PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION August 3, :00 p.m.

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1 PLAINFIELD PLAN COMMISSION August 3, :00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER Mr. Gibbs: I would like to call to order the Plainfield Plan Commission meeting for August 3, ROLL CALL/DETERMINATION OF A QUORUM Mr. Gibbs: quorum. Tony would you poll the board to determine if we have a Mr. Perona: We have a quorum. Mr. Brouillard- here Mr. McPhail- here Ms. Lafata is absent Mr. Brandgard- here Mr. Smith- here Mr. Kirchoff is absent Mr. Gibbs- here PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mr. Gibbs: If you would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MINUTES July Mr. Gibbs: All of the board members had the opportunity to review the July 6 th minutes, if you have and there are no corrections I will entertain a motion. Mr. Smith: So move. Mr. Brouillard: Second Mr. Gibbs: I have a motion and a second all that is in favor signify by saying aye, opposed, motion carries. We have on the agenda an appointment that needs to be made to the DRC. Mr. James: Good evening Mr. President and members of the Plan Commission, Mr. Brouillard has asked that he resign from the DRC committee, he s got too many conflicts with his work and so in his place, Mr. Smith has agreed to serve on the committee. So we need to appoint Mr. Smith in Mr. Brouillard s place. Mr. McPhail: So move. Mr. Brandgard: Second. Mr. Gibbs: I have a motion and a second; all those in favor signify by aye, opposed, motion carried. OATH OF TESTIMONY Plainfield Plan Commission

2 Mr. Daniel conducted the Oath of Testimony PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Gibbs reviewed the Guidelines Governing Conduct of Public Hearings. PETITIONS FOR PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Gibbs: First item on the agenda is DP , Carmike Motion Pictures. I will turn it over to Joe. Mr. James: Good evening. This is a request by Carmike Motion Pictures. That is the theatre out at the mall, to amend what is now the Shops at Perry Crossing PUD so that they can seek a special exception which would be granted by the Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals to serve alcohol at the theatre. So the land uses where originally established with the Metropolis PUD or the marketplace PUD. Commitments when the PUD was approved established land uses and permitted uses would be further established with the final detailed plans. The Rave theatre and the movie theatre use was established with the phase 2 of Metropolis and that final detail plan. It did not allow the option for a special exceptions, it only allowed the theatre as a permitted use. With the re-branding plan the POAG Shopping Centers adopted the original PUD and permitted uses in the approval process. Additional phases and uses would be approved with the final detail plans. The POAG Shopping Centers did grant consent to Carmike to file a petition to seek the amendment. All of the restaurants in phase 3 that is the rest of the mall have the option to seek a special exception from BZA to serve alcoholic beverages. Some of Carmike standards in the Indy area and the east coast serve alcohol and they have submitted an alcohol control plan and I have made copies of that and passed those out to you earlier. I forgot to include it in the packet again for tonight s meeting. With the alcohol control plan and commitments, Should Carmike have the same options as restaurants at The Shops at Perry Crossing? Hopefully that is giving you a good explanation of what they are trying to do and they do have representatives here and I am sure they would be glad to answer your questions. Mr. Gibbs: For the record for the representative that comes forward, having 2 board members absent this evening do we need to Mr. Daniel: We can do that. This plan Commission is a board of 7, we have 5 members here this evening, any affirmative action by the Commission requires a vote of the majority of the full board which would be 4 votes since we have 2 members absent means that 4 out of these 5 would have to vote in favor of any motion made, so if anybody has business before the Commission would prefer to ask that your matter be continued when we have more members present, this would be the time to do that. Mr. Brandgard: You also might add that Ms. Lafata had to resign because she had to move, so that spot will be open for a while in all probability until we find a replacement. Mr. Daniel: We had a board member who transferred and had to go to Plainfield Plan Commission

