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The Zionsville Town Council on Monday night rejected a proposal for a 147-acre residential and commercial development with more than 350 houses on the town’s rural north side.
Zionsville-based Pittman Partners wanted to develop the $250 million project called The Reserve at Union Woodlands east of Michigan Road/U.S. 421 and south of East County Road 200 South. Town Council members voted 6-1 to reject the project, which was opposed by residents living in rural Zionsville and raised safety concerns from executives with the nearby Indianapolis Executive Airport.
Councilors Brad Burk, Tim McElderry, Craig Melton, Evan Norris, Jason Plunkett and Joseph Stein voted against an ordinance to rezone the property from Rural General Agriculture to The Reserve at Union Woodlands Planned Unit Development.
“For every 150 acres that we take out of our rural space and kind of extend out urban-type of density, we’re eating away at a way of life,” said McElderry, who represents the rural north side of Zionsville. “Most of the people that are sitting in the audience right now, that’s why they’re remonstrating.”
Councilor Sarah Esterline Sampson voted in favor of the ordinance, citing the project as an opportunity for people to move into Zionsville.
“It’s hard looking at this room with a lot of people who are like, don’t change my world,” she said. “But I have said before, I’d like to teach the town how to say yes, and I think there [are] limits. I don’t want to open a Pandora’s box of neighborhoods popping up all over … but the usual arguments of school and leapfrog [development] are not met for me.”
The property Pittman Partners wanted to develop is bounded to the north by single-family houses, to the east by the Union Woodlands subdivision that is being developed by the central Indiana office of Miami-based Lennar Homes, to the south by the Countrywood subdivision and to the west by large-lot single-family houses and agricultural land. The Indianapolis Executive Airport is about a mile northeast of the site.
The plan for The Reserve at Union Woodlands called for four different “use blocks.” From west to east, the proposal included commercial buildings and town houses in the Michigan Road Use Block; a natural setting in the Tree Preservation & Wildlife Use Block; single-family houses in the Center Common Use Block; and large single-family houses costing upwards of $1 million in the Estate Residential Use Block.
A 49-acre public park with two or three pickleball courts, a playground, a trail system and a restroom facility was also planned on the east side of the development.
Since the project was introduced in January, Pittman Partners reduced the number of single-family houses from 284 to 204. The development plan also called for 150 town houses and 20,000 square feet of retail space.
Executives with the Indianapolis Executive Airport expressed safety concerns about the proximity of the proposed development to the airport’s main runway, while residents had concerns about the impact of the development on the rural character of the area, area infrastructure and the town’s school system.
Pittman Partners, led by CEO Steve Pittman, initially submitted a rezoning request for The Reserve at Union Woodlands last summer. The project was scheduled to be discussed at the Zionsville Plan Commission’s meeting in September, but it was delayed for four months as the developer met with neighbors, Indianapolis Executive Airport authorities and the Zionsville Parks Board. Last month, members of the Plan Commission forwarded the proposal to the Town Council with no recommendation.
The initial plan called for 250 single-family houses, 84 town houses and 350 apartments. Pittman Partners also proposed a $4 million Zionsville Sports Park with four baseball and softball fields and eight pickleball courts. The sports park was scrapped because the airport might someday expand its runway from 7,001 feet to 7,700 feet, putting the park in the runway protection zone.
Some Town Council members suggested that there could be another opportunity to develop the property once the town completes its comprehensive plan and if Pittman Partners could continue to adjust its plan. However, Pittman told councilors that he thinks “we’ve really exhausted this.”
“If I’ve got to come back, I’ll talk to the property owners if there’s an opportunity to do that,” Pittman said. “But I’ll be pretty fatigued after this.”
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so this piece of agricultural land is almost completely surrounded on four sides by housing and they don’t want to let housing be developed on this plot of land with some commercial. the typical nimby.
I don’t care what community it is, the last group of people who move in are saying exactly the same thing that people said when they moved in. If you don’t what new development, then nothing should be built. No houses, no commercial ,no parks, no schools, no business of any kind. But we all no that won’t happen. The trick is to manage growth to use land efficiently.
Does the airport own the land? If not, then they shouldn’t be able to expand causing an impediment on someone else property. Do all of these concerned neighbors realize their homes were farm land at one point and there was a builder that invested in the area to make it a community.