Marion Township officials are hammering out a set of standards to help guide future developers. The Board of Trustees met Thursday night and discussed a current draft of engineering development standards that have been worked on over the past year. The idea is to make it so that people looking to develop in the township know what the rules are, which boards and commissions they need to go through, and other processes they may need to complete.

Much of the night’s discussion centered around non-conforming existing private roads. Marion Township Supervisor Bob Hanvey said that while new roads going in aren’t in their hands, he would like to see some guidelines for existing ones. He said the issue they have with old roads is that many have never had a maintenance agreement and have fallen into a state of disrepair. They, as a township, are trying to ensure all their roads are safe and passable. The Board of Trustees discussed private road widths with township engineer Phil Westmoreland, who said on roads that serve 2 to 5 households they require a 16-foot minimum width with 2 foot-wide shoulders. Going above that raises the standard to 22 foot-wide roads with shoulders.

It was noted that once the standards were completed, they were just that- standards, and not an ordinance. This allows the board to amend them without going through the ordinance amendment process. Officials have given themselves until October 3rd to further review the document and submit their suggestions in order to have a new draft ready for review for their first meeting in October. (MK)