CROTHERSVILLE

Previous owners of a 5.11-acre lot in the 500 block of Moore Street in Crothersville laid it out for a subdivision.

While those plans never panned out, the current owner, Sam Kuehn, plans to make it happen.

“I look to move quickly,” he told the Crothersville Town Council during a meeting May 4 at the town hall.

“I’m in line with talking to my bankers, talking to Jonathan Isaacs about layout, getting a little bit more current engineering drawings for me and surveying and stuff,” he said. “I don’t think that’s going to change very much. It’s just a matter of fine-tweaking and -tuning to make sure that everything’s where it is. I’m ready to start moving some dirt soon.”

Kuehn said the subdivision will have 15 to 18 three-bedroom homes that will total around 1,200 square feet and be in the $150,000 market range. The latter will depend on market value and cost of lumber. He described the homes as “simple, modern, ranch-type structures.”

One reason for attending the town council meeting was to discuss tapping into the town’s sewer and water lines. Kuehn wants to coordinate that with the culvert replacement work being done nearby on Moore Street.

“The time to do it would be now while we’ve got the road opened up,” council President Danieta Foster said.

“It’s going to be a big job,” Mason Boicourt, the town’s utility director, said of the Moore Street project. “It has just kind of all lined together that (Kuehn) wants to do this all at the same time.”

Boicourt said the sanitary main extension for the sewer tap is an 8-inch tap into the 10-inch main. King’s Trucking and Excavation Inc. of Seymour quoted that work at $13,895. For the 6-inch water tap, the cost from the same company is $10,590.

Kuehn said there are water and sewer lines on the property, but they are about 50 years old and likely are useless.

“It would probably work, but it would just be a lifetime of headaches,” he said.

Councilman Jamy Greathouse said the biggest concern is ensuring everything is congruent going from the taps into the area and who would be responsible for them.

“We want to make sure it all lines up with our current systems and everything meets the code that it needs to be at,” he said.

Kuehn said an engineer would lay out the systems, so they should be up to code.

Boicourt said the town’s utility workers would just need access to clean out mains and do maintenance, and there would need to be a manhole every 200 feet in the subdivision. It also needs to be decided who will pay for all of the materials.

“We need to have all of that in writing,” he said. “That way, we know what we’re responsible for and what you’re going to take care of, and we want it to be something that we can maintain after we take it over.”

Kuehn said according to state code, the subdivision needs to have a cul-de-sac. Greathouse confirmed that, noting anything except for streets approved for future extension into adjacent developed territories must end in a cul-de-sac.

While the town is putting a lot of money into various improvement projects, Greathouse said he’s glad to see a subdivision coming to Crothersville.

“I believe this is probably one of the most important things that has come before us in a long time because we have an amazing industrial park in a great location, and the No. 1 restriction that this town is facing is housing,” he said. “Over 60% of those people (who work at the industries) live outside of this area, and the more houses, more things go on in this community.”

Foster said as soon as a house in Crothersville goes up for sale, it’s pending the next day.

“I’m hoping that maybe some other people take light of this with some of the other available properties in the area because I’ve talked to a couple of places that do warehousing and stuff in the Louisville area, and they said, ‘Yeah, we would love to be right there. You’re halfway between Louisville and Indy. Our employees have no place to live,'” Greathouse said. “I’m hoping that maybe this will spur something up.”

Greathouse then made a motion to accept both quotes from King’s, and it was seconded and unanimously approved.

Since the town doesn’t have a subdivision control ordinance at this time, Boicourt said the next step is to work with Brad Bender with FPBH Inc. to come up with requirements for Kuehn and have town attorney Matt Lorenzo draft a letter for the engineer to review.

Once everything, including the subdivision street, gets dedicated to the town, it would be responsible for maintenance and upkeep.