The Carmel City Council’s Land Use and Special Studies Committee will be busy this year.
At its Feb. 19 meeting, the council unanimously approved a resolution assigning the committee to review Carmel’s Unified Development Ordinance, a nearly 400-page document codifying the city’s zoning and development standards and processes.
City Councilor Matt Snyder, who heads the committee, said the UDO hasn’t been systematically reviewed since it was approved in 2017 and that much has changed since then. For example, he said Carmel’s transition to second-class city status made all references in the UDO to a clerk-treasurer obsolete, as that position was replaced in 2020 with an elected clerk and appointed controller.
“There is no intent that says things are bad, this is just an opportunity to go through (the UDO) and review it,” Snyder said. “I foresee this review taking an exceptionally long time, because this is a very prominent document in Carmel that affects a lot of people.”
Snyder said he expects the process to take eight months at least, if two committee meetings are scheduled per month.
As part of the review process, Snyder expects to gather feedback from residents, developers and other stakeholders and closely review the existing UDO and any proposed changes with the city’s legal team and officials from the Department of Community Services. Any amendments would first go before the Carmel Plan Commission for its recommendation, with the city council having the final vote.
Councilor Adam Aasen said the review is “well overdue.”
“In the worst-case scenario, we leave this becoming experts on the UDO, which is not going to hurt us when we consider matters in the future,” he said. “It’s important to look at things and ask, ‘Why do we do it?’ If the answer is, ‘We’ve always done it that way,’ that’s not a good enough answer. So, it’ll help me understand this massive document that guides everything that gets built in our city.”
Snyder said the UDO review will be discussed at the committee’s next meeting set for 7 p.m. Feb. 21 but that it will primarily cover agenda-setting and not the substance of the ordinance.
