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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes BZA Special 08-08-90 SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 1 The Carmel Board of Zoning Appeals Special Meeting was called to order by Gilbert Kett, Chairman at 7:35 P.M. at the City Council Chambers on August 8, 1990. The meeting was opened with the Pledge of Allegiance. The board members present were: Gilbert Kett, Jim Miller and Richard Klar. Ila Badger arrived at 7:47 P.M. Hal Thompson was not present. The staff members present were: Rick Brandau, Terry Jones, Dave Cunningham, Steve Andrews, Attorney and Dorthy Neisler. Letters received from Dorothy Stidham, Sally Rushmore and William R. and Drinda K. Fields were submitted into the official records. Has received a supplemental Traffic Impact Study prepared for Carmel/Clay School Corporation by the consultant. THIS IS A TRANSCRIPT OF THE SPECIAL USE APPLICATIONS FILED BY THE CARMEL/CLAY SCHOOL CORPORATION: PUBLIC HEARING A public hearing on two (2) Special Use applications filed by the Carmel/Clay School Corporation. Special use approval is sought for a proposed 6,000 seat stadium and several athletic practice fields on the north side of 136th St. just west of Keystone Ave. The second special use request is for a parking lot containing 450 parking spaces to be located on the southeast corner of Main St. ( 131st St. ) and 4th Ave. SE. Parcels are zoned R-1 and R-2 respectively. Filed by Tim Steven of Campbell , Kyle, Proffitt for the Carmel/Clay School Corporation. The public hearing was opened at 7:40 P.M. TIM STEVENS: I am Tim Stevens, Land Use Consultant of Campbell Kyle Proffitt, 198 S. 9th Street, Noblesville, IN. I am not an attorney, I do work for a law firm, I think that 's commonly reported although I work for Campbell Kyle Proffitt, I just wanted to point that out, that is why we have legal council present. I would like to thank the board for setting a special meeting for the consideration of this in lieu of some of our time constraints for the establishment of seeding for the football field. I would like to begin with some remarks about who we are and why we are trying to do this. The school corporation has been planning this project for some time. It may appear that not all details had been considered, but as you see the scope of the project before you, I think it is a credit to Everett I . Brown that they have developed it to the extent that you see in front of you. A lot of the points that were raised at the last meeting and in subsequent meetings that I have had with some of the people from the surrounding community have been considered in the design of the development of this site. They did not simply rush willy nilly in to this proposal. A lot of different people have had input to the design constraints and what you see may not have been exactly the first choice of the school board or the architects, but have been evolved into what you had seen at the last meeting from input from a variety of sources. We have been back to a lot of those people who had originally told us we may SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 2 be restrained from designing a certain way and we would like to present those changes to you tonight. We are not a developer who is going to go bankrupt, we will be here for a while. The school corporation will continue to work with the community after such hearings. The school board meets regularly and those meetings are public meetings. We are not likely to be the target of a hostile takeover by another school corporation or anything like that. We are in this community for a while. Here with us tonight are: Dr. Philip Eskew, President of the School Board, Dr. Robert Hartman, Superintendent of the School Corporation, Ms. Debbie Farmer, also with Campbell Kyle Proffitt, legal council for the school corporation, Mr. Roger Harper, business manager, Mr. Tom Ford from Pflum Klaus and Gehrim, our traffic consultant, Mr. Don Corto and Ms. Laura Miles from Everett I. Brown. We are here on the special use approval of the expansion physical facilities, this hearing was continued from last time. I wanted to point out the special use, as seen in zoning law, is a permitted use within a district with special design considerations. In terms of this being an allowed use it is allowed, the basic findings of fact and objective criteria is specified by the zoning ordinance can be met. It is not entirely a discretionary matter, it is one that we are held to rather rigorous findings and we believe we have met those. I would also like to point out that we do have two applications here this evening and I would hope that they are considered separately, even though in my introductory remarks I am going to talk about the whole scope of this school project. Just to run over briefly what we covered last time, this is part of a multi-phase expansion of the high school facilities. That expansion is going to occur on this whole site that is outlined on the aerial photograph. Phase la, lb, and lc will be involved with these two sites that we are here tonight on. We have subsequent phases of Phase 2 and Phase 3 that will include the bulk of the construction on