3 Tennessee, so there will only be 6 members probably for a while until another member is appointed, but still tonight we just have 5. Mr. Gibbs: If not I will open it up for the petitioner. Mr. McKean: Thank you very much; my name is Jeff McKean from McKean Law Firm address is 9105 E. 56 th, Indianapolis, In. I do also have with me Shane Cooper who is the manager for the Carmike Theatre here in Plainfield. I will be very brief, Mr. James hit on our request tonight, we are seeking an amendment of the PUD so that we can go to the BZA and ask for a special use exception. The few items that I would like to hit on, Carmike does have in place an alcohol control plan. Selling alcoholic beverages are not new to Carmike; they have sold in other locations throughout the Country. One minor correction, currently in Indiana there are no existing alcoholic beverage permits for Carmike in Indiana. There are a couple of pending up in Allen County that were recently filed. They do have locations in Champagne and Louisville where they sell alcoholic beverages and have been very successful and have not had issues. They have procedures in place and I think you have them in your packets, the alcohol control plan, that touches on some of those procedures, every person would be carded, we have already met with the Excise Police, we ve talked to them about some modifications, there is also a process as you are all aware through the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission that we would need to go and actually obtain an Alcoholic Beverage Permit to sell. In just a minute I would like to have Mr. Cooper touch on some items where he is a manager here sort of plans to go sort of above and beyond what is Carmike s standard alcoholic beverage policies. I think the point I would like to make is selling alcohol at movie theatres is a national trend. It is something that we have seen over the last several years, in fact and Mr. Cooper can touch on this a little bit more, but of the major movie theatres in central Indiana the majority of the top sellers do currently sell alcoholic beverages and those that are the fastest growing, the 2 fastest growing in central Indiana both also sell alcoholic beverages. Carmike in this instance is probably a little bit behind the curve, they want to remain competitive, they want to keep a good product in the theatre here in Plainfield and be competitive with other communities, so that is really the driving force behind what we are seeking tonight. So with that I would throw it open to any questions and if I could have Mr. Cooper just to address a few issues as to additional procedures that he would put in place. Mr. Cooper: My name is Samuel Shane Cooper; my address is 7234 Moorgate Road, Indianapolis, Indiana. First I want to thank you for giving us the time to speak to you this evening. I have been with Carmike since Carmike acquired Rave; I was with Rave before that, I was actually part of the team that opened the Plainfield location in So I am familiar with the theatre and have been back in this area since You guys do have the alcohol control plan in front of you. A couple of things we are planning to do beyond even what it states there, we plan to wristband everyone that we sell alcohol to, that is not necessarily a control for Id-ing on repeat visits or what not, it is so that when we are doing spot checks in the auditorium and above in the projection booth we are going to ask them to put those on the primary hand that they are going to be drinking from so it helps us in our inspections of those people that have those alcoholic beverages. Our biggest concern is making sure that we only have people that are of Plainfield Plan Commission

4 age with alcohol. So that is where a lot of that plan and a lot of what I just stated are designed around trying to control those aspects of what we are asking for. As Mr. McKean said, we are a little bit behind the curve on this. Depending on the year of the 3 rd or 4 th busiest theatre in the Indianapolis area and the biggest locations all have alcohol, we are the biggest that does not. The 2 fastest growing locations in the city are the brew and screen theatres, the one in Carmel and one in Indianapolis, Studio and Movie Grill, their growth is higher than anybody else s. the locations that have added alcohol, AMC is the latest they added it at their Castleton location and at their AMC on the south side which is one of the closest locations to us, they have seen growth since they added alcohol to their platform. It is something that we regularly get requests for and it is something we want so we can continue to put money back into the building, we recently have, we put the big D in and we want to continue to do that. Our hope is that we are going to be able to stay competitive so we can continue to do that. Thank you. Mr. Brandgard: Before you leave I have a question. I read your alcohol control plan and the whole thing that bothers me here once somebody buys it in the theatre, you ve done nothing to separate them from the families with young children or minors, or even somebody that maybe wouldn t be of age to drink. So there is nothing to keep somebody from buying an alcoholic beverage and then let someone else drink it. Your going to be there checking, you are not going to catch many that way. Mr. Cooper: That is the process that we have used in a lot of our locations that have added alcohol and we have not seen issues with that. Our goal is to check the auditorium at least 3 times for every movie, your average movie is about an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes, longer movies we would obviously be in there more often. We are already doing checks for security; we ve done that for a long time. We are planning to increase what we are doing with that normally now. We are also going to be checking from above. If someone sees you, yes they are going to try to conceal what they are doing, but it is a lot harder to do that when you don t know someone is watching and would have access to all of the auditoriums from the projection booth. Anybody that we see that does not have that wrist band and anybody that has not been carded will be asked to leave if they have alcohol. That is what our plan is. Mr. Brouillard: I ve got a question. Items number 9 and 10; it is kind of along the same lines. If a patron appears underage and is consuming alcohol, any minor found with an alcoholic beverage will have the beverage removed immediately and the minor will be required to leave the premises. Item number 10 is any patron found to have given alcohol to a minor will be required to leave the premises immediately. I don t know the law that much but isn t that illegal and should you have the authorities come in, or at least inform the authorities. Mr. Cooper: If that is the law we absolutely will. Mr. Brouillard: And I don t know that for a fact. Mr. Cooper: We anticipate that the majority of our sales are going to happen on Friday and Saturday night, that is when we have the bulk of Plainfield Plan Commission

