Commissioners will focus on Willowcreek Road issue
Monday meeting to answer questions on extension from CR 700 North to US 30
The Porter County Board of Commissioners is hosting a Monday meeting to answer questions about the Willowcreek Road extension from County Road 700 North, on Portage’s southern border, to U.S. 30.
Union Township residents have said they are concerned about the road extension, which will go through multigenerational farmland, and how it will impact their rural quality of life, as well as questioning the need for it at all.
Residents also have said county officials appeared to be keeping the project under wraps, with little information being consistently provided to those most affected by the road extension.
County officials, meanwhile, said the road extension, under discussion for decades, will provide a much-needed northsouth road on the county’s west side and help address increasing traffic and growth in the county, as well as provide necessary drainage infrastructures.
A previous open house in November, sponsored by American Structurepoint, the county’s contractor for the project and also staffed by representatives of the county’s planning department, provided stations with maps and other information where attendees could get details but did not afford those in the room the chance to ask questions before the entire audience.
“The commissioners called it, scheduled it and arranged it. American Structurepoint will be in attendance along with members of our plan commission,” said Commissioners President Jim Biggs, R-North.
Commissioners heard from residents in Union Township about the road extension.
“They want to hear from commissioners so we’re going to make that possible,” he said.
The lack of information on the county’s website about the road extension — a meeting notice for Monday didn’t go up on the Porter County website until Wednesday afternoon, after the Post-Tribune inquired about it, and the only other online source for information is the project website — has been an ongoing point of frustration for residents concerned about the road extension.
Biggs said he understands why
some residents could feel disconnected.
“Certainly communication is something that’s in our control and we can improve it,” he said.
According to documents on the Willowcreek Road project website, the estimated total cost of the preferred route in September 2020 was $27.88 million, giving it the second-lowest price tag of the six routes initially under consideration. An anticipated 80% of the cost will be paid for with federal funds, an official with American Structurepoint said during an online presentation that was part of the public meeting that month.
Indiana 49 now serves as the only north-south thoroughfare from one end of the county to the other. Its north point ends at Indiana Dunes State Park in Chesterton and it continues south through the entire length of the county.
Other considered routes, including an extension of Indiana 149, weren’t feasible for an assortment of reasons. Extending that state highway, Biggs has said, meant bridging over a large wetland as well as railroad tracks, making the project even more expensive and creating environmental challenges because of the wetlands.
Commissioners decided a few years ago that the project couldn’t be set aside any longer and had become a necessity because of increased traffic, Biggs has said. In addition to road connectivity, the project also is expected to solve long-standing drainage problems at Willowcreek Road’s current endpoint with County Road 700 North.
Environmental impact and engineering studies are already complete for the preferred route, Biggs said.
“It’s come to a point where residents need to hear from us why here and why now,” Biggs said. “They have questions and they deserve answers from elected officials and not a contractor.”
Residents may not like what they hear, Biggs said, but they need to hear it.
“If there was another way to do this project, we’d do it,” he said.
The meeting takes place at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Porter County Expo Center, 215 E. Division Road, Valparaiso.
For more information on the Willowcreek Road extension, go to https://www.willow creekextension.com/.