A presentation to the Kosciusko County Commissioners Monday on the CR 1300N study is one of several that will be given to county boards this month.
Crystal Welsh, senior urban planner with Abonmarche, told the commissioners, “The intention was that the (county) Redevelopment Commission hired Abonmarche to help them work through a process to kind of do a directed, more-intensive land-use study for the 1300 corridor, which is pretty much the area surrounding 1300 North between Syracuse and Milford.”
The county’s comprehensive plan, as well as the towns of Syracuse and Milford, mentioned that they wanted to look for areas for additional growth in industrial and residential development.

      

“And so what this study did is we started off with a steering committee,” she said. “... But the intent really was, let’s think through the process of what land use planning for this corridor might look like. And so it wasn’t just throwing colors on a map. It was a very iterative process.”
The steering committee met five times and talked about what made sense for the area. They looked at keeping everything as is and doing nothing to the opposite end of developing everything, and everywhere in between. Welsh said they went through multiple processes, looking at data, talking to local business people and real estate agents and came up with what they thought was a “reasonable” recommendation for land use in that area.
“It includes additional residential development, not only in single-family residential, but also up near the Syracuse property town limits a kind of mixed-use, a little bit more intensive residential development opportunity,” Welsh said. “It also provided about a 1,000 additional acres for industrial development.”
When they looked at where industrial development made sense, she said they really looked at things like natural areas, flood plains and wetlands. They looked particularly at roads because if they were going to recommend industrial development, it needed to be on paved roads. They tried to avoid any industrial development on dirt roads. The roadways - and available property - were a very important deciding factor, she said.
A public engagement meeting on CR 1300N was held Oct. 30 in Milford. She said Abonmarche will be going to the Redevelopment Commission on Nov. 14, as well as the county council. Area Plan Director Matt Sandy will take the study to the Plan Commission on Nov. 6 as Welsh as a conflict then.
“Officially, the Redevelopment Commission had us work on this study, so they are ultimately the folks that are going to be adopting it,” she said.
The study is available at kosciusko.in.gov/department/board.php?structureid=210 under “Related Pages.”
Leslie Friedel, Stillwater Hospice CEO, also gave a presentation to the commissioners. As part of receiving a $50,000 grant from the county for 2024, Stillwater Hospice must give quarterly reports on how those funds are benefitting Kosciusko County residents.
The July through September quarter she reported on is the third quarter.
“We have used $12,500 - we’ve actually exceeded the $12,500 - of the county’s allocated dollars for operational needs to provide palliative, hospice and grief support in Kosciusko County or to Kosciusko County residents,” she said. A big portion of that was for wage increases for staff members that were brought on board at Stillwater from Kosciusko County Home Care & Hospice when the two agencies merged. The cost of that was $68,000 annually. There also was some training and education costs for two Kosciusko County residents that work for Stillwater - about $10,700 for the year.
In the third quarter, 18 Kosciusko residents received palliative counsels through Stillwater’s program at Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital. Stillwater also served 58 Kosciusko residents and their families for a total of 2,732 days on service during the quarter.
Stillwater also has seen such an increase in need of grief support that they’re bringing Cara Allebach on to do more individual grief counseling in the community in the evenings at the Health Services Pavilion.
In other business, the commissioners:
• Approved rescinding the countywide burn ban, which has been in place for the past two weeks, as recommended by Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter. He recommended the burn ban be ended because of Monday’s rain and the potential rain over the next 10 days.
• Approved the Indiana Department of Transportation unofficial detour for Ind. 14, as requested by County Highway Superintendent Steve Moriarty.
“They’re going to be replacing a small structure on State Road 14 over Nelson’s Ditch, so we have to pick an unofficial detour route,” he said.
The route selected is County Farm Road to CR 1200S over to CR 100W. Moriarty said the highway department believes this will be the best route for people to redirect over Ind. 14 when it comes to the unofficial detour route.
• Opened the 2025 highway supplies and materials bids. The commissioners voted to take the bids under advisement and Moriarty will make a recommendation on them to the commissioners at their Nov. 19 meeting.
• Approved three contracts with Computer Systems Inc. as requested by County Recorder Deb Wright. She said CSI is the software company that they’ve worked with since 2007.
The contracts are for hardware maintenance, microfilm creation and disaster recovery services and costs are $12,626; $5,414.50; and $1,330. All the funds for the contracts come out of the perpetuation fund.
• Approved two contracts for the county prosecutor’s office, as requested by Rob Bishop, child support director, on behalf of County Prosecutor Brad Voelz.
One contract is with Eagles Accounts that the prosecutor’s office has had “for years and year,” Bishop said. “We’re allowed as a county to hire them to collect certain money owed to the state of Indiana. When they collect that money, they actually split it with the county and with this Eagles Account. So, actually, this is a profit center, believe it or not, I’m bringing to you.”
The other contract is with Applied Innovations. Bishop said it’s the “paperless tool we use in my office. We were supposed to be on a statewide system now, an upgraded statewide system. That did not work and we have no idea when that’s going to happen, so we need to get on board with getting up to date with our current software, and this is going to do that for us.”
Commissioner Cary Groninger asked if the cost for Applied Innovations was the $18,804 as indicated on the commissioners agenda. Bishop said it’s actually $30,000 for the first year and that includes setting his office up on the cloud-based system.
“There are some savings for the county as well because we’re not going to be on the county servers anymore, and (the county) next year won’t be maintaining this next year, we’ll be maintaining this with our vendor,” Bishop said.
Money for it will be paid out of one of the office’s incentive accounts and not out of the general fund.
• Approved a $4,860 contract with 1 Eighty Digital, as requested by County Health Administrator Bob Weaver. He said 1 Eighty Digital helps advertise programs within the county’s Health First Indiana, mostly the prenatal division.
• Approved the memorandum of understanding with Purdue Extension, as requested by County Auditor Alyssa Schmucker on the extension’s behalf. She said it’s the county agreement with the Purdue Extension for their services and county attorney Ed Ormsby reviewed it.
• Heard an update on the Justice Building renovation from County Administrator Marsha McSherry. She said phase 5 of 10 was completed on time on Wednesday last week and phase 6 had a good start.