the high school . Phase la will include the construction of the parking lot on the south side of Main Street and also the grading and seeding of football fields on the north side of 136th Street, Phase b begins the commencement of construction on the stadium and bleacher facilities on the athletic complex on the north side of 136th and Phase lc is the commencement of the construction on the academic wing and some of the demolition on the school site down here on the school building proper that will allow the beginning of the expansion of the high school academic facilities. As we move then into Phase 2 that will be the lion share of the construction. We will be back before this board for both phases lc and phase 2 on special use approval for those. Phase 2, as I mentioned, will include the encompassing development of the north side of Main Street and that will expand, by enlarge almost all of the academic facilities that you see. That will be the phase that will cover up all the existing parking which brings us to the requirement of the extra parking that we are here on tonight. Phase 3 then will include the construction of the spectator gymnasium, the existing high school renovation, whatever is remaining in the existing high school will be renovated in Phase 3. Then if there is money a field house that might be a community resource as well as a school corporation resource. Right now for budgetary purposes, the field house is not being considered for construction. We have got some time and this will be a multiple project and it may again be added back. For the time being it is not being considered any longer. If I might ask the audience, how many people are here on 136th Street, the physical education complex? How many are here on the parking lot on the south �].r1P of Main') rippinn th,t }Inn of ��L:n- SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 3 lot, I would like to be able to spare some of these other folks some time, if we might consider these issues separately. I don ' t know if that is amenable to the board. MR. KETT: That is no problem! TIM STEVENS: If I might first then cover the site on the north side of 136th Street for the physical education and athletic complex. We are looking at approximately a 55 acre site here, 6000 seat stadium, 1500 seat parking lot, we have got a buff and pedestrian drop off area here. The site is for physical education , practice fields, soccer practice field, football practice fields, soccer practice field down here where the detention area will be, 6000 seat stadium, as I mentioned here, will require a variance for the height and then six lighting standards positioned approximately here, here, here, and here will also require a variance for height. Those light standards will be approximately 120 feet high, indirect light down on the field in a similar fashion to the rays that are existing football field. In relative terms, we are looking at a position from about here versus the existing field. The stadium will be 57 feet high on the home side with a press box and 39 feet from grade on the visitors side. We have already received approval for the landscaping plan from the Plan Commission on ADLS approval , that is a perimeter approval that runs along Keystone. That was passed by the Plan Commission in July. We have been to the Board of Public Works and Safety on a sewer and water availability request and have similarly been granted approval on that. Based upon concerns that we heard at the meeting on July 23 we have made some changes to the plans. We have gone back to the drawing board , we have taken a look at traffic along here, our consultants from PKG has gotten with your consultant from HNTB and I assume they had good dialogue, I 've been in touch at least with our consultant, Tom Ford, who can answer any questions. I think we are to a basic meeting of the minds, as far as the basic design principals we proposed out here. That is a three lane road on 136th Street with a number of lane improvements at the intersection of Keystone and 136th as shown in the study that you have all received. We will attempt during construction to keep all of those improvements off of other peoples properties, that is not attempting to acquire additional right of ways for those improvements. In any case where we may have to acquire right of way, because I can ' t give an iron clad guarantee of that before we see construction plans, we will try to minimize tree removal. I think in terms of other peoples property, we're talking about the one to the east here wherein we have a short taper that we believe may be able to be constructed yet in existing right of way. The impact of those roadway improvements should be minimized by the fact that we will dedicate necessary right of way for those improvements. In terms of other concerns, I will show you the lighting diagram. This is a graphic illustration of the light intensity spread that we would expect to see as generated by the light manufacturers computer. You can ' t see the property line to well , bit it lies about here and that we go beyond the property lines with the 1/10th foot candles. At the property line we are about 2/10ths of a foot candle, likewise across Keystone