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Last updated on Friday, December 18, 2015
(INDIANAPOLIS) - The Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) recently announced the launch of their new Indiana Site Certified (ISC) program at the Indiana Economic Development Association’s (IEDA) Annual Conference.
The program is designed to build upon what is currently known as the Indiana Shovel Ready certification, to validate sites that are ready for economic development opportunities.
The goal of the ISC program is to assist Indiana cities and towns:
"I applaud the working group who rose to the challenge of assessing Indiana Shovel Ready and determined ways for the program to evolve by enhancing the criteria, messaging and goals to raise the visibility of our Indiana communities who are ready for business growth and development," said Bill Konyha, OCRA Executive Director. "We look forward to witnessing the economic successes throughout the state resulting from the updates now known as the ISC program."
ISC recognizes three tiers of readiness: Silver, Gold and Prime:
Silver - defines boundaries with a clear title, establishes a price, demonstrates executive level local government support, defines utility capacity and distance, and provides documentation such as Phase I environmental assessment, ALTA, topographical and property layout.
Gold - builds upon Silver by requiring a minimum of 20 contiguous acres, a location no more than 5 miles away from a state highway, a completed geo tech study, a seismic hazard map, proper zoning, a desktop archaeological investigation, utilities be located to the property line or future build be located in public right-of-way and area be free from recognized environment concerns.
Prime - builds upon Gold by requiring 30 contiguous acres, a location no more than 2.5 miles away from a state highway, and an archaeological investigation. In addition, the LUG, LEDO or REDO must own the property or an option must be held with the owner.
The ISC program is the result of a working group made up of stakeholders who were convened by OCRA to explore opportunities for programmatic enhancement of the Indiana Shovel Ready certification and further develop ways to assist communities in best practices to market their local sites.
For more information regarding the tiers and general programmatic parameters, please visit the ISC webpage.
Communities of any size may apply for the designation through OCRA. Applications for certification are accepted on a rolling basis. The first step is to contact your OCRA Community Liaison who will be able to offer current program details, evaluate readiness to proceed and provide application instructions.
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