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City of Warsaw’s comprehensive plan hasn’t been updated in about 10 years, but that’s likely about to change.
At Monday’s Warsaw Plan Commission meeting, City Planner Justin Taylor provided the board members with copies of the current comprehensive plan.
“The Plan Commission is the board that is responsible for the comprehensive plan for the city of Warsaw,” he said. “It’s been 10 years since that was last updated, so it is time to revisit that and see if we’d like to do an update of that next year.”
The first thing he asked the Plan Commission to determine was if they needed to do a “refresh” of the document.
“Is it still current? Does it still speak to the efforts of the city of Warsaw, or do we need to bring a consultant in (for the) Warsaw Plan Commission to give a fresh look, a refresh, of the entire document?” he asked.
Taylor asked the board to review the plan over the next month, and then they could vote on how to proceed at their Nov. 10 meeting.
Commission Vice Chair and Councilwoman Diane Quance said the comprehensive plan basically looks at the entire community, what existing land uses does it have and where do they see development trends taking place.
“And then do we have, for instance, our plan use suitability. Is what’s happening suitable for where it’s taking place? Do we want to carve out certain sections?” she said. “I know the last one we did, we carved out some medical section where we thought another hospital would go, and it has, and other doctors’ offices and things like that. And so, kind of looking at the growth of the community and what’s happening and whether the land is being used suitably, and then also taking in account our natural land features, which, for us, are our lakes.”
Another part of it, Taylor stated, is looking at where the city’s growth potential is.
“We’re not asking you to be an expert on it, necessarily. It’s looking at it, seeing where the city has already grown, and then where we might see growth evolving over the next few years, or 10 years out,” Taylor said, adding they have the ability to hire and bring on board a consultant to help with the plan.
City engineer Aaron Ott said looming on the horizon for the city is U.S. 30 and any improvements or changes the state may do to it. “Does that influence where we’re going right now, and the stages where that’s at?” he asked.
Taylor replied as much as they can. They could make assumptions about that, and a consultant could help them look at how changes to the U.S. 30 corridor may impact the city’s development.
“We don’t know right now what INDOT is going to choose to do, but we do know that changes are on the horizon for U.S. 30, so that’s something we could maybe game plan a little bit, but we also don’t know for sure,” Taylor said.
Commission member Jeff Owens asked about the cost of hiring a consultant. Taylor said they would have to solicit proposals from several different firms and they don’t know exactly what that number would be. The cost also would be determined by what they ask of the consultant. He’d like a subcommittee to be formed from the Plan Commission to look at all of that.
Owens asked Taylor to give examples of where the comprehensive plan has helped guide the city on a project in the last 10 years. Taylor cited the city’s utilities, their capacity and location; and Board of Zoning Appeals cases. Quance pointed out the land classification plan in the comprehensive plan, which indicates where the city wants things like low-, medium- and high-density housing.
“You’ll see there are things that we didn’t anticipate in this plan. The Greenbrier subdivision is a great example of that. We didn’t have it on this plan listed, but it was an opportunity where we had a way to extend the sewer and we were able to bring a development online to the north of the city where we didn’t see 10 years ago,” Taylor said.
He said the Warsaw Tech Park was a good example of an informed decision that was made in 2015 that has since been executed. It’s been expanding west.
Commission member Dave Baumgartner said there was a number of things in the plan that have been executed already. He said it’ll be interesting to go through the plan and see how many things have not been instituted. Taylor said that will be part of the process. Ultimately, whatever the Plan Commission does with the comprehensive plan, the Warsaw Common Council will have to finalize it.
Ott asked if the commission should look at the plan in the context of what is the city’s current corporate limits, or should they maybe look at areas that should be annexed into the city. Taylor said they can recommend areas for future growth.
Quance said the last time the city did the comprehensive plan, they did have a consultant come in to discuss the plan. Owens asked if they could look back to then and see how much a consultant cost then for a baseline. Taylor said he didn’t think that number would be helpful in any way, but he’d see if he could find it and get it for Owens. Quance said she thought it was around $30,000, but she wasn’t sure.
Commission member Max Maile asked who would do the consulting. Taylor said it would typically be a planning firm, but he didn’t have one in mind, but a subcommittee could look at that, and they would put out a Request For Proposal (RFP).
Ott asked if the city would collaborate with the county at all on the comprehensive plan. Taylor said there’s going to have to be some collaboration, and they would want to at least reference county planning documents.
Juergen Voss, commission member and councilman, asked where the funds would come from to pay for the consultant. Taylor said from the Building & Planning Department’s professional services budget. Any contract with a consultant would have to be approved by the Board of Public Works and Safety.
The Plan Commission members will review the current comprehensive plan on their own over the next month. At their Nov. 10 meeting, they will further discuss the comprehensive plan and how to proceed forward.
“There’s no hurry to get this done,” Voss said.