we run onto Keystone and slightly over on to the Holt property on the north side with 1/10th foot candle light spray. I don 't know if we can illustrate it tonight, our architects brought a light meter, I was going to dim the lights so that you all could see the difference in 1/10th and 2/10ths of a foot candle, if you would like to take a look at that. (They demonstrated the difference in 1/10th and 2/10ths of a foot • SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 q candle. ) As measured and as defined by ordinance we are talking about foot candles light intensity on a horizontal surface. There is not a large qualitative difference between 1/10th and 2/10ths of a foot candle and that is the approximate light intensity that you will see at the property line. We are trying to give you an idea of (did not use mike) what the ordinance might allow would be on adjoining property. In terms of additional concerns that were expressed, there was a concern expressed about screening. We have added a row of spruce trees, a large row of spruce trees here to screen the house that is very close to this even though there is an existing landscape barrier. It seemed prudent here to add that screening so that we would have virtually an opaque visual barrier from that residence to the adjoining property. So that has been added along the side and quite honestly that can be added, that was not an omission as a cost savings, we thought that the existing landscape screening there was probably adequate but in terms of any additional screening that is a commitment on our part to visually screen that property. Likewise, in terms of any question about this d-gap area that was raised before, that is a concern between the two property owners. We are purchasing the property from the Halls and Brennans, Mr. Meganhart lives here. We will keep our improvements on land that we have clear title to if this issue is not resolved by the time we need to put improvements on there. So we can shift our improvements that are shown in that area over here, the effect would be the loss of two parking spaces along this row. We are committed to doing that. So, however, that land gap resolves itself we are able to what we need to do here with the minimal effect on the footprint of the plan. That is really all I have addressing that site, maybe you would like to ask questions about this site and we can address this one. GILBERT KETT: Alright Tim, we will consider these separate special use and just direct things for this stadium section for now and we will assume that is the conclusion of your presentation. If there is anyone else here to speak in favor of the petitioner, you may now speak. If not, we will allow anyone who wishes to speak in opposition to the petition, however, I would caution the remonstrators that the board listened to your statements at the last meeting very carefully. All we ask this evening is that the issues that were brought up before not be repeated, we have already logged those in, we have already heard them and digested them and I think the board acted accordingly at the last meeting. If there is anything new or anything relevant to the situation as being proposed now that you would like to say, I invite you to speak at this time. TIM STEVEN: Mr. Chairman, before he gets going, I would like to apologize, there was one additional item that I forgot to mention that does pertain to Mr. Meganharts concerns and that is that as originally proposed there is a six foot chain link fence all the way along the west property line as it abuts his property. Likewise, he had mentioned there was a concern for drainage, our site is sloped away from the west property line so that all the drainage is gathered on site and it is collected down into a detention area here and discharged through a pipe which goes onto school proportion property and vents into Cool Creek. I just wanted to mention those two concerns because they had been brought up. GILBERT KETT: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 5 A chain link fence. How tall? Is there anyone who wishes to speak? Yes sir. TIM STEVEN: It is the vinyl coated chain link fence. It is 10 ' tall . JIM CLARK: For the record my name is Jim Clark, Attorney with offices in Indianapolis, 1 Indiana Square, and I represent the Meganhart family. Unfortunately Mr. Chairman, I was not here at the last meeting and I hope I will not repeat and take a lot of your time. We have a lot of concerns obviously, as you no doubt know there is 14 acres that the Meganhart family owns which are immediately adjacent to the proposed project. Obviously we are concerned about the noise, the traffic, the lighting, the drainage, the trespassing from pedestrians, spectators. And if I may, Tim, you talked about the chain link fence is that just on the west boundary or does it cross at the top there on the north boundary? (did not use microphones) The fence on the north is nothing, there is no farms there, no I 'm not talking about (conversation took place off of tape) you say that chain link runs across the northern boundary? TIM STEVENS: Yes, that is right. JIM CLARK: On of our concerns, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, about the D-gap