Redevelopment commission hears East Side master‑plan update; survey extended, residents voice park and drainage concerns

The Valparaiso Redevelopment Commission on Wednesday heard an update on the East Side master plan and agreed to extend public comment through Dec. 5 so consultants can incorporate more input before returning revised concepts to a stakeholder group.

George (staff) said the project team — led by consultant Browning Day — has been engaging a stakeholder group that includes property owners, department heads, elected officials and representatives of East Porter County Schools. The consultant held a public open house last week and posted an online survey; the survey will remain open until Dec. 5 to let Browning Day compile additional input.

Tom of Browning Day summarized the open house and early feedback: "We did get about 21 total tokens in the containers, 3 tokens for concept A, 18 for concept B," he said, and noted the team collected several handwritten comments to include with the survey results. A separate consultant pulled a preliminary tally showing roughly 350 online survey responses so far.

Commissioners pressed for transparency on the underlying data. One member asked to receive the raw survey spreadsheet as well as the consultant summary so commissioners could review un‑filtered responses. Staff and consultants agreed Browning Day would compile the full dataset and present both raw responses and a summary after the Dec. 5 deadline.

At public comment, residents raised substantive objections and questions about the concepts. Kevin Hornet, identifying his address as 452 Northview Drive, said the northeast corner of the project has historically been reserved for park ground and that the draft concepts now envision housing for that area. "Now all of a sudden it's housing which was never talked about," Hornet said, urging the commission to preserve park space.

Longtime landowner Greg Kiel echoed other commenters but focused his remarks on drainage: "My biggest concern is the drainage," Kiel said, describing two drainage inlets north of the site that he said were blocked in the past and noting runoff from more than 200 acres drains through the project area. He also listed traffic and tax‑increment‑finance impacts as community concerns and asked whether ARPA funds had been used to acquire the property.

Staff cautioned that the concepts are preliminary and not rezoning or active development approvals. George said the plan is intended as a long‑range guide for land use and that parcels in the study include property owned by the redevelopment commission and privately held land; ownership differences mean some elements will be advisory rather than immediately actionable.

Next steps: the survey closes Dec. 5, Browning Day will compile the raw responses and summary over the following weeks, and the consultant will present revised concept plans to the stakeholder group before returning a final recommendation to the commission and redevelopment commission at a later date.