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Plan Commission needs alternate to pass bus barn rezone
If getting there is indeed half the battle, the Greencastle Community School Corporation (GCSC) and City Plan Commission must feel like they've won half the war.
On face value, the result of the Plan Commission's meeting earlier this week was unanimous approval of a new site for the GCSC bus barn, just southwest of the intersection of Tennessee Street and State Road 240.
While a unanimous vote sounds like an easy-peasy outcome, it was far from that at the March Plan Commission meeting.
The start of the 7 p.m. meeting was delayed 30 minutes while City Attorney Laurie Hardwick combed through Indiana statutes to determine how many board members had conflicts due to their employment by the school corporation or their spouses or children, and how the situation might be resolved.
And when that conflict number exceeded what would constitute a quorum and the required number of votes (7) for passage, City Attorney Hardwick turned to a seldom-usedstatute that allows plan commissions to swear in alternate members to hear just such a case.
Of the 10 members on hand for the city meeting, only six -- Chairman Bill Hamm, Mike Murphy, Eric Wolfe, Mark Hammer, Tim Trigg and Jessica Hartman -- had no conflict of interest in the matter.
Those who had conflicts with voting on an issue relevant to the school corporation included Mayor Bill Dory, whose wife is a teacher; Wayne Lewis, whose wife and two daughters work for the corporation; Donnie Watson, who is employed as a part-time bus driver; and Matt Welker, who is an assistant basketball coach.
Those with conflicts were not allowed to speak during the discussion.
An 11th commission member, Jack Murtagh, was absent.
Enter alternate Sue Murray, the former mayor and also a former Plan Commission member.
The Plan Commission, Hardwick said, was thrown "a bit of a curveball" in trying to consider the bus barn project without leaving itself open to future litigation because of any conflict of interest.
"Anyone who has a direct or indirect financial interest in the outcome of the zoning decision should recuse themselves," Hardwick said. "We have so many people on the board who have spouses employed there or children employed. Small towns are going to have conflicts, especially when the petition is from someone like the school corporation."
With Murray sworn in as a "proxy member" of the Plan Commission, the attention at last turned to the GCSC request to rezone 10.49 acres of property it is purchasing from Hanson Aggregates from single-family district (SD2) to general business (GB1).
Supt. Dawn Puckett explained the need for a new bus barn to replace the landlocked structure on North Vine Street that has been in use for 70 years. She offered an old photo from 1948 showing the quonset hut structures that have passed for garages over the years. If that photo had been taken today, she said, the only thing that would be different from 1948 would be the buses themselves.
The GCSC is actually purchasing two lots from Hanson Aggregates as "a package deal" totaling 29.22 acres. Only the 10.49 acres that abut State Road 240 will be used for the bus barn project. The remainder will stay in its natural state with trees and potentially wildlife intact.
Plans are for a 100-by-55 foot office building with a drivers' room and a two-bay shop and barns designed to keep 36 buses inside the facility and room to grow.
The only entrance will be at the corner of Tennessee and State Road 240 with no need for any upgrade to the intersection. While there is a concrete apron already in place at the entrance, the entry will be widened, officials said.
Meanwhile, the only traffic that will use Tennessee Street will be the bus that picks up students along that street.
City Planner Shannon Norman told a handful of area residents on hand at the meeting that if the school were to ever do anything with the southern lot at the site, it would have to come back before the Plan Commission for rezoning.
With the Plan Commission approval in hand, the rezoning will now get two separate readings before the City Council before it is enacted, while the project will also need to go before the Greencastle Board of Zoning Appeals for a use variance at the site.
Wolfe made the motion to approve the rezoning request and send a favorable recommendation to the City Council. After a second from Murphy, the other five favorable votes came from Hamm, Hammer, Trigg, Hartman and Murray.