area that situation has not been resolved. As I understand it Tim you are not going to develop on that 1.56 acres? Tim's answer. Another concern we have members of board is that there should be seems to me more than the only landscaping it looks like they have proposed on the border there are trees that exist, trees that are there now. They will have no foliage on them during football season, I 'm sure, during the winter months to screen any view to the stadium, the high stands. It seems to me you could do more, there could be more done in the way of landscaping, a mounding with trees on top of mounding or something like that. Those little section of fur trees, I don ' t know what they do. That 's a concern. I might say the obvious we object, we are against this project for the reasons I have already stated, the noise, the traffic, the lack of buffering in our opinion , and I hope that if the board sees fit to grant this special use that these covenants that Tim is stating tonight are put in writing, because if not it seems to me that the Meganhart property value is gone. There are two residences over there, if they ever wanted to build more homes or develop that it seems to me that is just out of the question, unless there is total screening away from that complex . I think there should be some assurance or some covenants as far as this lighting is concerned, I am certainly no expert but I have talked to an expert and I understand what you are saying about .2 foot candle and all that but I think a lot depends on how the lights are set up. If they are horizontal or vertical , that has a lot to do with how many foot candles the lighting puts out, and I think that Meganharts are entitled to some covenant in that regard. Also, we would like if the board is going to approve this and I 'm not going to go through all our objections, they are obvious I think, they are basic, the noise, the traffic as I 've stated. If the board is going to approve this we think there should be covenants given by the petitioner as to buffering between the Meganhart property and this project, landscaping, maintaining the existing tree line. I think there should be some stipulation or covenant as SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 6 to when the lights, the latest hour these lights could be on. As far as, the Smokey Row Road, I guess it is called, we think that should be covenants about it being upgraded and widened, not just from Keystone to the end of your project, but from Keystone to beyond the Meganhart property or perhaps to Range Line Road. I think there should be covenants as to drainage, I still don ' t know how you are going to drain this, Tim, I didn 't understand what you said there, can you explain that again? TIM STEVENS: I would be happy to address all of those. It is difficult to see the topographical lines here, but what we have on this property line, we are looking at about 815 of contour that runs around here. There is a swail along here indicated by the contour lines as you go down to the south it drops 8-14, 8-13, 8-12. The topol lines fall inward so you are going at 8-15 moving inward 8-14, 8-13 in a very narrow band indicating a slope inward away from that fence, that is how it will collect. If you look at the numbers the higher numbers being the higher elevation it does read that these contours lines in sequence go down in number and therefore, down in elevation away from the property. So we are going to grade the property, I am not talking about the existing contours, I am talking about the design contours. JIM CLARK: There will not be a pond of such or ponding area? TIM STEVEN: No, there will be a collection area that will pond water in time of heavy rainfall . That will be in the southeast corner, that is considered a dry detention area, it is engineering term to describe an area that collects water but discharges it with no permanent retention of water. JIM CLARK: Are there storm sewers planned? TIM STEVENS: Yes, storm sewers throughout the parking lot. We have to meet the technical standards of the City of Carmel in terms of the placement of those catch basins and the underground piping of that storm sewage over into this sight. JIM CLARK: Not to take any more of the boards time, we are against it as I say but if the board sees fit to grant, we would like something in writing to back up what we have been told here tonight, some kind of covenants. GILBERT KETT: Thank you sir. Was there someone else? DEBBIE BURKHART: My name is Debbie Burkhart, I live at 251 ,key Row Road and the reason we don 't have very many OPnn]P +f+ rnnrcQnn+ Its n^ Cmr)Irnv On, nn SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST B, 1990 7 people have sold. This idea was presented to the neighborhood last fall , it was a big shock to all of us and since then there has been many changes of plans, many different things that we have heard and many answers that we cannot get. I live east of the Mackelfresh property, that diagram is not up presently, on this last paper that we were given this has not been brought up tonight, this is a new question I have. There is a road from the school through the Mackelfresh property which has been sold to the school