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Before the Warsaw Plan Commission can keep working on the update to the city’s comprehensive plan that they began collaborating on last year, the city council needs to tackle the strategic plan.
At the Plan Commission’s meeting Monday night, Councilwoman Diane Quance said, “A question has come up, with this board, because we began to look at the comprehensive plan and realized that the city needed to do a strategic plan in order to proceed with that.”
She said she met with Mayor Jeff Grose and asked him to get moving on the strategic plan.
“So we do have a meeting next month that will be set for the city council to begin the development of that strategic plan,” Quance said. “As soon as we get that strategic plan finished, then we can come back and finish our discussion that we started. We’ve had a great discussion and you guys have done a lot of research on that comprehensive plan and making sure that what we do with the comprehensive plan fits into the strategic plan of the city.”
She said the strategic plan will come first with the city council beginning work on that in February. The plan could take an additional month or so to get completed.
“We normally have public input on the strategic plan, too, so it could be a couple months out before we can actually get to the comprehensive plan. But when the comment section opens for the public for the strategic plan, I would really encourage people from the plan commission to be there for that, so that they can see the strategic plan and also just hear if there are people from the public that have ideas of about the way they’d like to see things,” Quance said.
City Planner Justin Taylor said the strategic plan sessions are typically an hour or two before the city council’s meeting. For February, the city’s meetings will be at the Warsaw Police Department Training Facility due to work on the HVAC system at City Hall.
Quance told the Plan Commission they would receive updates on the strategic plan meetings.
The sole petition before the Plan Commission Monday was from Austin Head to subdivide 19.81 acres at 420 Westcreek Drive to create two lots.
Taylor said, “This is the preliminary layout for a subdivision of the tract of land located at 420 Westcreek Drive. They would like to create a subdivision of two parcels. One of the parcels would be around 3 acres and would be on the north side of the property, designated for a residential structure. The second parcel would be about 13 acres on the south side and it contains additional flood plain and floodway, but an existing pole barn is also located on that site.”
He said the utility access and site access for both properties would be off Westcreek Drive, and the planning office recommended approval of the preliminary layout for the subdivision. “We are waiting on the final plat to do the preliminary final. Once that comes through, we’ll bring it back before the board for approval,” Taylor stated.
The property is in a Residential-2 zoning district.
The petitioner was not present for the meeting. There were no remonstrators against it.
After a few questions about the structure on the property, the entrance to the property, the flood plain area and other details, Quance asked, “Do we know what the point is of subdividing this?”
Taylor responded, “Yes. So, currently, it’s co-owned, the large parcel, by two brothers. So the one brother wants to build a house on the north side, and the other brother would like to maintain ownership of the south parcel. So they’re basically just splitting the ownership and building.”
When Quance asked if anything was going to be built on the south parcel, Taylor said as of right now, it’ll remain the same with the existing structure that’s there. He believed that structure has been converted to some sort of residential use.
Commission member Jeff Owens asked if the properties were serviced by sewer, and Taylor stated they were.
The Plan Commission unanimously approved the petition.
In other business, Rick Keeven and Quance were re-elected as president and vice president, respectively, for 2026.
Commission member Max Maile will serve as the Plan Commission’s representative to the Warsaw Board of Zoning Appeals, replacing Dave Baumgartner.
