Rocks surrounding a drainage pipe from the Eagle Trace subdivision in Richmond contained a puddle of water last week, but the newly dug retention basin was just a dry, grassy depression.
That barren area, though, represents progress. For more than 25 years, the subdivision accessible off Round Barn Road has not met some city or county standards, causing the city to stop development with about 10 vacant lots remaining and the county to refuse accepting subdivision streets into the county road system.
An Aug. 28 Richmond Advisory Plan Commission decision to approve a secondary replat petition for the retention basin and a cul-de-sac at the end of Oriole Drive moves the subdivision closer to solving the decades-old problems.
“This has been such a mess from the beginning,” said Bruce Wissel, the plan commission chair and a former Richmond Common Council member, before the 8-0 vote.
Streets within the subdivision have been improved to meet county standards, as has the street signage. The cul-de-sac provides county snow plows room to turn around. And the retention basin, which met Richmond Sanitary District standards, fulfills a requirement that had been unmet.
Gordon Moore, who represented the Suzanne D. Raper Trust in care of the U.S. Bank Farm Management division, said the Wayne County Highway Department is now prepared to certify the subdivision’s streets and accept them into the county road system. Wayne County’s commissioners will have to approve that acceptance.
From the beginning, developers failed to comply with the road standards or construct the retention basin; however, the issues resurfaced during 2021 when the Indiana Municipal Power Agency reached a deal to purchase 49 acres south of the subdivision for Richmond’s seventh solar park. To receive necessary zoning approval, the trust agreed to provide the necessary upgrades using proceeds from the land sale.
A version of this article appeared in the September 4 2024 print edition of the Western Wayne News.