BHI Senior Living Retirement Communities is moving forward with a proposal to build 103 independent living units on a property at the northeast corner of Talley Road and Rocky Ford Road/County Road 250 North.
The Columbus City Council has approved on first reading an ordinance to annex 39.06 acres into the city of Columbus and rezone 38.63 acres from agriculture to multi-family residential. According to a memorandum from the Columbus Plan Commission, the annexation area includes the rezoning site and “the adjacent county road 250 North right-of-way.”
Since the city council takes two readings to approve an ordinance, these same items will most likely be on the agenda again for the council’s July meeting. Planning director Jeff Bergman said that any approval of the ordinances is not the same as approval of BHI’s project.
“The requests are for annexing the property into the city of Columbus and to change the zoning,” he said. “So it is not specific to this developer, necessarily, and it’s not specific to their project. Nor is it approval of their project.”
Bergman said that most of the proposed living units, if built, would be duplexes.
“They (BHI) also spoke to us a lot at the planning commission about amenities they intended to include on the property, which was part of the planning commission’s discussion about how to mitigate the distance between this location and open space,” he said.
The proposed amenities, as listed in the rezoning ordinance, are “a 3,000 square foot amenity area which includes two pickleball courts and a swimming pool,” “five Pergola-style ‘pocket parks’ throughout the development” and “internal sidewalks on at least one side of the internal drives.”
Heidi Dickey, who attended Tuesday’s Columbus City Council meeting, voiced concerns about potential runoff from the new units.
“You should have a little bit more thorough background to see how that’s going to affect Eastridge Manor,” she said, “and the effects that it will do for the rest of the way down, right, all of the water shoots down underneath the bridge, down Sloan Branch and out into Clifty Creek. When Clifty Creek backs up, Sloan Branch backs up as well. Where’s the water going to go? And there’s a big effect on people’s homes, especially in Eastridge Manor.”
She suggested reducing the number of living units, as well as doing a drainage study of the area.
“Obviously it’s going to happen,” she said of the project. “BHI, they just need to be a little bit more responsible and encourage the right type of development for the future of our city and Bartholomew County.”
Bergman responded by saying that the ordinances are the first step to potentially developing the property and that city will make sure BHI has a detailed plan regarding runoff.
“They will be required to submit a drainage plan to the city engineer’s office that gets reviewed against the city standards,” he said, “and those standards include them retaining any additional runoff from the rooftops on their property and then releasing it consistent with what was released previously.”
City councilman David Bush added that for properties above a certain acreage, developers are also required to go through the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and “verify that the runoff after development is actually equal to or less than the runoff prior to development.”
Councilman Frank Miller indicated that any runoff from the property wouldn’t necessarily go into Sloan Branch.
“If you look at that area now, when there is runoff from that property, some of it goes across 250 even into the field to the south,” Miller said. “It goes off in many different directions right now. … From my experience, it doesn’t head toward Sloan Branch. It seems to go the other way.”
The rezoning ordinance also promised that developers would make road improvements on the east half of Talley Road and the north side of Country Road 250 to match recent improvements on Rocky Ford Road. If the ordinances passes, both roads will be updated with:
45 feet of right-of-way
An 11-foot travel lane
An integrated 5-foot and 7-inch bike lane and curb and gutter
A 10-foot tree lawn
A 5-foot sidewalk
An additional 6-feet of pavement widening to allow for the future inclusion of a center turn lane
The annexing ordinance noted that since the closest public transit from the site is Bus Route #1 and the closest stop is 1.4 miles away at the corner of Marr and Rocky Ford Roads, BHI “indicated that an internal shuttle service could be provided from the existing Four Seasons along Taylor Road if needed, although specific information regarding this shuttle service was not provided.”
The start date for work on this property — if and when both the ordinances and the actual project are fully approved — is unclear.
“Originally, when this was going to be heard in March, we had hoped to start this summer,” said Dan Wolf, owner of Bedrock Builders, the company that would build the units if the project is approved. “We really haven’t reassessed the schedule since then. But the owners are motivated to start, so we hope to still start some site work in the summer.”