5 our business. It is also when we have the biggest presence of our partnership with the Plainfield Police Department. If we have that situation happen in our heaviest times we will definitely involve our Officer in that situation to whatever the legal remedy is if there is the law here that says we have to do that, we will absolutely comply with it. Mr. Smith: So you have a Plainfield Officer on the premises? Mr. Cooper: We do, busier weekends we have 2. It just depends with on what we are anticipating for the level of our business, but we do partner with Plainfield Police locally, we use them as our private firm for their off duty officers. Mr. Smith: If someone got unruly what would you do? Mr. Cooper: We would call the authorities or if we have an officer on hand that is one of the things they are there for, if we don t have an officer on hand we will absolutely call the authorities. To me that is not any different than when we ve had people come in that are unruly in other manners, people that are upset for whatever reason, fights and whatnot. We are lucky here in Plainfield, we don t run into a lot of that, but when we do that is how we handle that. We have our own emergency procedures that would kick in that would be included in that. Mr. Smith: You are only looking at beer and wine. Mr. Cooper: Yes, just beer and wine right now. Mr. Gibbs: For the record I would like to show that board member Bill Kirchoff has joined us at 7:15. Mr. Kirchoff: Sorry I am late. Mr. Gibbs: I guess a concern I have too and seeing this done in events where alcohol has been purchased by the adult, but it has also been transferred to another container which your wrist band isn t going to identify to that minor. Can you explain that how you are going to catch that? Mr. Cooper: Are you talking about transferring to one of our containers because one of our training elements that we have right now is if we have somebody that has a container that is not ours we do not allow any outside food and drinks, so that is one way to help control that if we see somebody that has a container not belonging to us, so that is one way. We are going through the training right now for the state in terms of watching out for people that are consuming alcohol and we are limiting that group. Right now it is only my management and 7 of our staff, so that is a very small controlled group that will be handling our alcohol they are also the ones that will be doing the theatre checks that will be watching. If we see anyone that is exhibiting signs of consuming alcohol we are going to manage that, we are going to call the authorities or escort them out, whatever the proper procedure is. That has not been a concern or an issue in the theatres that we are serving beer and wine currently. Mr. Gibbs: Okay, thank you. This being a public meeting I will open Plainfield Plan Commission

6 it up for anyone in the audience in favor or opposing this petition. Mr. Parker: Shall we put the clock up here rather than back there so I can see it? As Linda says if you see me on the side of the street you don t have an hour, you better move on. Mr. Gibbs: Let s hope that doesn t happen, if you would give your name and address. Mr. Parker: My name is Willis Parker; I live at 4048 Lakewood Trail, Clayton. I m in Liberty Township on the property line, but I understand that Plainfield has some planning rights over in the next Townships. This alcohol thing is bothersome because it is only a part of what has been said so far. It is not the wrist bands and identifying, it is the amount of alcohol consumed and it varies from person to person. Alcohol is legal, but it is endemic, it is epidemic, it is a huge problem in our culture and it is expanding. I am an old kid now and I can see a lot of change. I can remember when I was about 8 years and in the cornfield over on the Amo/Coatesville Road with my dad picking corn with my dad by hand, and here comes this guy down the road, a neighbor a mile south with a pistol in his pocket and alcohol on his breast and the horses run away with the wagon of corn. I can remember when I was in the military in Germany and cigarettes were 12 cents a pack. So this is something that is so huge in our community, at large in our nation. I have always been really pleased that the elected appointed officials in this Township have elected at a no smoking ordinance that was huge. We are talking about public health and public safety, and if you have to call in authorities to quite down a situation, then perhaps we shouldn t have that situation develop among us. So I hope that there is serious consideration to begin to reduce the drinking and the smoking only on our private properties if we want too. This is a huge public health issue and if you look at the court records which is only partial and see the number of cases in our County Courts regarding alcohol and drugs, it is huge, it is costly, it is huge. Thank you very much for this opportunity and I want to thank whoever is responsible that we have a few free press that we have in this community that is known on what is about to happen or not to happen. Mr. Gibbs: Anyone else in the audience on this petition? I will close the public portion of this meeting and open it up for the board for further discussion or I will entertain a motion. Mr. McPhail: Mr. President I would like to make a couple of comments. We are known far and wide as a community of values we honor on a monthly basis individuals for different values as a community. I just don t believe this is a venue where it would enhance our values to be selling alcohol in movie theatres. I just believe it is the wrong message to send to our young people, and as Mr. Parker stated abuse of alcohol is very prevalent in our society today and I think Metropolis and Rave or Carmike Theatres are a great venue for our young people to visit and to have a good time and I just think it would send the wrong message to our community and our young people if we allowed this change in a PUD. Mr. Brouillard: I would like to make a statement along Kent s line. The movie theatre is kind of a neat place, parents can drop their 13 or Plainfield Plan Commission

7 14 year old kids off and go on a date or whatever go to the movie and feel safe that nothing is going to happen over there. I think if you include alcohol into this thing it doesn t stay as safe. I agree, I think adding alcohol makes it different than what it is now. Mr. Gibbs: I will entertain a motion. Mr. Brandgard: Mr. Chairman, I move that the Plan Commission certify the PUD amendment request PUD as filed by Carmike Motion Pictures, Indianapolis LLC requesting an amendment to the Metropolis PUD phase 2 standards to allow the Carmike Metropolis 18 theatre to fill a special exception petition to serve alcoholic beverage for on site consumption in the theatre with an unfavorable recommendation to the Town Council. Mr. McPhail: Second. Mr. Gibbs: board? I have a motion and a second, Tony would you poll the Mr. Perona: Motion passes. Mr. Brouillard- yes Mr. McPhail- yes Ms. Lafata is absent Mr. Brandgard- yes Mr. Smith- yes Mr. Kirchoff- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes Mr. Gibbs: Next item on the agenda DP Mr. Berg: Eric Berg, Planner 1, 206 W. Main Street here in downtown Plainfield. Requesting architectural and site design review for a proposed an 18,000 square foot shopping center in the general commercial district within 600 of a gateway corridor and residential district. This is Dan Jones Road here, Brentwood and I believe this would be Hawthorne coming right there. Structure is going to be to the rear of the parcel. There will be 3 ingress and egress, one here, one down in the southwest and then one over here in the southeast. Internal circulation, these sections here will all be 2 way, over here will be a one way where you will have a loading dock as well as the entrance to the drive thru. HVAC units will be on the rooftop, I will point that out later when we get to that. There will be 2 trash enclosures, one here on the northwest and one up on the northeast. Here are the 4 mentioned trash enclosures that were made of the same material as the primary structure. The gate will be of cedar as required. Not much exciting things you can say about trash enclosures so we will move on. Landscaping plan, some of the existing trees and bushes that were put there for the Meijer development are going to moved to other locations. The applicant will probably be able to talk to that a little bit better. The foundation landscaping has been moved from the general foundation area outward, more into the parking lot island due to the nearness of the sidewalk and patio to the foundation. This would be considered an alternative landscaping plan. As I mentioned some of the foundation landscaping out into the islands, right here, which of course pushes the island landscaping more out towards the perimeter? Parking lot as is required is screened with the Plainfield Plan Commission