connecting to the new stadium, that is a new plan. My question is going to be the same, what type of buffer am I going to be given, what type of fence am I going to be given. I was told originally that property would not have a road through it, I was told that the plans were going to be an archery course, obviously you can ' t have an archery course through a road. My first concern is what type of protection am I going to have, am I going to be inundated with kids, I am going to be a corner property at this point. It was mentioned at the first meeting that there would be some type of control of this road, I would like more detail on what type of control that means. Is that going to be used during the school hours, only during school games, what type of control will there be? I appreciate the last comment, we have to be concerned about our property, our property value we feel is going to drop with the construction of this stadium. If there is not proper buffer for our front windows that overlook this stadium and that is not going to be pleasant with this lighting, traffic and noise. We are presently served by the Hamilton County Sheriffs Department, will this continue or will there be new zoning where the Carmel Police can then be needed if called? If they are called now they will not come to Smokey Row Road, we are not served by Carmel Police. On most nights there are three Sheriffs that handle the Hamilton County area during an evening shift. I doubt that we will get fast service if there is much problems. Only a personal comment, it was Dr. Hartman 's statement that he wanted the best school in Indiana, I feel that many of the property owners are going to pay that dearly with taxes. The homes are increasing and if we want to move out of that area and replace to another property it is impossible for the smaller individual to stay in Carmel . Are we willing to pay for this through taxes and only invite the upper middle class here in Carmel? GILBERT KETT: Thank you. Tim, do you want to respond to a couple of those? TIM STEVENS: Yes, I can give her a few answers to a couple of her questions. When we do develop the roadway, that will be presented here also at a special use hearing and by that time we will have final construction plans or at least construction plans indicating the extent and the scope of the project, a precise location of that roadway and what will be presented in terms of screening. I can tell you right now that in terms of that screening what we would expect to have would be screening that would block your view of the roadway similar to what you have proposed on the north side. If you come up here and look at the map after the meeting you will see that there is a mound and landscaping provided. Your house sits approximately right here on the east side of this last entrance, directly across from that detention area. There is mounding along here approximately nine feet above the elevation of the roadway with trees and shrubs planted along it. In terms of what is directly across from your house, you won ' t be aligned with an entrance, rather it will be 50 feet east or so looking directly toward that with mounding that turns the corner slightly there. So this parking lot here will be depressed from the mounding that exists along the roadway. I think it might be SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 8 premature to talk too much about the connecting roadway, but you will get public notice of the hearing 30 days prior to the next hearing and that will be discussed at the Phase II plan most likely, maybe 1C. We will have to see where that fits in. GILBERT KETT: Thank you. Yes, sir. CARLOS MEDINA-RODRIGUEZ: My name is Carlos Medina-Rodriguez, I live at 2339 E. 136th Street, Carmel, IN. My concern is the last meeting that we had it was mentioned that in the old stadium that was 6000 seats available for the public. The new stadium supposedly will hold 6000 people. In the paper last week Dr. Hartman cut down $20,000,000 on expansion plan. Out of this cut was 2000 seats out of the new stadium, that does not make any sense to me. When we have 6000 seats in the stadium at the present time, the new stadium would hold 4000 seats. That doesn 't make any sense. That is my issue. GILBERT KETT: Do you want to answer that? DEBBIE FARMER: Ms.Debbie Farmer, 198 S. 9th Street, of Campbell Kyle & Proffitt. Our present stadium 5300 seats, in the very early planning stages of this project there were some ideas about possibly building a 8000 seat stadium. Those ideas were discarded largely because of cost and the newspaper coverage cost cutting in this project which made reference to a 2000 seat cut referred to the cut back from the initial possibility of 8000 seats to 6000 seats. Also there are only four varsity football games scheduled each year, home games, about 4 JV games which frequently begin somewhat earlier and maybe six home track meets, many of which are held during the spring hours. So in terms of lighting we are really not looking at very many nights out of the school year when we have lights on during darkest hours. GILBERT KETT: The board here is hearing the petitioners request for special use and that is all . We do not have any