Officials update building policies

When new homes are built in several Johnson County communities, the houses will have more brick or stone on their exteriors, be constructed further apart from each other and include more decorative features.

At least three communities in Johnson County have updated their home development standards since 2015, with a focus on requiring homes to be built with more brick and stone, wider streets and additional decorative features.

Local officials said the changes will benefit the community by helping them bring in enough tax revenue to maintain roads and hire emergency workers. But at least one community that isn’t making the change said those requirements discriminate against residents with lower incomes. And a lawsuit filed by developers against the city of Greenwood resulted in several planned neighborhoods being exempt from some of the new requirements.

Three years ago, Greenwood introduced a plethora of new rules for home construction, with the intention of encouraging the development of higher quality homes and the additional tax revenue that comes along with them. The city required that developers use higher quality construction materials and install more decorative features. A local developer, Arbor Homes, filed a lawsuit contesting the changes. The city settled the lawsuit last year, allowing the developer to not have to follow all of the new standards at two neighborhoods that had already been planned.

In February, Bargersville approved new zoning rules that would require developers to dramatically increase the amount of brick or stone used when constructing homes. Earlier this month, Trafalgar approved new rules as well, which would require more brick and stone to be used in construction, but also ensure that neighborhood streets aren’t too narrow and that developers include features such as sidewalks.

In each instance, town officials said the new rules are necessary to ensure high quality homes are constructed in their communities, and that higher-priced homes are necessary for local governments to get enough tax revenue to pay for essential tasks, such as hiring police officers or paving roads.

In Bargersville, town officials had begun to reject requests for properties to be rezoned for neighborhoods if developers didn’t agree to use more brick and stone than their previous rules required. A 99-home neighborhood proposed by Westport Homes last fall was rejected by the town council for those reasons.

For Trafalgar, the most recent community to enact the changes, taking those steps was necessary to ensure that future homes are built at a higher quality compared to current houses, town council member Jason Ramey said.

The Spring Lake neighborhood, which Ramey lives in, is an example of why the town needs to improve its home construction rules. Because of how narrow the streets are, if vehicles are parked along the side of the road, that can make it difficult for emergency vehicles, such as fire trucks or ambulances to get through, he said.

“There are days in my neighborhood where you can’t get a passenger vehicle through if people decide to park on the side of the street,” he said.

The town updated its rules to match state requirements, such as ensuring streets are wide enough to handle emergency vehicles. But the town also required homes be built with additional amounts of brick or stone. The goal is to have homes that bring in additional tax revenue to the town and are less likely to be vacant or be turned into rentals, Ramey said.

“It is a tax benefit, but also we want people to have nice homes and be able to resell them rather than having them sit vacant,” Ramey said.

But some communities, such as Franklin or unincorporated Johnson County, are content to let developers make the determination on what types of homes will be built. Neither Franklin nor Johnson County have requirements on features such as what specific types of siding should be used in home construction.

Franklin doesn’t have specific rules in place regarding the types of siding materials builders must use. While homes must be constructed to state construction standards, whether a developer uses vinyl or brick siding is up to them, Franklin senior planner Joanna Myers said.

While some towns and cities are stepping up their requirements, that’s not something the county is likely to consider for the unincorporated areas that it manages, planning director David Hittle said.

While zoning rules in Johnson County determine the minimum size a home must be and how large of a lot it must be built on, the rules don’t establish requirements such as the types of construction materials used for home siding.

Creating housing rules with the intention of making homes cost a certain price is problematic because it discriminates against people who may not be able to afford those types of homes, he said.

“You are saying who you want and who you don’t want to live in the place,” Hittle said.

But that doesn’t mean individual developers can’t set specific standards for themselves. Many neighborhoods have covenants established by the developers and enforced by homeowners associations that set up rules on construction materials and home sizes, to ensure for homeowners that the remainder of the neighborhood will be built similar to their home. That means if another developer takes over the site, and additional homes are built, they would need to be constructed in line with what is already in the neighborhood.

While Johnson County doesn’t place specific rules on home construction materials, the trend they’ve been seeing, especially in the Center Grove area, is high quality homes with large lots and brick or stone exteriors that other cities and towns have been trying to encourage through their zoning codes, Hittle said.

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In the past several years, three local communities have added new rules on how homes must be constructed. Here’s a look at those changes:

Bargersville: Increased the amount of brick and stone builders must use for home exteriors.

Trafalgar: Updated neighborhood and home standards to match state guidelines, increased the amount of brick and stone builders must use for home exteriors.

Greenwood: Increased the amount of brick and stone builders must use for home exteriors. Required builders to include a set amount of decorative features depending on the size of the home.

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