8 low shrub type of landscaping. You have perimeter landscaping along here as well as by the proposed sign over in these areas here and there as well. The Design Review Committee requests that some of the shrubs in the parking lot island be replaced with honey locus and boxwoods which the applicant has done. The photometric plan does comply; you should have the cut sheets for the fixtures in your packet. The elevations here, these white boxes aren t actually white boxes, what they are they are denoting the location of where the rooftop mechanical units will be. It is just a little bit easier to see from a distance if they are kept white like that. You can see here on the sides as well how they are kept below the parapet walls so that they will not be visible. It does comply with the requirements for materials as well. As I mentioned the site is fully compliant with the ordinance and the DRC requests. Should the plan be approved (inaudible) secondary plat ILP file engineering, billing, fire protection and any utility plan approval prior to issuance of permits? We did actually have a resident come in and want to talk about this. They had some questions about some uses and we said it is general commercial and that in general the planner is last to know what exactly is going in that location. Had questions if whether there was access to Dan Jones and 40 directly, which there is not as you saw. Question about the orientation of the loading docks and the parking, we pointed out to them where that would be. They did a comment about traffic light timing at Beechwood and Dan Jones, it appears that was cycling improperly and Scott Singleton and his staff in the Engineering Department got that corrected. If there are no other questions for me, the applicant is here to discuss them. Mr. Gibbs: Any questions from the board at this time? Mr. Clark: My name is Jeff Clark and I am the owner of Plainfield Creek Shops 2, I reside at st Street, Suite C, Indianapolis. I am here tonight; I really don t have that much to add to what Eric had here. I think you are aware I was here just a couple of months ago with another building, McAlisters, they ve broken ground on that and it is well on its way. So we are happy to bring the second part of the mall and just here to respectfully request your approval of our architectural design and site review and I would be happy to answer any questions that you would have. Mr. Smith: Is the exterior materials on this pretty much the same as on the other building that you have started? Mr. Clark: Yes, it is just really a big brother of the other building. Very similar so it will be next door tied into the Meijer materials. Meijer was very pleased that we were able to keep a pretty continuous look to that corridor. Mr. Smith: Do you anticipate the other lot in front of Meijer which is north of the driveway; is it likely to be similar? Mr. Clark: I don t own it so I don t know. Mr. McPhail: what is the smallest divisible unit that you would have in the building? Mr. Clark: 1,600 square feet. Mr. Smith: Looks like it might be a patio on one end, a drive thru on Plainfield Plan Commission

9 the other end. Mr. Clark: Yes, we accommodate for a patio all restaurant users want a patio for their smokers. When we started talking the first building, that is definitely the number one user that came to the table was restaurants. In the other building obviously McAlister s, we didn t have enough residual space to accommodate another restaurant more of the parking. There was some questions to me before find such a big parking field, all of us have frequented restaurants and one of the most frustrating things you can have happen is you go to a restaurant and you can t find a place to park. That is very very common and that is largely to how we designed this site was to make sure we could accommodate that type of use. Mr. Brouillard: Do you have any concerns when you come off of Dan Jones and you come around you ve got a bunch of parking spaces on that curve, was there anybody to bring up any thoughts about, it seems like you would be coming off that road and people are maybe trying to back out, I guess you don t have any safety concerns there. Mr. Clark: We don t, whenever we design a site, which like we did the other one, we had a Traffic Engineer look at it very closely and in the discussions he was trying to figure out where we were going to put (inaudible) on that curb and added another one there we purposely pushed it back a little further so somebody maybe coming around that corner maybe at a slow enough speed that by the time (inaudible) those spaces. Mr. Brouillard: That landscaping isn t going to block that view of coming into that corner. Mr. Clark: No. Mr. Smith: Probably the same thing, the sign that you have sort of the upper right corner there, is that a ground sign or a pylon sign, or what is that? Mr. Clark: It is a ground (inaudible) sign. It is no taller than 6. Mr. Smith: So it does stay low enough not to obstruct the motorist that are around that corner? Mr. Clark: It is 4 high, but when you are pulling out on the road you will be out further before you approach any type of traffic, that is required to be setback, so far off the road, it shouldn t be an issue because it is so far back. Mr. Brandgard: I might step in on that too, there are 3 lanes on that going in and there is a left turn right turn lane, so when you pull out of there you are pretty far from that. Mr. Smith: Is there landscaping close around the trash enclosures? Mr. Clark: Yes. It is hard to tell but it is on both sides. Mr. Smith: It is good to have, but hopefully it is maintained in a way or it is a variety which doesn t grow or grow too big it becomes a visual obstacle of people trying to get around it. I know we have that Plainfield Plan Commission

