Congratulations, Ronald Reagan Parkway / Corridor Master Plan!

This piece of writing has the air of legitimacy with contributions from Hendricks County Commissioners, Indianapolis Airport Authority and Town Leaders from Avon, Brownsburg and Plainfield. (Too bad you forgot to invite Whitestown! #iykyk) But none of these carefully designed guidelines seem to have been respected by the Brownsburg Town Council and committee members during their votes:

• Goal #2 - Land Use Planning: Preserve, protect, and enhance the character of the corridor, adjacent property values, and the economic viability along the corridor by managing future growth and development. (Page 15)
• Land Use Objective: Restrict the development of heavy industrial uses within the Ronald Reagan Corridor study area. (Page 15)
• For the purpose of this plan, warehousing and distribution uses which have a floor area of less than 100,000 square feet may also be classified as “light industrial”. (Page 39)
• While bulk warehousing and distribution provides the tax base desired, the committee worried that the aesthetic impact on the parkway would be negative. (Page 40)
• Because these uses present themselves to the roadway as large boxes with featureless facades and because their size tends to dwarf other neighboring uses, the steering committee debated their appropriateness immediately adjacent to this high profile roadway. (Page 48)
• ...bulk warehousing and distribution uses (with over 100,000 square feet floor) should not be permitted to expand within the corridor beyond the areas laid out in this preferred land use scenario for the expansion of the two existing warehousing and distribution centers. (Page 48)
• These residential areas near the corridor must be considered in the design development of the Parkway. (Page 54)

Why, these responsible guidelines are simply too restrictive for our Vision to succeed. Thank goodness this document permitted the Town governments to create overlays on top of the Ronald Reagan Corridor Overlay that would supersede these restrictions. The Town of Brownsburg now has stacks on stacks on stacks of overlays, so this Master Plan is now just a carefully considered and planned joint work of fiction. Thank you for your loopholes, authors!