There were around 30 in attendance at the March 22, 2022, public meeting of the Broad Ripple Village Association [BRVA] Land Use and Development committee that was held in the basement of Northminster Presbyterian Church.

There were three items on the agenda, in bold below. The first (added after the original agenda was mailed out) was for information only and the last two were requesting votes.

This converted house has seven therapists operating in it on a variance of development standards to allow for commercial use of a residential-zoned property. The owner of the building is selling it and asked the tenants to vacate. The tenants decided to purchase the property and rezone it as commercial (MU-2). No changes are planned for the exterior of the building. The petitioner will come to the April meeting to present the final request and ask for a vote.

This was the second appearance before the committee. The petitioner added a time limit on the variance request that would allow for a parking lot in a protected transit zone. That variance would expire after five years. The petitioner, Audiochuck, plans to come back to the committee with a design for a multi-story structure for the property within that time period. The petitioner also agreed to tie the variance to Audiochuck, in the event that the property is sold within the five years, which would require the new property owner to obtain a new variance. These changes to the proposal were enough to sway the committee to vote unanimously to write a letter of support to the Department of Metropolitan Development.

This was the third appearance before the committee. Minor changes have been made to the design of the building planned to fill the Kroger site. The southeast corner of the building was lowered one floor to lessen the visual impact on the neighborhood to the south. The traffic study completed and found that the previous Kroger presented more traffic to the street than the proposed building. Kroger had many customers and truck deliveries daily.

The committee stated that after all of the modifications that were requested and implemented over the last two meeting appearances, the project can now be supported. A vote was taken and the motion to support this project was passed.

The next public meeting of the committee is scheduled for Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at 6pm, at Northminster Presbyterian Church.