10 in a couple other spots in town and it becomes a nuisance. I hate to monopolize here, the 2 lanes, I take it these are going to be like truck lanes behind the building, are those plenty wide enough that if you have a big box truck or a delivery truck, even a semi is it going to be able to get around? Mr. Clark: Yes. They are 14 and 12 wide. Mr. Smith: Lanes? Mr. Clark: Yes. So they are plenty wide and there is another area that would be striped right there directly behind the building, that will be the loading zone. On top of that we have a 5 sidewalk that runs the entire length of the back of the building which allows the delivery guy to step up on the walk which is off the driveway, which is always a big plus that we have learned in dealing with this type of building, yes we have plenty of room back there so that should not be an issue. Mr. Gibbs: Again at this time I will open it up for the public for anyone in favor or opposing this petition. Please come to the podium and give your name and address. Mr. Crawford: My name Roy Crawford and I live at 6283 E. Co. Rd South. I have a property there on Dan Jones, is this one of Meijer s out lots right there north of the filling station? Mr. Gibbs: Yes. Mr. Crawford: The address is 400 kind of threw me because I thought that was on the east side of the road. What will the shops contain? Mr. Gibbs: Please address your question to the board and then we will answer them at the end if we can. Mr. Crawford: What do the shops contain? Mr. Gibbs: We don t know at this time. Mr. Crawford: Does he know? Mr. Gibbs: He will be asked to come back and answer questions. Mr. Crawford: I have a question in general if you will accept it. Mr. Gibbs: Sure. Mr. Crawford: Dan Jones, is it zoned commercial completely up to Township on the east side? Mr. Gibbs: this time? No. Would the petitioner like to, do you have any idea at Mr. Clark: We don t have anything right now. We were talking to a lot of folks but we really don t have anybody in place as of yet. Mr. Crawford: Is there a possibility there could be restaurants and so forth? Plainfield Plan Commission

11 Mr. Clark: Very possible, yes. Mr. Gibbs: Thank you. At this time I will close the public portion and open it up for the board for further discussion or a motion. Mr. Kirchoff: I have 2 questions. Bruce asked about the sign, normally I don t get hung up about signs but I guess I was curious to have another sign there, I thought this would be part of an integrated shopping center thing and it would all be tied in with Meijer signage. Mr. James: No, out lots do get to have a 6 ground sign that is 48 square feet. Mr. Kirchoff: Okay, thank you. Then the second one, probably more for Tim than anybody. I know when we approve the Meijer project there were some traffic studies that talked about potential traffic flow and up and down Dan Jones, I was concerned at that point and time that as popular as Meijer is that we would see an impact and I really haven t seen much on Dan Jones or 40, but as now we are adding McAlister s building and now we ve got another one, have we had an updated traffic study with these additional businesses that will be creating traffic flow? Mr. Belcher: We haven t asked for an additional but I can say that the uses that they are proposing are consistent with the original study. Mr. Kirchoff: So the original study would have included some out lots? Mr. Belcher: Wouldn t say it included McAlister s but it did include these types of buildings and uses. So the original study and I was like you a little skeptical about the original study that Meijer did it has proven to be very good and it actually in the real world of doing exactly what they said, which is really satisfying. Mr. Kirchoff: With multiple access points that has helped us. Mr. Belcher: Before it was a concern to us and to the board but I think it has been working pretty well and again these uses are consistent with that study. Mr. Kirchoff: Thank you very much. Mr. Gibbs: Any other questions by the board? Mr. Smith: One small observation about the traffic, the only sort of bottleneck I think I have noticed from time to time and really only during heavy rush hour time. If you are east bound 40, on Main Street attempting to turn into the McAlister drive we will call it, there is a center turn lane in there is no stop light or any other control there, I have seen times when like you might get 6 or as many as 10 cars backing up in that center turn lane, they have to wait on the oncoming traffic light and during rush hour that can be heavy, so it doesn t seem terribly dangerous, but there is some volume there. Mr. Belcher: That does occur at peak hour and one of the relief s is to go ahead and protect the left turn arrow, which if someone doesn t Plainfield Plan Commission

