There were three petitions before the Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA) Land Use and Development Committee at the July 28, 2009, meeting. Committee chair Jim Holland opened the meeting by explaining that this committee makes recommendations to the BRVA board of directors. The board then takes the appropriate action at the petitioner's hearing with the City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD). That action could be a request for denial or support, either as a letter or an in-person appearance at the hearing. The BRVA has no legal power over the decision of the City of Indianapolis.

The first petition was 2002-VAR-801 for property located at 6229 Indianola (map locator I10). The Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) discussed their landscaping plans that accompany their parking lot expansion to the south on their property. Some questions were asked, but there was no opposition to the plans.

The second property on the agenda was 1040 Broad Ripple Avenue (map locator G7, and this issue page 11) , formerly the site of Snapdragon Salon. Chef JJ's Back Yard have filed a zoning variance to open a private party, event, corporate team building and cooking class facility. They have also filed for a 2-way liquor license (beer-wine). The property is already zoned C-5, but it was brought up at the meeting that the change in use from a salon may require a variance. It was also brought up that the patio of the facility is on the bank of the White River which may need approval from the Army Corps of Engineers. The petitioner agreed to look into these matters and get the final petition to the committee for their review.

The last petition on the agenda was 2009-ZON-027 (2009-DP-001) for the property at the northeast corner of Birchwood Avenue and Kessler Boulevard, along the Monon Trail (map locator H6). Five remonstrators appeared at the BRVA meeting to voice their opposition to the proposal to build five 3-bedroom, 3-full bath condominiums on the property. This lot previously contained a single-family home that was razed about two years ago (Gazette Vol 4 #15).

The request is for rezoning from D-5 to D-P. D-P allows a developer to define all aspects of the zoning for a property, including density and setbacks from the property lines. D-P rezoning requires special meetings. Two of these meetings were held in the City-County Building and were attended by the petitioners, neighborhood associations, and representatives from city departments.

The neighbors of the proposed project recently held a "street meeting" on Birchwood to discuss their concerns. The petitioner attended. One suggestion at that meeting was to close the south end of Birchwood where is meets Kessler Boulevard. This would eliminate the traffic from Kessler.

After David Kingen presented the project's details and renderings, several neighbors to the project voiced their concerns. The main subjects were the buildings are out of scale with the existing homes in the area, too much greenspace would be eliminated, the density is too high causing too many cars and too much traffic for such a small street or "a glorified alley", the project would stress the utilities, and neighbors would lose their privacy.

The hearing for this case before the DMD zoning board is scheduled for August 19, but it is expected that this hearing will be continued to a later date so that some agreements can be reached among all parties involved.

The next BRVA zoning meeting is scheduled for August 25, 2009, at 6 P.M. at Broad Ripple United Methodist Church, located at 61st and Guilford Avenue. As always, these meetings are open to the public.