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Registration preparations for city UTVs moving faster than expected
Less than a week after the Greencastle City Council passed the long-debated UTV (Utility Task Vehicle) ordinance, progress has hit the gas pedal on the registration effort.
“We came back Friday and started taking care of things,” Mayor Lynda Dunbar said, alluding to the Council decision last Thursday night.
“The stickers are ordered. Signs are ordered,” she said Wednesday following the Board of Works meeting at City Hall. “Applications are done and inspection sheets are done.”
Meanwhile, Greencastle UTV enthusiasts will soon have an email address all their own -- UTV@cityofgreencastle.com -- where they can send in their application and certification of liability as well as schedule an inspection appointment with City Police.
“That’s how you’ll get the ability to drive into city limits for your inspection,” the mayor noted.
Mayor Dunbar had previously suggested that it could take until July 1 to have all the UTV ducks in a row -- signs, registration stickers, inspections -- and allow owners to start traveling city streets. It now appears that might all be accomplished much earlier, although Dunbar declined to predict a new date for legal operations.
She explained that the city is treating the orange and green registration stickers “like they do fishing licenses.” In other words, they will always expire July 1 of the next year, regardless of when the sticker is purchased.
“Even if you get your sticker in December this year, it’s going to say 7-1-25 as the expiration date,” Dunbar elaborated.
This year’s registrations are for 2024-25, she said, adding “if you get approved in April or May, you will get extra time (until July 2025).”
As for the signage -- one of the main sticking points in the contested nature of the city ordinance, which passed by a 4-3 vote -- the city has ordered 500 5-x-7-inch signs that will mostly be attached to other existing road markers.
City Attorney Laurie Hardwick said city personnel determined that 365 such signs were needed if one sign were placed at the end of each street.
However, some streets are longer, she noted, and will be posted more than the one time that is required by state statute.
Mayor Dunbar said the city will also work with DePauw University on posting signage on campus and how university officials want to attach the UTV signs to their existing decorative signage.
While the signs and stickers have been ordered, delivery is awaited as the next hurdle in the UTV process.
“As soon as we get the signs,” the mayor said, “the Street Department will put them up. That will take a day or two.”
Meanwhile, residents need to remember that no UTVs are allowed on city streets until the signage is in place and individual registration is completed.
It also should be noted that specifically excluded for use on city streets by the ordinance are golf carts, ATVs, three-wheelers and four-wheelers, all of which are not recreational off-highway vehicles and not allowable by state statute.