Planning & Building Department

This report will serve as a brief summary of the 2024 calendar year for the Shelbyville Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Building Commission, and all other activities related to the City's Planning and Building Department. This report will review the current status of the staff's 2024 goals, summarize all the different petitions heard by the Plan Commission and BZA, provide a review of the code enforcement activities for the year, give a brief synopsis of the development trends, and provide a preview for the upcoming year.

Executive Summary

The City of Shelbyville Planning and Building Department (PABD) serves as the main professional, technical, and administrative staff for the City’s Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Technical Review Committee, Architectural Control Committees, and Building Commission, and serves alongside other city departments to facilitate the responsibilities and needs of the city’s Board of Public Works and Safety, Common Council, and Mayor’s Office. The PABD staff works to advise these boards and commissions on the decisions they are tasked with making, and performs the day-to-day operations of these boards and commissions to ensure responsive and responsible development throughout the community. The day-to-day tasks include, but are not limited to; plan review for compliance with the UDO, code enforcement, permit review and processing, inspections, floodplain administration, and grant writing/administration.

Some of the major projects and milestones accomplished by the PABD staff include:

PABD staff worked with the City Engineer's Office to develop and finalize a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. This data-driven approach to evaluating our transportation networks provided us with metrics to target the most dangerous intersections and roadway networks. This plan enabled the city to apply for and be awarded over $3.5M in federal funding for implementing this plan.
Launched a new partnership with Intend Indiana, to construct several new-construction homes, on previously vacant and/or tax-sale parcels. These homes will be owner-occupied but reserved for low-to-moderate income households, to help them achieve homeownership.
Broke ground on Eight37 Lofts, a new workforce housing project which will include 138 housing units. This project is redeveloping a former brownfield site while also increasing the number of residential units in the community.
Facilitating the review and approval of construction documents for 3 sections of new residential subdivisions, and the acceptance of infrastructure in 4 sections of new subdivisions.
Overseeing all permits pulled for new residential construction, including apartments, single-family homes, and manufactured homes; in total there were 253 new housing units permitted in 2024.
From the 253 new housing units in 2024, a record-breaking number of new single family homes, 103 in total for 2024
Including residential, commercial, and industrial, 2024 had over $76M invested in new construction throughout the City.

Recently completed "The Mill" development, located on the northside of downtown, along the Blue River. (Source: Birge & Held, LLC)

Throughout the year, the PABD staff interacts thousands of times with citizens, business owners, developers, and more to assist each individual or project team with the solution to their specific project or question. This annual report works to highlight some of those interactions, and the impact of these projects on our community.

Brief Review of 2023

In last year’s report, the PADB staff developed goals for 2024. These goals included both procedural improvements to the day-to-day operations of the department and long-range planning goals that help guide the department, the commissions and boards and the community’s elected officials and other decision makers. Here is a review of those goals:

1.

Continue working on modernizing the department and bringing department's services into an online format that is readily accessible.

The City recently completed a comprehensive rebrand, which includes the launch of a new website designed to improve public engagement and accessibility. A key focus of the new site is to ensure that important documents, forms, and critical dates are easier to find and access for residents, businesses, and stakeholders. This modernization effort aligns with the department's goal to streamline services by leveraging a user-friendly online platform, enhancing transparency, and delivering essential information efficiently.

Citizenserve logo

2.

Continue to participate in educational trainings to stay on top of current trends in the industry, gain enhanced understanding of job responsibilities, and continue to build the PABD team competencies.

This year, our staff actively engaged in several key local, regional, and state conferences, with a significant focus on customer service, economic development, and specialized training in floodplain management. These efforts reflect our ongoing commitment to sustainability and responsible growth, ensuring that our team stays informed about the latest environmental regulations, industry trends, and innovative practices. By prioritizing theses types of training opportunities, our staff is better equipped to integrate sustainable strategies into our operating procedures. This aligns with the City's broader mission to enhance service delivery while fostering a greener, more resilient community.

Planning Director, Adam Rude, speaks to Ball State University students in early 2024 about an "immersive learning project" based in Shelbyville.

3.

Amend, formalize, and implement Building Department policies and procedures to ensure consistency with state regulations.

This year, further steps were taken to amend and codify the operating procedures of the Building Commission. One of the other major steps that was taken this year was to restructure the Planning and Building Department, creating a separate department head level position for managing this portion of the department, and allowing both planning-related staff and building-related staff to focus on their areas of expertise.