jurisdiction over whether not projects get done or whether bond issues are allowed, whether things go forward or what. We have nothing to do with that, we are here to hear the petitioners request for special use of this property and that is about all we can do. If anyone has any other interest to pursue there are other hearings to do that. I 'll invite the board now to ask any questions about the first special use request of the petitioners. Jim or Ila. ILA BADGER: The landscaping on the west boundary line is the landscaping that is shown is that totally and completely on the property that belongs to the Carmel/Clay School system? As it is shown on that drawing. TIM STEVENS: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 9 It is on the property that has been referred to as the D-gap area. That screening that you see on the west property boundary. ILA BADGER: But it is within your property boundaries? TIM STEVENS: It is within the property boundary that we are attempting to buy, yes! ILA BADGER: Would you please explain the difference in the road plan this evening from what you presented before? What change have been made after your consultation? TIM STEVENS: I think I probably should yield the floor to John on that, but basically we have made no changes, but we have consulted and shared the conclusions of our plan with John. So I think I will let John bring any distinction to what he may think versus what we had proposed. JOHN MYERS: I hope you don ' t mind I am a little more comfortable at the side where I can look at the audience and their not behind me. Since this is my first time up hear, I would like to mention my role. I had a call from Mr. Kett about 10 days ago, 10 days is somewhat of a limited time in a busy schedule, but I 've done the best I can. I told him at that time that I would be pleased to play this role, but I insisted on working directly with the traffic consultant who is involved in this work. We have met twice, we have had several telephone conversations and my intent is to help to clarify if I can to offer a prospective that has come from our work on the Comprehensive Plan Update. So with that I did perform a review of the work that was on the traffic study for this and I would just like to make some general comments. First of all , I think the estimates for trip generation are reasonable, the 2000 vehicles for capacity event and I base this on our experience with traffic studies for the Hoosier Dome, Busch Stadium and other sporting events. There is a slightly higher vehicle occupancy rate than you would expect for other kinds of activities for sporting events and we found that estimate to be reasonable. Likewise, in terms of the trip distribution and placing that on the roadway and studies we also found these to be reasonable. The background traffic growth rate assumed on Keystone Avenue we find to be reasonable. I think it is fortunate that there aren ' t any major football games during the peak hours and I think also, the fact that is as far north as it is it really avoids a lot of the traffic to and from Indianapolis that comes from the residential areas in the eastern areas of Clay Township. With that really the only comment I might have on this and I mentioned this just briefly to Tom Ford of Pflum Klausmeyer and Wagner we don ' t see this as a major point. In fact I think it may be a question for you. I think it might be advantageous to have a longer left turn hand lane on Keystone Avenue and I realize there is a bridge south of the intersection with 136th Street, but I think that it would be advantageous for the capacity events at the stadium. These are characterized, and I might make the same comment about the school itself, characterized by very high peaking in terms of demand. If it is a close SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 10 football game, if it is with a close rival that everybody is going to leave at the same time. I might as well make the comment now about the Main Street question in the school , they have bells that ring I assume, we use to have bells when I was in school, and people are out at the starting blocks and away they go. It is a little bit different than trips that are generated for a work place, where people straggle out a little bit more. I think that the unusual characteristics of a facility like this are the high peak demand and fortunately that they do tend to happen during non-peak periods. I might question some of the levels of service that I have seen in the reports because these are based on hourly traffic factors. This peaking is going to be a lot stronger than that, it won ' t spread out over an hour unless it takes a hour to clear that parking lot. Having said that, I think that is a fairly minor comment, I think that they would recognize that as well and I think that the only comment I would have about the stadium is to suggest that it would be advantageous to have a longer turn lane on Keystone and ask you whether that's really worth it for four events a year. I think that is kind of a judgement call . GILBERT KETT: Thank you Mr. Myers. Tim. TIM STEVENS: I might also point out that the longer left turn on Keystone as well as intersection improvements we 've