This and that: Who do you have in your brackets edition
This and that: Who do you have in your brackets edition
Public hearing Wednesday on Wabash, Tippecanoe Township land use plans. Civil rights leaders keep pressing on Senate Bill 202 after governor signs higher ed measure into law
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A few things to get there on a Monday morning …
WHO YOU GOT IN YOUR BRACKET?
If you haven’t seen the March Madness bracket, here you go.
No. 1 seeded Purdue opens the NCAA Tournament at 7:25 p.m. Friday in Indianapolis, against the winner of a Wednesday play-in game between No. 16 seeds Grambling State and Montana State.
The question heading into the week: How far do you have Purdue going?
PUBLIC HEARING WEDNESDAY ON WABASH, TIPPECANOE TOWNSHIP LAND USE PLANS
A long-range land use plan for Wabash and Tippecanoe townships – including fast-growing areas north and west of West Lafayette – will be up for discussion Wednesday evening, as the Area Plan Commission holds a public hearing.
The plans have been in the works since 2022 and include dozens of pages that could guide development and conceptual road projects, such as a potential northern, more direct extension of U.S. 231 between Sagamore Parkway and Interstate 65 in the northern part of Tippecanoe County.
Tippecanoe County has similar plans for other parts of cities and county, including for the West Lafayette downtown, West Lafayette’s New Chauncey Neighborhood, Lafayette’s Historic Centennial Neighborhood. This plan was assembled by APC along with a steering committee of elected officials, developers, farmers, residents and business owners.
If approved by the Tippecanoe County commissioners, the Wabash and Tippecanoe Township plans would help decisions on zoning and other land use for just over 83 square miles in the county.
For a look at the full plan, here’s a link to the APC site.
If you go: The public hearing will be 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 20, at the County Office Building, 20 N. Third St. in Lafayette. If recommended by the Area Plan Commission board, the plan would go to the Tippecanoe County commissioners for final approval.
For more details: The following was a look at some of the components, along with reaction to them, first published Jan. 24, ahead of public sessions used to show drafts of the Wabash and Tippecanoe township plans.
Full story: “Another look at the Wabash/Tippecanoe Township land use plans.”
At the time, Ryan O’Gara, assistant director of the APC, said this about draft plans, the first for those parts of the county since 1981: “It’s important to know what it is and what it isn’t. … We’re trying to provide a realistic prioritization of what that growth could look like for the next two or three generations. Will it be exactly like this? No. But it’s an idea of what could happen for housing, future business, industrial and the rest.”
Among the features in the plans:
A northern extension of U.S. 231: This part of the draft plan has perked up ears, as it considers construction of a new, four-lane section of U.S. 231 from Sagamore Parkway to a new interchange at Interstate 65 near County Road 850 North. (If you know where the Cairo Watch Tower is, it’s looking in that range.) That’s roughly three miles north of the I-65 interchange at Indiana 43.
“Right now, it’s just a line on the map,” O’Gara said. “It was meant to start a conversation. And it worked.”
O’Gara said the dotted arc on the map was drawn with the idea of taking the fewest homes possible. He said the more direct connection between I-65 and the U.S. 231 section completed a decade ago around the western edge of Purdue and West Lafayette has been a concept contemplated for years. But he said a more detailed plan and study would follow if funding and Indiana Department of Transportation interest were ever there.
“I think we’re a long way off from that,” O’Gara said.
Some in Wabash Township have been wary, just the same.
“Basically, what we’ve been told is that we’re just thinking, that there are no real plans and we don’t have the money, so there’s no reason to worry,” Victoria Cassens, who lives along Morehouse Road, said. The dotted line of the U.S. 231 extension cuts near the home, close to the intersection of Morehouse Road, County Road 500 North and Taft Road.
“But it is worrisome, because it would change the area completely,” she said.
Dan and Victoria Cassens operate Cassens Trees, which is part of the Levi and Lucy Morehouse Farm, including an 1870s home, that is on the National Register of Historic Places. Dan Cassens said he’s concern about the U.S. 231 concept because it potentially threatens several historic structures and wetlands in the area.
“It’s hard to tell where it’s going to go, but it’s about through our front yard, from what we can tell,” Dan Cassens said. “I have trouble understanding why we need a four-lane highway through this countryside, when we’re just four miles from access to (I-65), as it is.”
Other road projects mentioned: In addition to a new stretch of U.S. 231 and an I-65 interchange, the plan had dotted lines indicating dozens of potential road projects. Among them:
Yeager Road/County Road 150 West: This would continue road realignment and reconstruction, along with new construction, from the recently opened stretch of Yeager Road between the West Lafayette city limits to County Road 600 North. The extension would continue to a new U.S. 231 to the north.
Swisher Road extension: A road connecting North River Road and North Ninth Street Road would offer easier access to Prophetstown State Park.
Sagamore Parkway West: The plan considers widening Sagamore Parkway in sections between Klondike Road and Night Hawk Drive in West Lafayette. It also suggests the bridge at Northwestern Avenue could be removed and replaced by an intersection or roundabout at Sagamore Parkway.
I-65, six-lane widening from County Road 725 North into White County.
County Road 425 North/Soldiers Home Road extension: The plan considers a new road from the dead end of Roundtable Drive to County Road 75 East, consisting of two travel lanes with curbs, a sidewalk and trail.
County Road 500 North: The road, now a rural cross section with narrow shoulders, would be reconstructed with curbs, enclosed drainage and improvements for pedestrians and cyclists, from a proposed northern extension of U.S. 231 to North River Road.