Building Commission doorway entrance

4.

Continue to provide learning opportunities for residents, tradesmen, and developers on new and existing services at the City of Shelbyville.

Through the help of the City's newly created Director of Public Relations, the department's website was updated while the rest of the City's website was being updated in mid-2024. As part of these updates, numerous resource materials that were posted on the previous website have since been updated and improved to serve as a more helpful tool to our customers. These efforts are not complete and will continue into 2025 as department staff continues to work with the Director of Pubic Relations to update these individual resources.

New City Website

5.

Continue implementing the best practices of the planning and development industries by amending relevant sections of the UDO to remain competitive with peer communities.

In 2024, the department successfully developed and adopted new floodplain standards in accordance with state and federal floodplain regulations. These updated regulations are designed to ensure that any development within designated floodplain areas is constructed to the highest standards, minimizing the risk of potential damage from future flooding events, while also minimizing impacts to other flood prone areas in the community. By adopting these amendments and keeping in alignment with state and federal regulations, Shelbyville's residents will continue to benefit from federally subsidized flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program.

Towards the middle of the year, the department also implemented a quick amendment to remedy a procedural issue related to Lot Standards. Specifically, this amendment clarified who had the authority to grant relief from certain lot standards, where there was previously conflicting provisions in the ordinance. Additionally, this amendment removed or replaced some minimum and maximum lot standards that were inconsistent with current industry trends, to allow more flexibility for future development.

Lastly, the department has identified the Business Neighborhood District as a new priority for future amendments, with the goal of fostering responsible development and ensuring that evolving community needs are met through proactive planning and updated regulations. In 2024, the department began working directly with a group of Plan Commission and BZA members to develop amendments that would be proposed to the full Plan Commission and eventually presented to the City Council.

Shelbyville Unified Development Ordinance

6.

Streamline applications and internal processes to make the Department more competitive and align with neighboring communities.

As mentioned elsewhere, the department began the final stage of implementing the Citizenserve platform, which has provided a more streamlined approach to reviewing and processing applications. The department intends for the Citizenserve platform to begin "Beta Testing" with select contractors and petitioners in the Summer of 2025, with full roll-out to everyone in late-Summer or early-Fall of 2025.

Planning Department reviewing submitted plans with the newest UDO standards adopted in 2024

7.

Continue to partner with Shelby County Development Corporation, Main Street Shelbyville, The Blue River Community Foundation, and the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce to make Shelbyville the first choice for investing, living, and working, with an emphasis on quality of life.

Our department worked regularly throughout the year to maintain a constant connection with these organizations, so we could determine how best to partner with them on different projects and initiatives. An example of these partnerships is the recently announced Simplot Foods development, which will be located on Tom Hession Drive. This new Cold Storage and Logistics facility was an effort our office had been assisting the Shelby County Development Corporation with for over a year. This project is anticipated to break ground later in 2025.

Rendering of the Simplot Facility

8.

Continue to work with Shelby County to finalize the Extra-territorial Jurisdiction agreement to ensure seamless planning and growth across the community.

In 2024, the department was not able to make any progress on the ETJ project between the City and County. Already in 2025, the two entities have sat down to re-start discussion on formalizing these efforts in an interlocal agreement. This formalized agreement, along with continued zoning of the remaining ETJ areas, will bring this project to a close later in 2025.

Map showing the City's corporate limits and the proposed ETJ areas

9.

Collect data and do inventory studies of the City's assets to allow for better data driven decision making.

One large effort that was completed in 2024 was the development and adoption of a Safety Action Plan. This plan was funded by the US Department of Transportation through their Safe Streets For All (SS4A) program, and required a data-driven approach in identifying safety concerns. this process utilized years of traffic and crash data, as well as over 1,000 responses from members of the public to identify the highest priority intersections and road networks, additionally this process identified systemic changes that could be implemented to improve new infrastructure going forward. This Safety Action plan was completed and adopted in May of 2024, and allowed our department to work with the City Engineer's office to apply for additional SS4A funding. In late 2024, the City was notified that just over $3.5M was awarded to convert the intersection of Progress Parkway and Michigan Road into a roundabout, and implement several other safety-related improvements.

Additionally, the partial implementation of the Citizenserve platform has allowed the department to collect vastly more data now that more aspects of our standard procedures are digitized. As this implementation finalizes in 2025, more data-points will become available for planning and decision-making purposes.

Rending of Proposed Roundabout at Michigan Road and Progress Parkway

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