The updated Pleasant Creek site map from the Nov. 21 meeting. Submitted map
After having to re-do a public hearing, New Whiteland officials chose again to push forward a residential development.
The New Whiteland Plan Commission gave another favorable recommendation on Nov. 21 to rezone land for the Pleasant Creek planned unit development. or PUD. The commission also sent a favorable recommendation to the town council for the development’s preliminary plat.
The plan commission had to hold another public hearing because not every property owner received a notice about the first public hearing Oct. 22. The vote for the rezoning was 5-1 with Jeff Weaver voting against the rezoning while the preliminary plat vote was unanimous.
Pleasant Creek PUD is on approximately 160 acres north and west of the Whiteland Road and Sawmill Road intersection surrounding the wastewater treatment plant. The PUD will consist of 402 homes with 46 to 52-foot wide lots alongside detached and attached townhomes. The homes will be built by Lennar Homes and Ryan Homes.
Adam Mears, land use and project facilitator from Gradison Land Development, said the homes will sell for $300,000 and up. The development will also come with neighborhood amenities including a pool, bathhouse and a playground.
Developers have agreed to several commitments, including creating an HOA and constructing road improvements that are recommended by the traffic engineer and approved by the town with the traffic study, Mears said. The traffic study is in progress and has not been completed yet.
If the homes are leased out, there would be a one-year minimum lease requirement for those who move into the homes and no short-term rentals are allowed. This comes after several community members have expressed concerns about people or companies using the homes as short-term rentals.
Among other discussion, plan commission member John Perrin asked Mears if the HOA would provide background checks or what the HOA’s responsibility would be with approving residents. Mears said the HOA will have the ability to do background checks but discussions will be left between the person leasing the home and the person paying rent unless there are glaring issues.
Weaver expressed concerns about the vinyl siding and why the community couldn’t get brick instead.
“Why can’t we have a little bit of a nicer facade? Why can’t we have some brick? … You made a statement to me that’s really stuck with me for over a month now that, ‘Well, this is by a treatment plant,’ … That’s really bothered me,” Weaver said. “I’d like you to address and tell me what you mean by that, that ‘We’re building by a treatment plant that we’re only going to market to certain, you know, we can’t put too much money in these homes?’ You said that since that’s stuck with me for over two months now.”
Mears said there would be the same selection of houses around the wastewater treatment plant as the other parts of the development. Selling the lots up against the wastewater treatment plant is a challenge from the sales perspective, Mears said, and it’s important to build a home that is not only good quality but can sell to the market. He said he didn’t mean it in a derogatory way and was just being factual.
He also said the builders will use a thicker vinyl for the homes.
Perrin references another comparable development going in McCordsville with one home made almost entirely out of brick and he didn’t see any homes in that development that didn’t have a least a quarter of the front with brick.
“You have to kind of understand we’re going to be here after you guys are gone … There is a fear of it becoming transient rental property and I think the nicer it is. more aesthetically it is, people will tend to stay longer,” Perrin said.
Although he said he is currently in favor of the project, Perrin said he doesn’t want the development to turn into all rental property in five years and doesn’t think people would adhere to fines from the HOA and if they’re renting it, they would just leave.
Mears rebutted that HOAs have “a lot more teeth” than what Perrin described if they choose to enforce things and the developers can’t “protect against every possible evil that you can think of” but the best they can do is have a clear statement that the lease has to be at least a year.
Town council president John Purdie was in the audience and Perrin asked if a part of the HOA covenants could state that rentals couldn’t be sold to out-of-state management companies that do rentals or that homes could only be sold to primary owners.
Mears said it could be complicated to word it in the covenants and a person could say it infringes on their rights to sell their own property and he doesn’t want to get into a legal battle. The company couldn’t commit to it without first talking with the builders, another representative from Gradison Land Development said.
But Mears said the town would be able to get in contact with Gradison Land Development or the HOA quickly because they are 30 minutes away.
A handful of community members spoke during public comment about the development. Some of the concerns brought up at the meeting include that the homes were “cookie cutters,” there is a lack of lighting and sidewalks on the south end of Sawmill Road, property values, traffic and there are no public town amenities, like a pool, and current town residents wouldn’t be able to use the development’s amenities.
One public commenter said the woman who represents all the heirs for the property wants the land to sell before her 92-year-old aunt before she dies because there would be six heirs instead of three heirs that would be involved, and she doesn’t want the land to become an “eyesore” or “a ghost town for New Whiteland.” He also said he isn’t a proponent of selling farmland for development but some locations become necessary to sell to development because of location.
Some community members also said the developer’s commitment to give $290,000 to the town over three years for future infrastructure improvements isn’t enough money.
The plan commission and Gradison Land Development also decided to earmark $75,000 for building a trail that is imagined in New Whiteland in the Johnson County Trails Master Plan in the future.
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