Over a dozen people with property inside the Airport Industrial Park area that could soon be annexed attended a public hearing on the matter Monday loaded with questions.

They wanted to know how being annexed into the city would affect their taxes, zoning and other issues.

It was the first of six public hearings on the annexation proposal, with the others set for 5 p.m. Dec. 11 and 18; 10 a.m. Dec. 7 and 19; and 11 a.m. Dec. 13. All meetings will be held in the city council chambers at Warsaw City Hall, 102 S. Buffalo St.

The area the city is seeking to annex is between the north/south railroad and CR 100E and CR 250N south to about CR 200N. It encompasses 479 acres.



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City Planner Jeremy Skinner began the public hearing with a short presentation, saying that all six hearings will be the same. He then opened it up to questions, and invited anyone to look at an annexation map.

The annexation area includes property that is mostly zoned industrial, but includes some residential, commercial and agriculture.

Skinner said the annexation process allows for the exclusion of some parcels if the city chooses to do so.

“Just because it’s up there (on the map) doesn’t mean it will be annexed. We prepared everything as if this is the area that will be annexed, but there are parcels that can be excluded,” he explained.

Existing zoning designations established by the county would carry over if annexed. But since the city doesn’t have an agricultural classification, those areas would be “brought into the nearest surrounding zoning districts,” Skinner said.

The assessed value of the area is $31,066,238, and would increase the city’s assessed value by about 3.57 percent.

The cost of the city taking on the annexation is roughly $25,200 per year for police; fire, no cost because it’s already covered through township agreements and some of it is already in Wayne Township; and street department, roughly $56,400 per year; for a total non-capital cost of $81,600 annually that the city will be taking on if the property is annexed. Water is private, so the city won’t be extending water as part of the project, but Chris Harrison from Indiana American Water Co. attended the meeting to discuss possibilities with any property owners who would like water extended out there.

The capital improvement costs for the city would be roughly $6.7 million for new sanitary sewer, about $1.1 million in storm water infrastructure, and $4.9 million in road improvements.

Skinner said the annexation would take effect prior to Dec. 31, 2018, because property can’t be annexed two years prior to the 10-year census. The first city payable taxes for a property that is annexed wouldn’t occur until 2020, and part of the annexation would allow for the application of a three-year tax abatement.

The annexation ordinance and fiscal plan would be introduced to the city council in?January. If the council adopts those, there would be a 90-day period for advertising requirements, with the public hearing on the annexation in March or April.

The council then would vote on the annexation.

“Up until that period, properties can be taken out of the annexation, they can not be added to the annexation,” Skinner said.

The annexation ordinance would be adopted in May, with it taking effect sometime in October at the latest.

In 2018, the annexation process, the preliminary and completed engineering, the bidding of the sewer project, expansion of the tax increment finance district and bonding all will occur. The annexation process will run currently with the engineering. The Eastern and Northern TIF districts will be used to fund the capital improvements to the sanitary sewer.

“The goal is to have the sanitary sewer completed sometime in early 2020 so that sanitary sewer can go online at the earliest sometime in 2020,” Skinner said.

Some road improvements will occur on the roads out there, depending on where the sanitary sewers run, he said. Future road improvements will occur as the TIF district expands and as the funding in the TIF district allows for the improvements to be made.

All the information from Skinner’s presentation will be loaded onto the city’s website this week at warsaw.in.gov.

Asked what existing businesses are in the area to be annexed, Skinner mentioned there were various ones including Zimmer Biomet. Asked if all the businesses along there would be required to hook up to the sanitary sewer, Skinner said yes.

As for “how expensive that would be,” Skinner said, “For you to tie on, I can’t tell you that. If you did it yourself, it may not be very expensive. ... If you contracted out, that would be something you’re going to have to figure out. As far as a sewer tap permit, I can tell you the price of that. So for us, for you if you were a resident, you would be $1,750 for the sewer tap and there’s a $200 inspection fee.”

For a commercial business, it depends on the size of their water tap, but it would be between $2,500 and $3,500, but wouldn’t exceed $3,500 for the tap itself, he said.

A woman asked how the Wayne and Plain townships’ tax rates compare as some of the property is in Plain and City of Warsaw is in Wayne. Skinner said there wasn’t much difference between the two.

A man asked that since the project is being financed by making TIF payments on the bond issue, “are the bond issues voted on?” Skinner said the bond issue would be voted on by the Redevelopment Commission and City Council.