By DAVE SCHULTZ
Representatives of the Region 3A community development organization spoke to the Markle Town Council Wednesday night about the town’s good points and bad points, even as they asked for more input.
Region 3A, which includes Huntington County as a member, is working on a comprehensive plan for the town. Markle straddles the Huntington/Wells county line and uses the Huntington County Department of Community Development for planning and zoning purposes.
Matt Brinkman, Region 3A’s executive director, and Patrick Rorick, the agency’s community development planner, were at the meeting and Brinkman had an interesting take on the community of 1,071 people.
“The thing about Markle is that it’s 10 miles from everything,” he said. “That’s a good thing. It’s also a bad thing.”
What he meant by that is that it’s easy to get goods and services, such as a large grocery store, because it’s only a short drive away. It also means that those goods and services are not likely to be present in the town. Getting a Meijer or a Kroger in Markle will not happen, he said.
He led the group attending the Markle council meeting through a survey — “This is about the last chance to get additional feedback from the community,” he said — and spoke about the points in the survey and what’s been observed thus far.
“People like the small-town feel,” he said. However, when they’ve been asked what the community needs, people have mentioned three primary things — broadband internet access, downtown revitalization, and sidewalks.
The survey covered several different areas, even though he said the biggest factor in a comprehensive plan is land use. In terms of the overall zoning in the town, Brinkman said, Markle’s residents “are in really good shape here.”
The areas the survey particularly asked about were:
• Growth and annexation. The remarks on the survey indicated that the town was seeking voluntary annexation. The goal, Brinkman said later in the meeting, was to “maintain the small-town feel of the town while embracing growth and development.”
• Improving civic awareness and participation. It’s something that could be improved, Brinkman said, but the town has a distinct advantage: “Your website is one of the better ones,” he said.
• Conversion of vacant properties into community facilities.
• Increased access to local healthy foods, possibly establishing a community garden, farmers market, or retail store.
• Grow and develop downtown. In the strategy session of the survey, it said the town should “take advantage of the busy highways and state roads to encourage business growth and development while maintaining a small-town feel and atmosphere.”
In other business:
• The council members — Matthew Doss and Nick Lund, with Blake Caley abstaining — approved a resolution to buy part of the Markle bank building across Morse Street from the Town Hall. The resolution sets up the mechanism for making the purchase, including the appointment of two appraisers to set a price for the purchase. Caley abstained due to a potential conflict of interest.
• With Brinkman and Rorick still present, the council talked about electric vehicle charging stations in the town — particularly noteworthy because of the town’s proximity to Interstate 69. While grants are expected to be available on an 80/20 basis, with the community’s match being 20 percent, the cost of a Class 3 quick-charging facility for an electric vehicle with a 400-mile cruising range would be 20 minutes to get to 80 percent of a charge. However, the cost would be $570,000. The cost of a Class 2 charging outfit would be $20,400, but the time needed to charge a car would be 10 to 11 hours.
Doss said he’s been told that Markle would be “a very competitive community” for a charging state. “If you put a charging station anywhere in Markle, you would be about a mile from the interstate,” he said.
• Mike Grant, the town’s assistant superintendent, said the stage in the Markle Fish and Game Club Park is coming along. Crews have told Grant that the stage will be completed for the first scheduled performance, which will be June 9.
The council also discussed the status of a request from Jamie Albanese, 201 W. Morse St. The town allows chicken coops within city limits, but they must be in the back yard of a house. The Albaneses’ back yard is the Wabash River, however, so they’d like to put a chicken coop in the west side of their yard.
The council members went on the record as being in favor of the request if two conditions were met — first, that Town Marshal John Markley found no opposition to the plan from their neighbors, and second, that town attorneys approved the measure after a review of the town’s ordinance.
daves@news-banner.com