12 want to take that extra time they are going to sit there and they are going to wait. So sometimes it is at the driver s decision if you are willing to wait you might find a gap and if not you are going to go on down to the signal and turn at the arrow at Dan Jones and go to the signal on Dan Jones to get in, usually people adjust. Mr. Kirchoff: Mr. President, I move the Plan Commission approve DP as filed by Plainfield Creek Shops 2, LLC. Requesting architecture and site design review for Plainfield Creek Shops #2 and proposed retail development in the GC General Commercial district within 600 of the gateway corridor and residential district. 1. The development plan complies with all applicable development standards of the district in which the site is located. 2. The general of the plan complies with all applicable provisions of subdivision control ordinance for which a waiver has not granted. 3. The development plan complies with all applicable provisions for architectural and site design review for which a waiver has not been granted. 4. The proposed development is appropriate to the site and its surroundings. 5. The proposed development is consistent with the intent and the purpose of the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance and that such approval will be subject to the following conditions; 1. Substantial compliance with the building elevations, trash enclosure details, site plan, landscape plan, photometric plan, sign plan, and lighting cut sheets submitted file date July 17, Mr. Brandgard: Second. Mr. Gibbs: I got a motion and a second, Tony would you poll the board? Mr. Perona: Mr. Brouillard- yes Mr. McPhail- yes Ms. Lafata- absent Mr. Brandgard- yes Mr. Smith- yes Mr. Kirchoff- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes Motion passes. Mr. Gibbs: Do we have some invitees to the board, Joe? Mr. James: Yes, that includes our public hearing portion. OLD/NEW BUSINESS Mr. James: We have invitees to tonight s hearing because of violations. The first one is 5544 Homestead Court which showing violations of outdoor storage, junk, trash, debris, high grass and weeds and inoperable vehicles. I went out to inspect the property today to see if they made any changes since they received the invitation, they still have the 2 inoperable vehicles in the driveway, a Buick and a truck with flat tires and the property needs more work. Mr. Gibbs: He s received the proper notification? Mr. James: Yes, the invitation was sent about 2 weeks ago. That is just on one side, you can see the weeds and trash. They still haven t done anything to clean this up. Plainfield Plan Commission

13 Mr. Kirchoff: Are the vehicles licensed? Mr. James: I believe so, it is just they both have flat tires. Mr. Gibbs: Consent of the board to start the fining process? Mr. McPhail: Seems like when we start the fining process we get some attention. I would recommend we start the fining process. Mr. Brandgard: The description of the inoperable vehicles bothers me. The fact that he has a flat tire doesn t mean that they are not operable; it just means you need to put air in the tire. Mr. James: They haven t moved in 30 days. Mr. Brandgard: Well a lot of times my truck doesn t move for 30 days. Mr. Kirchoff: I would be concerned about the trash and debris, but I have difficultly about the vehicles. Mr. Smith: Do we know if the house is occupied? Mr. James: I am pretty sure it is, someone has been cutting the grass and they have some items stored up on the front porch also. Send them a fine for the junk, trash, and debris? Next item is Cabinets and Tops at 1601 East Main Street. They continue to park their box truck with signage in the parking lot and they did give me a call and told me they would appear tonight and they would like to address the Plan Commission. Mr. Brouillard: Joe you don t have a picture of this do you? Mr. James: No. Mr. Gibbs: Would the petitioner like to address the board? Mr. Barker: My name is Eric Barker and I and my dad own the shop there. It is actually called Carriage House Wood Working. Our main problem with our box truck being parked, not problem, violation here is. If I park behind the building it is actually parked in a dock where semi s come in, so anytime a semi would come in to make a delivery I would have to move the truck. If I park on the side parking lot which is the employee parking lot, there is a very limited amount of parking to begin with. On top of that once the semi makes the delivery they actually come through the employee parking lot to exit the parking lot, so again I would have to come over and move my truck again. So the deliveries that come into our shop as well as Advanced and Main Style are quite frequent, I would say at least once a day on a slow week. That is our biggest concern right now. I really don t have any other place to put the truck other than in front. Mr. Gibbs: Is that parking to the east of the building. Mr. Kirchoff: North, it is in front of Goody s. It is that shared lot for the strip center. Mr. Barker: The employee parking is to the east. Plainfield Plan Commission

14 Mr. Gibbs: Does that employee parking designated by yourself or is that designated by the land owner. Mr. Barker: Landlord. Mr. James: They park out in here, I drove back here today and there was only 4 or 5 cars parking back in here. Mr. Barker: When the semi s come in to make deliveries they take up that entire bottom portion almost all the way to the fence just to back in, because driving back there there is very limited space to begin with and the semi barely has enough room to make it through, then to even back in even to our dock they regularly do this, they take all the way to that fence just to back in there, so when he pulls out he actually has to come all the way to the east side and swing around all of the cars. So I am still going to have to move it no matter where I am parked at somewhere in that lot for him to be able to make that corner to exit the lot. Mr. Kirchoff: When I read this I was reminded of a discussion we had a few months ago that we had a couple of other businesses on Main Street that we are now allowing them to park their vehicles out front, so I was curious as to why this is different than those two. Mr. James: The ordinance used to read that anything over three quarter ton, but we amended it to anything over a ton could not be parked out front and it had to be like a delivery van or a vehicle used daily to park out front. Mr. Kirchoff: How often do you use it? Mr. Barker: Several times during the week. We do cabinets and countertops so we could be out on a remodel everyday this week, next week it could sit there for a couple of days and we don t touch it, but then we have other things come up and we have to get in and move it. So it does get used on a regular basis, although it may not be every single day, it does get used. Mr. Kirchoff: Thank you. Mr. McPhail: What I observe most of the time and I don t pay a lot of attention, but most of the time that I have gone by and noticed the truck, it is parked pretty close to the street, which is tinged to make you think they are using it for a sign. Is it possible that they could park in those first couple of parking spots up closer to the building and it not be as obvious? Of course that is where you want your customers to park. Mr. Kirchoff: When I have been by that I frequent Goody s occasionally and when I have driven by there, it is like 3 or 4 slots down in the middle, I see it when I drive down 40. Mr. Brandgard: There have been other businesses in there that that has had their trucks parked when there is no place to put them. On a personal basis I don t have any problem with it being there. Because it doesn t sit, it is used. We got some other ones that hardly ever Plainfield Plan Commission

