FORTVILLE — With development quickly progressing in Fortville, town officials are considering creating a town plan commission and board of zoning appeals to keep local control over future growth.
Establishing a Fortville planning and building department would allow town residents to oversee planning decisions, while also increasing town operations, said planning administrator Adam Zaklikowski. Currently, Hancock County planners review all Fortville building permits and rezoning matters.
Greenfield, McCordsville, New Palestine and Cumberland all have their own planning and building departments, leaving Fortville in the minority.
In 2018, nearly 70 building permits were processed for Fortville, the highest for the town of 4,000 in recent memory, Zaklikowski said. Fortville has at least three subdivisions in the works, totaling more than 500 lots.
Michael Frischkorn, town council president, said while the county approving Fortville building permits has worked well in the past, the council wants to bring those decisions “closer to home” with the influx of new subdivisions. Frischkorn also said council members would like town residents to make those decisions.
“Everyone on those will be living in Fortville,” Frischkorn said about the plan commission and board of zoning appeals.
Zaklikowski said as Fortville moves toward creating a town planning and building department, officials are evaluating how to keep costs down. He said the new boards and duties could result in the need for a town engineer; a chief building official to inspect developments; and an administrative assistant. Some of those new positions could be outsourced to consultants, Zaklikowski and Frischkorn said.
“There is definitely some help that we would need. We want to figure out the most cost-effective way of addressing those,” Zaklikowski said, adding that the town could hire staff, consultants or a mix of both.
According to a memo Zaklikowski gave to the Fortville Town Council earlier this month, he researched how much planning departments cost per year in McCordsville and Pendleton. In McCordsville, the town of almost 7,000 has four full-time planning employees with a total department budget of $225,000.
Frischkorn said withdrawing from the county’s planning department could take about 18 months. He hopes to start the process in January.
