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Discussions by the Warsaw Plan Commission on a dumpster ordinance and a plat to reconfigure three lots at 1060 Mariners Drive, owned by Mallers Joyner Cinemas LLC, got a little lengthy Monday night.
In the end, the preliminary plat to reconfigure the three lots was unanimously approved, but the board held off on approving the final plat. No action was taken on the dumpster ordinance. Both will be brought back up at the Plan Commission’s June 8 meeting.
In introducing the petition from Mallers Joyner Cinemas, City Planner Justin Taylor said, “The petitioner has submitted a plat to reconfigure three lots located at 1060 Mariners Drive. Historically, these lots were merged for tax purposes and have been maintained under the common ownership. The need to reconfigure these parcels has arisen because the owner would like to sell off some of the lots and one of the property lines bisects the building, so it wouldn’t be wise to do that until this is cleaned up.”
The plat includes an expansion of a drainage and utility easement to the west of lot 3, and that would allow lot 3 (the lot south of the movie theater) to access that public drainage basin, he said.
The recommendation from the Warsaw Planning Department was the Plan Commission grant preliminary and final approval for the plat as presented, Taylor stated.
The Plan Commission had questions and concerns about a retention basin, but more so about road cuts and curbing to Husky Trail versus Mariner Drive and where they would be located in relation to the roundabout.
Alex Reed, listing broker for Mallers Joyner, said, “The goal, our hope would be, to get a curb cut on Husky Trail. We talked to Justin about that, and being as far away from the roundabout as possible. Pretty close to where the existing pylon sign is for North Pointe now. That would be about where the boundary is between lot 1 and lot 3. That’s where we envision it happening just to get as far away from the roundabout to not cause any traffic disruptions.”
Councilman Juergen Voss said that would be awful close to the roundabout. Reed said it was close, but it’s about the same as the Family Worship Center on the opposite side of the road.
Commission member Jeff Owens asked why they were proposing a curb cut on Husky as opposed to Mariners as there’s plenty of frontage on Mariners, for lot 3.
Reed said they determined it would be too close coming out of the roundabout there.
Commission President Rick Keeven asked if the Warsaw Traffic Commission had looked at it. Taylor said right now they don’t know what kind of traffic would be involved in a potential future use of the property.
“After looking at it, we did discuss a lot of different options. The commission is well within its rights to request an easement to the north of lot 3, if that was something you guys wanted to see on there, just to give us a little more flexibility to push that farther north on Husky Trail,” Taylor said. “There’s a blind curve on Mariners on the south end, so it might not be the best option there. There’s also a barrier ... that wouldn’t allow you to make a left-turn out of the lot there.”
Owens asked the petitioner’s representatives, “Do you have an active contract or interest in lot 3 based on access coming from Husky Trail?”
Reed said they’ve just expressed interest on lots, but not necessarily explored what curb cuts would look like.
“So we’re not disrupting a potential sale with this conversation?” Owens asked.
“No. It’s all preliminary right now. It’s verbal. Nothing’s on paper yet, but they have shown ... interest,” Reed stated.
Keeven asked Taylor who was the final arbiter of where the road cut would go. Taylor said it’ll be reviewed through the technical committee and they could channel them through the Traffic Safety Commission, but the Plan Commission also could be involved if there was an issue. However, there are no site plans so it would be hard to guess what those would be.
“It would make it more challenging to create an easement if there’s a difference in ownership. It might cost that potential buyer more money, but we don’t know what we don’t know right now what that future use might be,” Taylor said.
The discussion on the easements and road cuts went on for some time.
There were no remonstrators to the petition to reconfigure the three lots. Taylor agreed to take the discussion to the Traffic Safety Commission’s June 3 meeting to hear their thoughts on the different easement options.
Owens said he was not opposed to the plat, but he was opposed to approving the preliminary and final plats in one meeting. The commission approved the motion to approve the preliminary plat, but the motion to suspend the rules and approve the final plat did not pass so the final plat will be brought up at the June 8 meeting.
That’s when the Plan Commission heard from the potential buyer that they were looking to close on the purchase much sooner than next month.
“Most of these plats go two meetings. They have to suspend the rules to (approve both in one meeting), so it’s typical that it does take two meetings to do the preliminary and final,” Taylor explained.
The buyer, who did not identify himself, was then asked if pushing it off a month would harm the potential sale of the property or if that just delayed their time frame.
“That would be a comment for future discussion. There’s plenty of things trying to harm the sale anyways,” the buyer said, noting they’ve already delayed the sale by quite a bit already.
Moving on, Taylor brought up the dumpster ordinance. He sought a recommendation from the Plan Commission to take to Warsaw Common Council to review the ordinance and enact it.
“The purpose of this ordinance is to regulate the placement of dumpsters, roll-off containers and similar refuse containers within the public right-of-way of the city of Warsaw in order to protect public safety, maintain traffic circulation, preserve municipal infrastructure and ensure the availability of public parking,” Taylor said.
Currently, he said, the city doesn’t have any regulation over the placement of dumpsters.
The ordinance would create a new permitting process for dumpsters. The proposed fee is $15 per day, including over weekends and holidays. There’s also civil penalties if there is damage to public infrastructure, up to $5,000 per occurrence in addition to the cost of the repair.
Section 4 of the ordinance covers exemptions. The ordinance does not apply to small dumpsters used for routine business refuse located within alleyways provided that the dumpster does not obstruct vehicular access through the alley and the dumpster is associated with a lawful commercial refuse collection service.
Commission member Max Maile questioned how the ordinance would be enforced. Taylor said it would be done the same way that building permits are done.
There also were questions from the Plan Commission on how long an initial permit lasts, how fees were collected, refunds and Quance thought some of the ordinance, like the word “small,” was vague.
Maile also asked about a grace period and Voss brought up exceptions. It was also asked who would be responsible for acquiring the dumpster permit.
Taylor said they’ll look at it again at their June meeting.