15 move that meet the new changes in the ordinance. Mr. Brouillard: It is unfortunate, it looks like there is a lot of room on the east side there, it is unfortunate you just can t find someplace on that east side like maybe up against the building, parallel to the building. Mr. Barker: The problem with parking next to the building, I got a dumpster that is on the south side of that east parking lot and the second part is my box truck, if I was to park all the way up against the building it would actually extend into the drive area in between the two parking spots because it is just not deep enough. When I do actually park in that center aisle on the east side there, I take up two parking spots and it is the length of the truck is the biggest problem so that is why we parked it all the way close to the end there because the majority of the time there is not anybody parked out there except for employees for Goody s or the tax service or whoever is up there. Mr. McPhail: What size is your truck? Mr. Barker: 14. Mr. McPhail: Is it a ton and a half or? Mr. Barker: Yes. Mr. James: So do you want to take another look at the ordinance or Mr. Brouillard: Joe has any of the other store owners complained about it? Mr. James: No. Mr. Kirchoff: Joe, I am not sure if he is using it everyday or every other, I am still not convinced that it is in violation, is it, it is used everyday isn t it. Mr. James: It is more than a ton load capacity, box trucks are usually up to 7,000 pounds. Mr. Brandgard: That depends upon the truck it is on. Mr. Brouillard: So are we at a point where we d have to do an exception if you allow him to park there? Mr. James: Yes, if you want me to amend the ordinance then we can allow it while the ordinance is being amended. Mr. McPhail: I m not sure that one instance here that it is appropriate for us to amend the ordinance, but maybe we should take a look at it and see if we want to amend it. The ordinance says that it is in violation, I understand that, it is larger than what we, and I remembering us going back and adjusting that because we ve had people abuse that and actually use that truck and park it by the road and use it for a sign and that is what brought about our ordinance was abuse of it. I would suggest that we take 60 days take a look at it and have Plainfield Plan Commission

16 these folks come back in 60 days. Mr. Kirchoff: If we don t want to modify the ordinance who will grant an exception us or BZA? Mr. James: variance. Well the legal alternative is going to BZA and getting a Mr. Daniel: Right. Taking 60 days is a good idea to look at the ordinance and make a decision, just my opinion. Mr. McPhail: They ve got a unique situation, I ve been around that building and it is pretty tight to drive around it. Mr. Kirchoff: It is the long term shopping center that has been there since the 50 s probably. Mr. Gibbs: ordinance. Looks like it is the consensus of the board to review the Mr. McPhail: And we want viable businesses operating. Mr. Brouillard: Thank you for coming in and explaining that to us. Mr. James: The next item I provided a memo to let you know that after we update the comprehensive plan our next major task will be updating the zoning ordinance and so I wanted to start this conversation that we will need to update the zoning ordinance so I wanted us to start thinking about things we need to look at, standards like this is a good example. Another good example would be parking requirements, are we going to have more electric motor vehicles in the future where we are going to need more electric charging stations and things like that. Will we need smaller parking spaces? Take another look at the sign ordinance, is the current sign ordinance getting us what we want for signage. Something else we will need to take a look at, our design guidelines, commercial standards, Mr. Clark s building is a fine building and has nice features to it and façade modulation that is something that we might want to take a look at and something else we will need to look at is residential design guidelines, are they getting us the type of homes that we want to see. So with that I think that is a good segway into our next item and I had Ms. Banning take a look at our residential design guidelines and compare those with some surrounding guidelines and other guidelines and maybe give us an idea of what we need to take a look at. Mr. Brandgard: Just a quick comment relative to the electric charging stations, if you pay attention at all what is going on out in California, they are giving BMW I-3 owners $1,000 a month to not charge their vehicles at night or at various times. That is because they don t have the electrical power to handle it. Mr. Kirchoff: Night time would be off peak. Mr. Brandgard: You would think. It is interesting. Mr. James: I will let Mary give us a brief presentation. Plainfield Plan Commission

