PENDLETON — Pendleton leaders discussed town growth — and related challenges and opportunities — on Monday at the Community Building in Falls Park, during one of three public meetings planned for the issue.
In front of dozens of attendees, town manager Scott Reske, Planning Director Hannahrose Urbanski, and Town Council President Marissa Skaggs discussed Pendlleton’s potential for growth in the future and the town’s plan to manage it.
Reske started the meeting by stating the town knows growth is coming, it’s just a matter of when, where and how fast the growth occurs.
“Don’t deny that you’re going to grow,” Reske said. “That’s always mistake No. 1.”
According to the 2020 census, Pendleton had a population of 4,717. Reske said he believes that number to be just short of 6,000 now but said the town has the potential to support up to 40,000 if it were to acquire undeveloped land in the area.
To show what could happen, he compared Pendleton to three towns in the area — McCordsville, Zionsville, and Fishers — who have all experienced growth in the past few decades. McCordsville has grown to nearly 7,000 since 2000 and is still on the rise, Zionsville has grown from 5,000 to 30,000 since the 1990s, and Fishers has gone from 7,000 in the 1990s to more than 100,000 now.
For Reske and the town, the rapid growth of Fishers provides a good lesson, and the controlled growth of Zionsville and maintenance of a historic small-town feel is something the town hopes to replicate.
Reske laid out the pitfalls that can arise from growth to the area, and they are all things the town is planning for, he said.
These include effects such as traffic congestion, strain on infrastructure, neighborhoods where homes look too much alike, displaced local businesses, social disconnect, municipal debt, stress on public safety and water supply burdens.
“Does Pendleton still feel like Pendleton?” is first and foremost on the town’s list, Reske said. Maintaining that historic small-town identity is the main goal for the town when trying to manage growth.
To make that happen, and to combat the pitfalls that were laid out, he said the town has three strategies for steering the growth — enhancing the quality of life, staying ahead of the growth and protecting the town from debt.
To enhance the quality of life, Reske discussed expanding the park system, safeguarding property values for current residents and maintaining strong development standards.
“Not only do we want to keep up with the great hometown style of living that we already have here, let’s take advantage of the growth and add things to the community,” Reske said. “We want to be more proactive with the growth and take advantage of it where we can.”
To keep Pendleton’s hometown feel, the town has raised its standards for when the growth begins. Developers have to supply the town with a package of what their architectural materials will be for their subdivision; each developer must use three different materials, and each must be used at a certain percentage.
“Developers can do it a couple of different ways, but either way the buildings cannot look the same,” Urbanski said. “Whether by color, texture, material — there’s a whole variety of different things they can do.”
“If you want to grow here, you have to meet our standards,” Reske said. “We aren’t going to roll over.”
To stay ahead of the growth, Reske said, everyone in town must work together and be able to adapt and adjust.
“For us, it’s not just the staff that does the planning, but everybody in the community has input and everything we do at every level now has public input,” Reske said. “Peyton Manning was a great football player, but what he was really good at was getting to the line and changing plans, and that’s what we need to be ready to do.”
To protect the town from debt, Reske said the most important thing is making sure that the development pays for the growth, not town residents, and that the town maximizes all of its grants and alternative funding.
“Don’t make the current residents pay for that growth,” Reske said. “You’ve already paid your debt to the town.”
The town is set to repeat the information session at 6:30 p.m. April 11 at Town Hall, 100 W. State St., and plans a public input session for more community feedback at 6:30 p.m. May 17 at the Town Hall. Both meetings will be streamed live on Zoom, with a
link to be made available beforehand at
town.pendleton.in.us.