not a hindrance so to speak. I would also like to follow-up on the fact that at nighttime this sign increases its visibility. It is much easier to read at nighttime than it is during the daytime. So, just for comparative purposes the loose-leaf page compare that to what you see on page eight as well as page nine. Page nine is a truer representation of where the photograph was taken at different times of the year. Then on page 10 that photograph was taken on the westbound approach on the ramp looking over the passenger side of the car. We have indicated what code would apply. As you can see, that is actually showing at 20 feet. From what I understand from Mr. Higbee tonight the code is actually six feet so a monument sign at six feet would not be seen even on the ramp. If I could get you to turn back to page five, what I want to show you there is the bottom line that you see is a 50-foot overall height. I think it goes without saying even a sign at 20 feet would not be visible from the highest point of the exit ramp nor is the building at that point and time. With all of that being said I think Mr. Calderon spoke to the fact that we are an interstate based company and that is very true. When this issue came up, we conducted a zip code study at the restaurant. It was to help us understand what kind of travel component do we have at this particular location? We know what it is systemwide. When we conducted the study here, the cashiers asked for the guest s zip codes as they were exiting the store over a two-week period to get a mix. We found out that 49% of our guests in that store were from out of Town. What I m telling you is that there is a heavy reliance on getting those guests in who are not familiar with the area. All of you gentlemen are very familiar with how to get in and out of! 10

11 there. There are probably no shortcuts that most of us don t know but the interstate traveler does not know that and relies heavily on signage. The other fact that I would like to speak to is we utilize billboards and logo boards when we can get them. We have logo boards at this location. I manage the logo board program for the corporation and I can tell you more often than not those rules and regulations change very very quickly. What you have today you may not have tomorrow. So, even though we have those signs there is no guarantee that we will have a year to year contract typically. So, there is no guarantee that you will retain that visibility from the logo boards. Don t get me wrong. Those things are a wonderful means of advertising. We utilize those in as many locations as we can. We use the billboards as well. As you all are aware with the airport expansion taking place, some of those billboards are coming down. It is the same scenario. You are not guaranteed a billboard. It is always a bidding war so to speak. So, it is whoever wants to pay the most to retain that advertising if the signs are available. The trend that I m seeing nationwide is the billboards are going away. So, I don t think that is a long-term solution to any sign identification. What we are proposing tonight is a temporary variance. We are coming in with what we feel is the minimum. We cannot retain interstate visibility with anything less than that. The 150-foot sign/650 square foot is excessive. When that sign was put up back in 1992, we didn t go into the in-depth studies like we have done here with the flag test, etc. In fact, if we were to do this site today, we would not recommend a 150-foot sign. That is too much signage and I think that is obvious by the pictures that we have here. We would come in with a presentation very similar to this at 90 feet. So, that being said I would be happy to answer any questions if you have them. Mr. Matrana asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to speak on the Cracker Barrel variance request? Mr. Calderon asked, could I interrupt the board before you close the hearing on maybe two points? I would ask the board for a waiver of one of the notice requirements this evening. In the course of preparing and sending out notices we did notify, via certified mail, all of the owners and the notice was published. However, I failed to post notice at the site and I will accept responsibility for that but we got all of the returned receipts from the interested parties. The State statute does not require it and you can actually waive that so we would certainly appreciate consideration of that. Mr. Carlucci said if you are willing to consider that, you need to vote on that waiver one way or the other. If the vote is no, this hearing is moot. You would have to re-notice and go to another meeting. In defense typically these notices are only going to people who are adjoining to this property and most of those people are not local residents except for maybe Larry Paynter and the Coachman. Mr. Higbee said those did go out. The only thing that could happen was a copy didn t get posted at the site itself. There are three levels of notice. The first two levels did go and the last one was forgotten. Mr. Haase asked, what size would that notice be? Mr. Higbee said it is just 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper. Mr. Haase asked, posted somewhere on the property? Mr. Higbee said yes. Mr. Haase said it is fairly inconsequential. Mr. Higbee said yes of the three it is the least important notice. Mr. Matrana asked, do we have to vote on it and make a decision whether or not to have a new hearing? Mr. Carlucci said he has requested a waiver from that requirement. If you vote yes and agree with him, we continue on. If you vote, you have to put that notice out and we have to go to another hearing. Basically, you would be starting over again.! 11

12 Mr. Matrana said I would like to hear a proposal to waive that requirement or not to waive it and vote on that. Mr. Haase made a motion to grant approval waiving the public notice being posted on the property. Second by Mr. Shrum. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett yes Mr. Blevins yes Mr. Shrum yes Mr. Haase yes Mr. Matrana yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said at this time if there is no one coming before the board to speak on this matter, I would like to close the public portion of the meeting and open it up to the members for discussion. I would also like to note that we have quite a few rules and regulations of sign ordinances that they attached to our materials tonight. It clearly spells out the intention of the board for the future of signage in Plainfield. It clearly spells out exactly what happened when the sign came down, and they were forewarned about the rules, which we have a copy in front of us now. At this time I would like to have a motion on the Cracker Barrel variance of the signage issue. Mr. Haase made a motion to deny BZA Second by Mr. Shrum. Roll call vote called. Mr. Monnett no Mr. Blevins yes Mr. Shrum yes Mr. Haase yes Mr. Matrana yes 4-ayes, 1-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. Mr. Matrana said the next hearing before the BZA concerns Plainfield Commons III. The first one is BZA I assume Mr. Higbee that you want to handle them separately is that correct? Mr. Higbee said yes. Mr. Matrana said there are two separate variance requests. Mr. Higbee said they are really different requests for different reasons. The first one is a few variances of development standards for Plainfield Commons III, which is an extension of the area where Old Navy and El Jaripeo Restaurant is located known as Plainfield Commons II. So, this new extension would add several tenant spaces to the south end of that building. As I think I noted somewhere in my report, it basically bumps it out by about 340 linear feet, if you can imagine that building being extended to the south. They have actually started some work out there already that you might have noticed. It has been to the Plan Commission but some of the items that they are asking for were necessitated by the fact that they wanted to make this building addition and parking areas landscaping and lighting consistent with what was already there. Under our ordinances today when you have a main building in an integrated center such as the one that Old Navy is it is one big building. Or on the other side you have the one with Pier One Imports in it. The main building of an integrated center has to have foundation plantings along the front as well as the sides of the building. What they have in the existing center is sidewalk plantings built in planters in the sidewalk about 20 feet in front of the building. That does not qualify as foundation plantings in our current ordinance because in our current ordinance you have to have them within 10 feet of the building. They have to be in a minimum six-foot wide planting strip and it has to go the entire front-end side of the building. So, it is significantly different than what the ordinance would permit for a new building today. However, it would be consistent with whatever exists there in Plainfield Commons II. As far as the lighting, if you will recall, the parking lot poles there have those tall fixtures with the round kind of box and then they have what we call a protruding lens or a shag lens that actually goes below the fixture box a little bit. In 2001 we intentionally changed our ordinance to require what we call a flat lens. A lens that does! 12