County Road 550 North: The plan envisions an urban two-lane road, with parking allowed and residential and commercial driveways allowed, from the northern extension of U.S. 231 to County Road 50 West.
County Road 600 North: The road would be reconstructed as an urban cross section from the northern extension of U.S. 231 to Indiana 43, with improvements for pedestrians and cyclists, too. The road also would be fully reconstructed between Indiana 43 and Prophets Rock Road.
County Road 650 North: This would be new road construction, from the northern extension of U.S. 231 to County Road 50 West.
Indiana 43: A four-lane widening from County Road 725 North to Brookston in White County.
Morehouse Road: Reconstruction from County Road 225 West to Sagamore Parkway West.
The plan also considers reconstruction or improvements to portions of Lindberg Road; Klondike Road; Soldiers Home Road; County Road 50 West; trail construction along North Ninth Street between Sagamore Parkway and Swisher Road; Prophets Rock Road; Main Street in Battle Ground; County Road 350 North; widening Cumberland Avenue from Blue Ivy Lane to Sagamore Parkway; Newman Road; and reconstruction of South River Road just west of U.S. 231.
Other places to study later: O’Gara said the plan calls for closer looks at several areas in the two townships. Those “special interest areas” marked in the draft plan include:
South River Road area, between Indiana 26 and the Wabash River, from U.S. 231 to the township line: “Preservation of this unique residential, natural and historic area is a key aspect of this plan,” the draft plan reads. “Higher intensity development should be discouraged in areas with the agricultural wooded future land use category in order to support these preservation efforts.”
Harrison High School area: The draft plan says the county anticipates the growth not only of housing in the area north of West Lafayette, but also neighborhood-oriented commercial and other non-residential development.
Klondike-Lindberg area: “As the area develops, the demand for higher-density residential, mixed-use, commercial and other non-residential development may occur, particularly as the transit system expands to support it,” the draft plan reads. “As a matter of policy, the Klondike-Lindberg area could support these mixes of uses with higher intensities along Klondike and along U.S. 52/Sagamore Parkway with lesser intensities along Lindberg.”
Five Points area: This is the intersection at Morehouse Road, County Road 500 North and Taft Road, mentioned in the discussion about the U.S. 231 extension. From the draft plan: “As the area develops, care should be taken to preserve the historic assets identified in this plan and, where appropriate, allow for the repurposing of historic structures for other uses as part of a preservation effort. In addition to respecting the historic context, new development should also respect the environmental sensitive areas connected with the Indian Creek floodplain that run through the area.”
Indiana 43 area: The draft plan calls the stretch in the northern part of the county “an important gateway for the community. … As a matter of policy, this plan would support commercial and other non-residential development at major intersections with (Indiana) 43 in this area.”
U.S. 231 northern corridor extension area: The plan calls this “the most speculative of the special interest areas. Because the road extension itself is still a concept at the time this plan was written, the route cannot be fully and accurately determined; therefore, it would be premature to prescribe future land uses connected with it.” But the plan calls for that study if and when a U.S. 231 extension happens.
CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS STAY AFTER SB202, CALLING IT RACIST
Civil rights leaders in Indiana took another run in recent days at Senate Bill 202, the state’s new higher education reform provisions signed into law Wednesday. In a series of statements, a coalition of groups –the NAACP Indiana Coalition, Indianapolis Urban League, Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis and Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance, among them – continued criticism about various aspects of a bill authored by Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican. In particular, they called out portions of the bill they contend for “what it targets – diversity, equity and inclusion – and who it targets – Black university faculty,” condemning the legislation for a “heavy-handed and indisputably racist approach.”
“From the start, legislators seeking to impose their values and perspectives on the rest of the state have been disingenuous about the nature and aims of the bill,” the coalition wrote in a statement released Friday. “Far from being a defense of freedom of speech, the term ‘intellectual diversity’ is widely recognized in ultra-conservative circles as being a coded dog whistle for attacks on liberals and the civil rights movement. The bill is part of a 28-state campaign being waged by a well-funded national movement to eliminate all training and services on diversity, equity, and inclusion from higher education.”
Deery has rejected those claims as SB202 made its way through the Indiana Senate and Indiana House, defending the measure’s language about tenure, tenure review and attempts to make sure college classrooms include efforts to include intellectual diversity will make campuses more inviting, including to conservative students and faculty who might perceive their views aren’t welcome. Deery also defended the bill as what he considered more nuanced approach to higher ed reform, one written specifically for Indiana, than those in other states.
The post-bill signing criticism in Indiana came on the heels of an NAACP call for Black athletes to boycott Florida’s public universities over higher education laws that target diversity, equity and inclusion there.
The group wrote: “The heavy-handed and indisputably racist approach of SEA 202 must be recognized as an ineffectual and ultimately corrosive means for creating change. Any possible gains that might accrue from this legislation pale in comparison to the damage it will most certainly cause to Indiana’s citizens of color, its civil rights climate, and its traditions. … The legislature and governor may not fully recognize the discriminatory and racist implications of SEA 202, but the citizens of Indiana do. Widespread and intense opposition to this mean-spirited silencing of an entire segment of our population will not end with its passage.”
To read the full statement, here’s a link.
For another read, Inside Higher Education had this on Friday, including a look at SB202 in light of national trends: “Civil Rights Groups Push Back Against Wave of Anti-DEI Bills.”
For other reads on the new law:
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
NO, Purdue the faculty ought to be angry and wary of this garbage legislation being jammed down our throats. I have been telling you for weeks the same things about deery’s bill/law. Now maybe others will listen to all the groups in Indy that know what is REALLY going on.
Hopefully that 231 extension to I65 can get approved and funded ASAP!