The May public meeting of the Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA) Land Use and Development (LUD) committee was held at The Hatch, 6161 Hillside Avenue [II31 on map], on the 26th at 6pm. This was the first meeting since the February meeting that was held before COVID quarantines. Due to social distancing guidelines the meeting was limited to 25 attendees. There were around 21 in attendance. Most wore masks, but removed their masks when recognized to speak. The petitioners kept their masks on during the entire meeting. There was one item on the agenda, in bold below.

This was the second time this petition has been before the committee. The first time was for information only. The BR Random Rippling article is here.

This proposal is to raze five properties in the block on the east side of Ferguson Street between 64th and 65th. Only the two properties along 64th Street will remain. The first design was for a five story, timber-construction office building, with a first-floor parking garage, on the north half of the block with a small surface parking lot south of the building (north of Sangria). The new proposal described at the May meeting is for a four story building, reducing the building height from 62' to 51'. This reduces the number of parking spaces needed (from 105 to 81 required by ordinance). This leaves the project 13 spaces short of the requirement.

Another change to the original plan is to convert the head-in parking spaces along 65th Street to parallel parking spots. This reduces the number of available parking spaces by six, but was requested by the BRVA to start a parking change along 65th Street for safety reasons.

There were many committee discussions about parking in the Village, both the concern about allowing for the relaxation of parking requirements for future developments now that there is a parking garage and Red Line access, and the feeling by some that the head-in parking along 65th Street is acceptable. The committee was split on both issues.

A vote was taken and the committee voted unanimously to support this project with the new changes to 65th Street parking and building height. The official hearing is scheduled for June 4 before the Board of Zoning Appeals Division I at the City-County Building downtown. DMD Staff Report here.

The next public meeting of the LUD committee is scheduled for Tuesday, June 23 at 6:00 P.M., location TBD.