Plan commission members get a view of construction plans for three schools

WARSAW — Warsaw Community School Corporation is another step closer to bringing its dream of a new Lincoln Elementary and renovated Washington Elementary and Edgewood Middle School a reality.

Warsaw Plan Commission unanimously approved development plans on all three school projects Monday evening, Dec. 14, during its regular meeting. No negative remarks against the project were heard from commission members or the members present, only questions concerning traffic at Washington and Edgewood.

Jeremy Skinner, city planner, stated the development plans meet the city’s requirements. Meeting over six months to discuss traffic flow and movement, Lincoln school’s design fitting into a neighborhood with the least amount of impact were worked out. “We will continue to work with them on the sewer line that runs through the site for a good resolution to the issue,” Skinner said about the Lincoln site.

Traffic flow, detention ponds, setbacks, construction time frame, and Lincoln School projected student enrollment were topics discussed.

Site plan for Lincoln Elementary. A dotted outline in the parking lot area shows the location of the existing school.

Only two residents, Bill Pochron who resides near Washington and Edgewood and Tyler Moore, who resides near Lincoln, provided comments to the commission. Both expressed concern over traffic issues. Pochron’s concern focused on the twice daily congestion in the area around both Edgewood and Washington, not only on immediate streets of Kincaid, Union, Logan and Fisher, but also Winona Avenue. “I can’t get out of the driveway,” he stated.

Moore questioned the impact of traffic near Lincoln at Colfax and Main asking if the city has looked at installing some type of stop device. “Traffic comes flying by that corner … It’s nasty, you can’t see through Ace Hardware,” Jim Gast, commission member, agreed adding traffic has been looked at before and the city will keep an eye on it.

Skinner noted the discussion has focused on keeping the bulk of the traffic on those streets designed to handle the traffic load — Lincoln, Logan, Fisher, Winona Avenue. At Lincoln, the traffic will be kept to Lincoln. At Washington, traffic will come off Logan and Fisher. Edgewood would utilize roadways within the school property.

“The school has done a good job reviewing (traffic),” stated Skinner. “From a traffic stand point this is the best scenario to utilize roads designed for such use and can be improved. Going forward we will look at improvements.” Skinner stated conversations can be held with INDOT concerning SR 15 and the timing of traffic lights, but there constraints on SR 15 due to it’s design and location.

Site plan for Washington Elementary

Fencing, means of keeping students from being dropped off at locations other than those designated in the plans were also noted. At Lincoln, the two playground areas will be the only fenced off areas. Entrances will be controlled to those areas of drop off and pick up only. It was noted should there be issues of cars stopping at other areas, there are remedies — police presence — to handle those situations.

Construction is expected to be completed by the end of 2016.

The development plans were presented by Colin Finch, civil engineer with Veridus Group, Indianapolis. Starting with Lincoln School, Finch’s presentation showed an overview of where the new school will be built, the increased parking area in front, traffic pattern coming off Lincoln Street and off street parking for buses off Main Street.

At Washington, Finch pointed out the addition of classrooms, new drop off area, additional parking area in front of the school and around the administration building and drive coming from Tiger Lane in front of the administration building and school. The plans included the projected traffic flow on the school campus, which included ingress and egress from Kincaide Street.

Site plan for Edgewood Middle School.

At Edgewood the new front entry, new bus parking areas were pointed out with a new one-way drop off area. Finch noted the new entryway at Edgewood will make it an obvious entrance with a canopy. It was noted that bus traffic will be kept to the south of the building and parents will be entering from the east side.

During other business the commission members were given introductory information concerning recovery homes, as well as definitions from within the city’s zoning ordnance. Tim Dombrosky, assistant city planner, noted there has been issues with the current ordinance structure and how it handles certain housing uses. The commission will be presented more information in January.

Commission member Mike Klondaris noted that evening was his last meeting as a commission member as he will be moving to the redevelopment commission. Diane Quance will be serving in his position as the council representative.

The next meeting of the commission will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 11.