LivingInPike.com

How would you like to come home after work one day and find out that a gas station is going to be built in the middle of your neighborhood?

Would you like to see a new house going up in the parking lot of a neighborhood shopping center?

Your neighbor just built a do it yourself addition to the side of their house and it extends to an inch of the property line. Is this reasonable?

Fortunately, the City of Indianapolis has zoning ordinances which prohibit these kinds of things. Zoning ordinances have been around for decades. There was a 625-page revision to the ordinances in 2015 and a 642-page revision in 2018. Revisions are made because of technology, traffic flow, environmental reasons, property value reasons (gives the city more property tax revenues), political climate, etc. Indy Rezone

As a Realtor, I was fortunate to find out about the Pike Township Residents Association (ptra.net) about 20 years ago. PTRA is an organization that hears presentations from builders, developers, homeowners, attorneys, etc. regarding zoning and zoning variances. The Board of Directors votes on the presentation. Although our vote is not binding, it weighs heavily with Indianapolis Zoning who makes the final decision.

I have seen hundreds of presentations asking for many types of zoning and zoning variances over the past 20 years. It has helped me see the numerous changes in Pike Township and how they came about. It is tremendous training for a Realtor. I was privy to information of new communities going into Pike usually a year or two in advance and how they might affect property values.
The meetings are open to the public. Neighbors are notified of zoning changes and variances if close by. It is interesting to hear their thoughts and concerns. Some are very well thought out.

Pike is very fortunate to have an organization like this. We are one of the few townships that do.

One of my least favorite ways of waking up in the morning is by barking dogs. At 6:00 AM when I look outside my window, I see my neighbor has tied up their two dogs on their open patio with them nowhere in sight. I find this to be most inconsiderate. Especially during the summer months when children are sleeping in and parents are enjoying their morning coffee.

The dogs are still out at 7:30 AM when I leave my house for work. Once they notice me walking to my car, the barking is continuous until I shut my car door.

I notice my same neighbors, when outside with their dogs, do not put one of their dogs on lease. They just let it lose roaming around.

On top of all of this, they don’t pick up their dogs poop. This is in a common area where children play ball. I am sure parents love when their kids come inside from playing tracking dog poop into their homes.

As a Realtor, these are things that buyers don’t like and sometimes won’t buy in a neighborhood because of these types of inconsiderations. Believe me, when I say in my 17 years selling houses, I have seen buyers hesitate for much less. Things like this tend to make buyers discount a house. This tends to make the community what I call a “discounted community.”

As a side note, I wish I had a nickel for every time I was showing buyers houses where we had to be EXTREMELY careful where we stepped while walking around the backyard of a dog owner’s house.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. The City of Indianapolis Municipal Code 531 Article II spells out all the requirements for dog owners. It covers all my pet peeves listed above. (https://bit.ly/2LdOIrV)

I have nothing against dogs. I just think that dog ownership comes with civic responsibilities.

NOTE – Terry Mitchell wrote the following comment on Nextdoor.com about the Town Hall meeting last night.

I just wanted to recap my takeaways from last nights town hall meeting held by Janice McHenry, First of all, there is a billboard proposal on the books for Indianapolis, and that was presented well and is important to get support, please reach out to the appropriate people and support the effort of that proposal on January 14th, I know I will.

Indy Parks was invited and present at the meeting to talk about (among other things) their recent Lilly Grant that was won, it encompasses a $2.6 million dollar plan to develop the west side of the park, which would put in ADA accessible hiking trails, but not in (as refereed to by the Indy Parks staff) “Eagle Creek Proper”, putting instead the ADA trails away from the other amenities offered in a totally segregated part of the park. Hoosier Mountain Bike Association(HMBA) had a large(approximately half) showing at the town hall meeting, and despite our best efforts to work with Eagle Creek on proper development of these trails as multi use to reach the broadest group of users possible, HMBA and the mountain biking community has been shut out by Indy Parks. When questions arose by the mountain biking community at the end of Indy Parks presentations as to why an entire user group who is passionate and willing to volunteer to build trails, fundraiser for trails, and most importantly stay around to maintain the trails once they are built, Janice McHenry shut the meeting down saying; This is MY meeting and we are not here to talk about mountain biking at MY parks. In a conversation with Brittany Davis Swinford(Eagle Creek Park Senior Manager) after the meeting she said; I am the park manager and I get to determine which user groups can use the park. And Don Colvin(Deputy Director of Indy Parks) repeatedly said in that same conversation; that there is no such thing as multi use trails. It is clear that none of these people are willing to listen to public input about the future of the park and that they want to have it their way.

While both Brittany Davis and Don Colvin are not in elected positions, their direct boss and Director of Indy Parks Linda Broadfoot is appointed by our elected officials, and needs to hold her employees responsible for making the parks the best that they can be.

Please see the attached document, outlining the poor performance of Indy Parks (ranked 98th out of 98 in 2017) then I would encourage you to reach out to your City County Council member and let them know that it is important that our elected officials follow the guidance of their constituents.

We should NEVER allow politicians and employees of the government who think that OUR parks are THEIRS and theirs alone to do what they want making decisions. If you would like more information about mountain biking and its impact on the economy and our natural resources, or to have a conversation about any of this, I would encourage you to reach out, I would love to sit down over a cup of coffee and talk about/answer any questions, and if I can’t answer them, I can hopefully point you in the direction of someone who can!

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Terry Mitchell

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