Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Ballard Orders City Planners To Build Demand For Ersal's Parking Garage

Mayor Greg Ballard is giving $6.35 million of your taxpayer dollars to one of his largest campaign contributors, Ersal Ozdemir, to build a new parking garage in Broad Ripple supposedly because there is a shortage of available parking. Now he's ordering city planners to create added demand for parking in Ozdemir's parking garage so he can maximize his profits. Yes, the green light is being given to Kilroy's to build a new bar in the heart of Broad Ripple, as if there aren't enough there already, that is way short of the number of parking spaces required by the City's development standards. The IBJ's Cory Schouten has the story:

The city's planning staff has given its endorsement to a new Kilroy's Bar n' Grill in Broad Ripple after the owner agreed to scale back an outdoor seating area from 4,800 square feet to 2,000 square feet. An amended site plan filed Aug. 1 shows the smaller outdoor dining area would allow for the retention of nine additional parking spaces. The restaurant and bar plans to take the entire 7,750-square-foot building at 831 Broad Ripple Ave., now home to a Cardinal Fitness. Some neighbors have opposed the proposal, wary of another large bar and concerned the outdoor dining area would remove too many scarce parking spaces. The Kilroy's plan provides for 46 parking spaces, far fewer than the 119 required under the city's development standards. The new user, though, should not change the "intensity of automobile traffic" since most visitors in Broad Ripple "walk to multiple destinations," the planning department noted in its report. "The outdoor seating would be in character with the pedestrian friendly, village atmosphere of the area." The city's Board of Zoning Appeals is scheduled to vote on a variance request for Kilroy's on Aug. 16.

It should be no problem getting the variance through the BZA. Fellow blogger Pat Andrews has detailed how the BZA panels haven't met a variance request in Broad Ripple they don't like. Tony Rezko should have plied his trade in Indianapolis instead of Chicago. He would be living the good life in Carmel instead of sitting in a cold jail cell for many years to come.

7 comments:

Paul K. Ogden said...

The City's planning staff is on record as being against Kilroy's because of the huge disparity in parking that would be availabe versus what's required. parking sitaution. They make the outdoor dining area slightly smaller, giving it nine more parking spaces and suddenly the City's planning staff is on board/

Huh? Gee, do you think this deal got greased politically? Uh, yes. The Ballard Way is Pay to Play. Someone must have paid.

Marycatherine Barton said...

Men like Greg Ballard give politics a dirty name!! Sure hope he is not reelected. Yes, Tony Rezko would have managed just fine in Indianapols.

Had Enough Indy? said...

Wow - this one does stink. Ballard's people need to keep their hands off zoning and variance decisions.

Our system is broken and that is just the way some people want it.

Concerned Taxpayer said...

Jim Atterholt?

Citizen Kane said...

Ballard had nothing to do with the position change, nor did any of the Department or Administration gatekeepers. Now, the gatekeepers have had their hands in other petitions - usually when the city is handing out money and companies with names beginning with "E" or "S" - surprise, surprise!

Gary R. Welsh said...

It is really galling for the BRVA to expect the rest of us to fork over one-third of the upfront moneys derived from the bad parking meter lease deal to give to a private developer to build a parking garage to fix their self-inflicted parking problem. Variance after variance over the past decade has totally exacerbated this problem and then they expect even more variances. Will they expect us to subsidize the construction of yet another parking garage in a few years when this new garage proves inadequate to address the problem? Let those business owners take up a collection among themselves and build a garage with their money at their risk if they want to flood the area with dozens of bars and restaurants. This new parking garage won't make a dent in the problem to the extent there is a problem because of all the neighborhood parking spaces that are going to be eliminated once the residential permit parking is implemented.

Citizen Kane said...

Now, you hit the essence of the problem; this business association and others who have been clamoring for a garage for two decades and supported many of the variances should have created an business improvement district and built the garage themselves and whatever else was required to improve their business district.