McANA to Examine Redevelopment Plans

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Babe Denny residents are concerned about losing their 2 acre park to a parking lot. The park was surrounded by cars during the Nov 16 Colts game.

Photo by Jay Thompson
(posted Nov 16)

SPEED (Speedway People Encouraging Equal Development) has summoned the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations for help with Speedway redevelopment plans that include vacating Grande Avenue and Georgetown Road.

McANA Wayne Township Director Tom Glass said "I am hearing some complaints that there are neighbors that feel like they have not been listened to." Glass said SPEED members feel like they are not able to present their side. They also have expressed difficulty in reaching City officials to attend meetings.

SPEED is asking McANA to schedule a land use committee meeting to help them address the redevelopment and vacation issues that threaten their homes and businesses.

Joyce Bishop, SPEED representative, said "there is an urgency," because there are two properties on 16th Street that are under the threat of eminent domain. Bishop, who owns property at 4501 W. 16th Street, said her property was appraised on November 14. Appraisals are an early step in the process for government acquisition.

"They (the Speedway Redevelopment Commission) are going to take my property and I'll lose my retirement."

Merri Anderson, President of the Greater Garden City Civic Association, said Allison Transmission plans to attend the neighborhood association's November 17 meeting to discuss vacating Grande Avenue.

The concerns were raised with guest speakers DMD Director Maury Plambeck and DPW Director David Sherman at McANA's November 15 meeting.

Glass asked Sherman if there are any plans to close Georgetown Road temporarily to conduct a neighborhood impact study. Sherman said he is waiting for the SRC's engineers to submit more traffic flow data to them by the end of the month, but there are no plans to temporarily close the road.

Pauline Finkton, President of the Babe Denny Neighborhood Association, raised concerns about parking for events at Lucas Oil Stadium. "The neighborhood has been turning into a massive lot." Her concern is Babe Denny Park could converted into a parking lot.

Plambeck said Tanya Beeler is working with neighborhood pockets to create a neighborhood parking program where the homeowner gets a sticker to park on the street in front of their property. Some neighborhoods are developing permit parking only for homeowners to park on the street. Many neighborhoods use this system to keep their streets free from cars parked by students of nearby colleges.

Plambeck said "what we have not decided to do at this point, and we're going to kind of monitor it, is to stop people from allowing parking on their own private property and charge for that. There is a great percentage of property owners down there doing it."

Bishop said that preventing homeowners from parking cars "would open a real can of worms" because homeowners around the State Fair and in Speedway park cars. "That is our property, and we should have a right."

"Let me clarify it. We are not going to do that what I think you said," Plambeck said, noting it involves people parking on the street. The City would not stop people from "renting" their yards for parking. "A lot of people would be very angry if we stopped that."

Speedway banned private parking in yards, except for car washing, unloading and during races. The town council took the measure to help clean up the town's appearance.