City Planner Jeremy Skinner presented Warsaw’s common council Monday night with the Building and Planning Department’s 2015 year-end review and 2016 look ahead, though he didn’t go through it during the meeting. “It’s just a report, I really don’t have a speech or anything on it. Certainly, you can look through it. It just has the numbers for this year and some of the goals and objectives we accomplished, and looking ahead to some of the projects and things we’d like to accomplish for next year,” Skinner said. Thallemer said, “We’re going to be looking, with all the department heads, to develop a pretty thorough, comprehensive capital improvement plan. Probably refining some of these goals and blending them. But we’re also, in the new year when the new council gets together, we’re going to sit down and talk about a lot of these projects and do a little strategic planning.” He said Skinner’s presentation contained some “good information” for the council to get started with, with a lot of the projects coming from the planning department and redevelopment commission. “I think it’s important to use a little bit of that as a homework assignment before we get started with the strategic planning,” Thallemer said. Skinner’s information indicated that the building department issued 420 permits in 2015, including 39 new home permits, but the number of remodels and additions continue to be below average. The city had $6.5 million in new residential construction and roughly $10.8 million in commercial construction last year. Of the $6.5 million, about $1.1 million of that was remodels and additions. The remaining $5.4 million was spent on new single-family home construction. Based on the average number of inspections per permit, the city inspectors completed well over 1,100 inspections in 2015. They inspected and issued 94 violation letters and processed 14 code hearing cases in 2015. Of those 14 cases, three resulted in fines levied against the property owner and three demolitions were ordered. The city has contracted for two of the properties to be razed and the third property is still in the legal process. The Plan Commission reviewed 10 cases, including the Warsaw Technology Park Subdivision, Park Ridge Phase 4, Briar Ridge Villas and some additional minor subdivisions. The information states that the majority of the projects reviewed will take two to three years from start to finish, and in the case of the subdivisions up to 10 years before completion. The Board of Zoning Appeals reviewed 22 variances, special exception and development standard requests in 2015. As for the Redevelopment Commission, the 64,000-square-foot shell building at the Technology Park was finished and a marketing plan put into place in hopes of finding an occupant in the near future. Along with the shell building completion, the city officially opened phase 1 of the Technology Park and construction is under way on an estimated 45,000-square-foot manufacturing facility for Banner Medical. In addition to the completion of Winona PVD’s second expansion project, the Redevelopment Commission completed another bond issue to help with its third expansion project since 2012. Excluding the shell building, Skinner notes the Technology Park is set to see $20 million in new manufacturing facilities and equipment over the next year. Skinner’s information also notes the Buffalo Street project will “strengthen the core of Warsaw’s downtown district with a mixed-use redevelopment project, while protecting the future of the Redevelopment District.” Some of the projects on the 2016 list, which includes upcoming projects that the various commissions and building and planning department will be working on over the next year, are: update various ordinances; design, bid and construct side path connecting Warsaw Technology Park to CR 300N; start construction on CR 300N bridge; further work on the Husky Trail project; Market Street phase 2; Buffalo Street redevelopment project; and the north/south railroad line grade separation study.
