Have a Merry Christmas

The 21st was the winter solstice. Days will no longer be getting shorter but will begin to lengthen, very slowly at first. In about a month you should be able to see that days really are a bit longer. Here is a site that gives you the sunrise and sunset for every day of the year.

I have not seen the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter yet. The clouds have not cooperated. I used to be much more interested in astronomical things.

JCEDO linked to a video about Indiana Face Masks, the new business in what was once Greene's furniture. You can see it here.

Desert Survivor has been entertaining her family with new games. She offers one of them here. It challenges players to invent new content for familiar acronyms.

There were two public Zoomed meetings on Monday. In the afternoon the Jasper County Redevelopment Commission held a public hearing about the establishment of a redevelopment area and TIF west of DeMotte. There were some questions about water. After closing the public hearing, they passed the confirmatory resolution, which establishes the TIF. The next step will come when DeMotte is ready to issue bonds for the water project. At that time the Redevelopment Commission will have to pledge TIF revenues to DeMotte so they can finance the bonds. The map below was taken from the document they approved and shows what properties are included in the TIF.

In the evening both the Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeals and the Plan Commission met on Zoom. The BZA heard a request for a variance for frontage. The code requires a 250 foot frontage for residences and the property in question had 350 feet. However, the owners wanted to split the lot and put two houses on it. The property is on SR 10 and there was concern that with the area now declared a TIF, it might not be appropriate for housing and that it would be on an increasingly busy road. However, the variance passed.

The Plan Commission had three cases, all similar in that they involved a change in zoning from A1 to A2. If a property is zoned A1, the property needs to be ten acres or larger to have a residence built on it. In all of these cases the owners wanted to put houses on much smaller lots. In the final case, the owner of a large lot in an existing subdivision wanted to split it into two parcels and to build on them he applied for a two-lot subdivision. All requests were approved. The rezones are advisory and must be approved by the Commissioners.

There is a lot of red tape involved in getting things done and listening to all the meetings I attend keeps confirming that.

This will probably be the last post before Christmas. Have a Merry Christmas. Below are trees from the Christmas Tree Walk. The first is from Little Cousin Jasper.

I could not figure who sponsored this second tree. Note that there was still some snow on the ground when I took the picture.