Plans by CoAction to build supportive housing can go forward.
The Hobart Plan Commission gave a favorable recommendation on Thursday to petitioners CoAction chief housing officer Jordan Stanfill and attorney Todd Leeth.
The petitioners sought a rezone in an established PUD or planned unit development to a new planned unit development on 21 acres located on the northwest corner of Grand Boulevard and U.S. 30.
Leeth said the property, located in a wetlands area, does present significant challenges.
But the planned 111 apartment units would be built between the lakes, avoiding the wetland.
“It is set back from Grand Boulevard,” Leeth said.
CoAction was founded in 1965 with a mission to help people be self-sufficient and to advocate for people who need to be supported and represented, according to the CoAction website.
In Northwest Indiana, CoAction plans and carries out a variety of programs that serve the unique needs of low-income families and disabled individuals in Lake, Porter, Newton and Jasper counties.
The first phase of the project would be to build 36 apartments, which would include office space for CoAction staff members.
Apartments on the second and third floors would follow, Stanfill said.
Stanfill said the apartments are for those individuals with no place to go and may include those who had been sleeping outside in tents.
“It (the planned housing) is for those in a housing crisis,” Stanfill said.
In other business, a hearing on a rezoning request from R-3 to M-1 wasn’t heard but was delayed until the Aug. 7 Plan Commission meeting.
Mayor Josh Huddlestun said the petitioner, Wylie Capital, had failed to file a timely notice in the local newspapers.
The request, which would allow for a possible data center to be built, is for property on 400 acres south of 61st Avenue, east of Colorado and north of 69th Avenue.
If the rezoning is approved for M-1 or light manufacturing, the petitioner could build a data center or anything allowable in that zone, Huddlestun said.
Some of those options include warehouses, printing and publishing, offices, and plumbing.
“It doesn’t allow for heavy manufacturing or junk yards,” Huddlestun said.
Deborah Laverty is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.