By John Estridge
A proposed plan to put a bridge across the Whitewater River’s east fork and a hiking trail up a ravine to the Franklin County Community School Corporation property was tabled Monday night, January 18, effectively killing it for at least 2021.
Brookville Redevelopment Commission (BRC) members originally unanimously agreed to the proposed project at their November 2020 meeting. Its estimated price tag of $3 million was to be funded by a Federal Transportation Grant administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation. It would have been an 80-20 grant, meaning the BRC’s portion would have been 20 percent or around $600,000.
The bridge was planned for the narrowest part of the river in the town park. A trail from the bridge to the FCCSC property on the school side of the river was planned to be up a ravine and could be no steeper than a 5 percent slope.
Even at the November 2020 meeting, HWC Engineer Cory Whitesell said the engineering would be tricky to achieve the 5 percent slope. That is needed because the project was to be federally funded and had to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guidelines. Thus, it has to be made so wheelchairs can access the entire way.
BRC President Todd Thackery said the proposed trail would create an approximate one mile loop when the new sidewalk project to the end of Fairfield Avenue up to the FCCSC property was taken into consideration. It would be open for bicycles and pedestrians. He also said a study was done about what people in southeastern Indiana want, and the majority of the residents said they wanted a safe place to walk. This won out over items such as swimming pools.
Approval of the project was rushed through the November 2020 meeting so HWC could meet a December 2020 deadline for filing the federal grant application. Whitesell said the grant application deadline usually comes just once a year and missing the 2020 deadline would mean the BRC would have to wait one year, to December 2021, to file the grant application.
However, in the days and weeks after the November 2020 meeting, the BRC received questions from a landowner, David Stutzman, on the school side of the river. The BRC would have to acquire right of way from the landowner in order to make the trail. Quite a bit of it would have been on his property.
Thackery said he had conversations with the landowner and the landowner’s personal representative, local resident and business owner Bill Schirmer, after the November 2020 meeting. Those conversations resulted in a possible change of plans for the proposed bridge’s location.
“I had conversations with the property owner, several people have,” Thackery said. “Bill Schirmer is currently representing Mr. Stutzman. I had a conversation with Mr. Schirmer, and this is a more expensive option (a Plan B for the bridge location).”
Thackery then showed another drawing depicting the bridge in another place.
This was planned, for the bridge to be moved farther south, so the Stutzman property would not be involved. Thackery said the new placement of the bridge might cost more money because the river is wider at that point, and there will be a need to have a longer span. However, the river is shallower at that point, so it was possible there would be cost savings in that aspect due to the bridge not being as high as the other proposed site, and the trail would be farther south so some of the proposed trail would not have to be constructed, Whitesell said at Monday’s meeting. Those two factors might have offset the higher costs with the need to make the bridge longer. The bridge would have been an estimated 30 percent of the project’s cost or around $900,000. However, Whitesell said a price tag for the bridge could not be done until a hydraulic study could be finished.
Eventually, the original grant application due in December 2020 was not filed because there were too many engineering questions and subsequent unknown cost estimates on the construction of the trail up the ravine.
Whitesell explained the possible needs and ensuing costs to acquire that 5 percent slope through the ravine.
“Going through a ravine like that created some real challenges in terms of predicting what the costs were,” Whitesell said. “We anticipated there would be some sections that would need an elevated walkway; we might have some retaining walls in some places.”
Another factor discovered after the November 2020 meeting was the funding for BRC. BRC is funded with property taxes. A cap was placed on property taxes within the Brookville Redevelopment District, which basically encompasses the entire town. Improvements made to properties within the district, creates higher property taxes and the amount above the cap is funneled to the BRC.
According to Thackery at the January meeting, the BRC received $105,000 in May 2020. Figures stated at the November 2020 meeting for the BRC’s match was based on the May figure. However, the BRC brought in $68,000 in November 2020. Thackery explained many property owners pay their entire year’s property tax amount in May, which resulted in an inflated figure for May and a much smaller figure in November.
Thus, the revenue received by the BRC, about $173,000 per year, would not be enough to fund the BRC match in the estimated three-to-five-year period from the grant application to the bid letting and the beginning of construction on the trail. BRC is engaged in some other ongoing projects, which will take some of its funding.
“That doesn’t give me nearly as much optimism that we could do this on our own in any way,” Thackery said.
Thackery suggested the FCCSC could pay some of the match if the project were to go forward. He explained the FCCSC has for years wanted another way to access the FCCSC property along and at the end of Wildcat Lane. That includes the Franklin County Middle School, the Franklin County High School, transportation building and all of the athletic fields for the two schools. At the present, Wildcat Lane is the only access to those properties.
Beth Foster, a non-voting member of the BRC and a current FCCSC Board of Trustees member, explained the need for a second access to the property.
“This is one of those things we have thought about for a long time,” Foster said. “It (Stutzman’s lane) was a working road once.”
According to Thackery, it is possible to make the bridge wider so an ambulance could navigate the bridge at that point and then ascend a lane on the Stutzman property that goes to a cabin near the river that is owned by the Stutzmans. After the ambulance ascended that lane, the ambulance could utilize Stutzman’s lane at the top of the hill, which was once Smith Road, to get to the school property by another means. However, Thackery said he did not think the bridge could be reinforced enough to allow access to fire trucks.
Whitesell warned the lane to the cabin may be too steep for ambulances to safely use it.
Thackery said he planned to go to the FCCSC school board meeting, scheduled for February 8, to propose the plan for the trail and bridge to the school board and ask for help funding the local match for the project.
However, Foster explained the school board members would not make a decision on the proposal immediately after Thackery presented it. Instead, the board would wait until its March meeting to vote on the proposed project.
Whitesell said the BRC needed to move quickly on its decision because surveying needed to be accomplished before the leaves came on the trees. Surveying after leaves appear would make the surveying more expensive or impossible. He suggested the decision on surveying would have to be done by March 1. And surveying was just one of many studies to be met between now and the December 2021 grant application deadline, Whitesell said. An estimate for the cost for all the needed studies was $70,900.
BRC member Daryl Flaspohler, who audibly gasped when the $600,000 match was first mentioned at the November 2020 meeting, suggested the BRC not approve the proposed project.
“I looked at this over the weekend,” Flaspohler said. “I’m not for even going any further in the study. I think this project is a little beyond our reach at this time with the funds we have. We also have the sidewalk project going. It’s supposed to connect to the school, but there are some problems with that. We don’t know what kind of grants (and match money will be needed) going forward. We might need more money in that than we think. Also, I look at the (public) parking lot (on Sixth Street), and I don’t think we have a solid number on what that will cost. I think we have a guesstimate. So, I’m just thinking this is a little bit out of our reach at this time. I don’t think it’s a bad project, but …”
After Flaspohler’s statement and silence from the other members, Thackery said it was now his understanding, the project was tabled. Thus, none of the deadlines to complete different studies to help the engineers get cost estimates for the proposed project could be met before the 2021 grant application deadline.
Thackery said he would ask the FCCSC board to take him off its February agenda.