17 Ms. Banning: Hello my name Mary Banning and today I will be going over the report I did on residential design guidelines. So the intent of this report was to study alternative residential design guidelines and then to compare them to Plainfield, I chose 5 different communities, 3 of them are in Indiana, I chose Avon, Brownsburg, and Noblesville through suburbs of Indianapolis. Then I also chose 2 that are not in Indiana, Middletown, Ohio which is kind of right in the center of Cincinnati and Dayton and then also Marysville, Washington which is kind of a suburb of Seattle. So then after observing those and kind of reviewing those, I then compared them to Plainfield s residential design guidelines and took from that and tried to make suggestions or determine some beneficial changes for Plainfield s guidelines. First we will be looking at Avon s guidelines, kind of just a small overview. Avon actually defines their guidelines as architectural standards. They look at building materials, sub masonry, vinyl siding a combination of materials. Things that are pretty similar to Plainfield, they require 50% of the first floor to be masonry or 100% of that should be fiber cement siding. Then if it is combination of materials, they want the heavier material to obviously be on the bottom. Then they also look at eves, they expect an 8 eve on 80% of the house, the dwelling unit. Then driveways, they define those with kind of cement and asphalt if it is less than 100 long it should be cement, then longer than that it should be asphalt. Anti monotony standards which I think is a really big thing for all of the communities, they don t want houses to look similar or to be the same or to have monotony. Avon they actually have their subdivision decide which kind of rules and regulations they want for that. Brownsburg similar again, their architectural elements and they talk about the materials on the façade, the front façade, side façade, roofs, they require a 5-13 pitch and that is on 80% of the roof and then garages is another big thing that each community defined and for them especially they require that it be a 2 car garage on a single family home, attached 2 car garage. They also defined that it shouldn t be covering the whole front of the house but should be spread out between the whole house so it is not just the garage right there in the front as you are driving up to it. Then they also define mechanical equipment which air conditioning units anything like that which most communities would want behind the house or hidden from the view of the front façade. Next I looked at Noblesville, the first thing that I noticed about theirs especially was they talked about scale, which I really appreciated, it was nice to see that they are looking at trying to fit dwelling and dwelling units into the area that is there and they don t want it to be an obvious difference of scale so they require certain setbacks and heights that are continuous with the area that is there. They also look at architectural style and design and require traditional design elements such as a front porch, or dormers. Dissimilar color schemes, again the monotony, they don t want every house to look the same. They have different color schemes and different designs for each community. Same with façades and exterior materials and finishes. I like that they really define front entry and front porches and really went above and beyond with that to define that front porches, they wanted at least 1/3 of the dwelling units in a development to have a front porch, which is I think a great benefit to the community, it allows community outreach and you can get to know people that way. Then they also went looking at differing housing heights to make sure again you don t have 3 or 4 single story homes right next to each other and then 1 2 story home and then another bunch of single story. So again they are really looking Plainfield Plan Commission

18 to make sure that there is individual identity for each housing unit. Then when I started looking into other communities in other states, like Middletown, Ohio they also look at building heights materials again, another regular occurrence that came up. Roofs and projections, this was cool because they actually defined having a second roof pitch for a porch so they are obviously looking to have that front porch on all of their homes. Again with the mass scale and architectural style, compatible with block face and the community around it. They started; I realized a lot of these communities really defined landscaping elements to be similar to the surrounding area and the community as a whole. Then Marysville, Washington, they had an awesome layout of what they wanted and what they didn t want. It was a pretty good PDF that I found of it, it had pictures and I liked the way it was set up and they talked about the compatibility of friendly to the streetscape and the surrounding community. I really loved that they had a section on auto courts because this kind of took me back to the residential piece I did last month about the pocket communities and it did talk about having denser areas of housing but also having parking for that and it made it easier in just the way they talked about the privacy in these communities and orienting the houses so you could still fit them on the lots in the small dense areas but making it private for the community members who are living there. So finally I looked at the residential guideline changes that I think could occur in Plainfield. I think it would be awesome if we defined scale more and really, especially with urban info that is occurring in a lot of communities now a day, you don t want anything looking odd or out of place in a specific area if you are doing infill. I think this would respect the continuity of the surrounding and building and dwelling units in the area. Then I also think adding an entry and porches guideline, which I know is already in the residential guideline but I think really emphasizing this and making that something that is important to have in communities, to foster that community interaction and to have people out and interacting and being outside. I think again the auto courts guideline would be a great thing to add because it does go to the idea of creating pocket communities and small communities like that in existing areas. Thank you, if you have any questions I will be happy to answer them now. Mr. Kirchoff: One of the first things I notice is we are the only one that really defines anything about square footage. Ms. Banning: A lot of them just said that is defined in the ordinance, but we have real specific guidelines, I was really surprised as I was looking. I was confused if I was looking at the wrong thing and then I realized that not many communities defined it as well as Plainfield did. Mr. Kirchoff: Were there any discussion about how they handle that? Ms. Banning: No I didn t find anything about that. That is why when I found the one about Marysville, Washington I thought it was the most similar to Plainfield s because it did have pictures and it did have definitions of works and what doesn t and I think Plainfield has done a good job with that. Mr. McPhail: I love porches, but when I see people outside in our community, they are walking, riding, or do something like that. I Plainfield Plan Commission