got a lot of masters to serve here, we will have to apply to the Department of Transportation for a right-of-way cut permit, wherein we will be describing the scope of our work and they will pass muster as well on this. I think John 's comments can be directed to them and we will work with them in their review of this and I think we will probably have to abide by what they will require, both at the intersection and in terms of that turn lane. We are not shy from City of Carmel proposing that to the State in their review. GILBERT KETT: Further questions? If not, I think the proposal as submitted this evening pretty well covered some of the points the gentleman on the adjoining property was asking to be included. I don ' t see, I think they addressed it. We will close the public hearing at 8:21 P.M. . There is no docket number assigned. There are two special use applications in that booklet. I think that the fencing, the drainage and the other requirements are pretty well stated. I don ' t have any other comments myself, unless someone else does. I 'll entertain a motion. ILA BADGER: I move that the petition this evening presented by the Carmel/Clay School Corporation for a new stadium complex be approved as presented with the understanding that the covenants and/or commitments by the petitioner will be filed with the plan in the Hamilton County Court House. TIM STEVENS: We have no problem with that, we will submit a recorded copy of those things that we have committed to this eveni" both to Mr. Clark and to your staff. SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 11 GILBERT KETT: Thank you. RICHARD KLAR: I ' ll second. GILBERT KETT: It has been seconded by Mr. Klar, now findings of facts please. It has been unanimously approved 4-0. Now we will proceed, if you will Tim, with the next petition for special use. TIM STEVENS: I know this evening is getting long, so I ' ll try to get through this a little bit more quickly. I don ' t want to give short thrift to all the folks that showed up here this evening . We have seriously gone back to the drawing board with this one as well . We heard a lot of concerns both from the board and from neighbors and we were not able, probably to express ourselves on a number of points of concern that were raised, but I would like to briefly describe the facility. We are looking at a parking lot on the south side of Main Street and located here next to the church and library beside one 4th Avenue S.E. and Main Street. The existing parking lot on the site is approximately 50 spaces and we are proposing to make it 450 spaces. The reason for that parking as I mentioned earlier is that the new school building to be constructed will obliterate the parking that is currently enjoyed on the north side of Main, that currently now outlets onto Main. We are going to replace that parking by moving it to the south side of the street. In consideration of earlier designs, earlier traffic patterns we were discouraged either in house or by a number of regulatory officials from looking at a Main Street ingress, egress point. We had shown it on 4th Avenue South East. I think we have in subsequent meetings we have cleared up what differences we might have and I think it is the significant change in the design that now this parking lot is proposed to enter through Main rather than through 4th Avenue S.E. . What we are looking at in terms of replacement, we got about 857 spaces on the north side, that coupled with the 45-50 on the south side we are looking at roughly 900 spaces. We don ' t believe we are going to in the overall scheme of the construction be able to replace much more than that. So we are looking at equal parking characteristics for the entire site for the extension of the project. That being the case, with two points of ingress,egress on Main, rather with the north side exit into Main, the south side exit into Main we would assume that the traffic distribution from the site will be very similar to what we see now, with one noted exception . The road that is proposed to go through the Mackelfresh property we would hope would relieve some of that distribution and now goes to Main. It would be an obvious route of desire for a number of people, the staff and students who park in this area, who came from the north or who didn ' t want to fight the congestion on Main to exit through that property. Therefore, and I will be getting into this with another traffic study, on this site similar to the one on 136th Street. We have found that we would expect the volumes in traffic patterns to remain the same or decrease approximately in the neighborhood of 15%, as a result of this SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 12 new road. Because you are looking at the same number of parking spaces, the same point of ingress, egress or rather the same arterial to accept it, except for the sort of safety valve here to the north. We do expect that to be a significant carrier of some traffic, not a tremendous amount but that is where we derive our 15% decrease. Changes made from last time we presented other than the major one we have since had a meeting with a number of the residents and I recognize a number of you from that meeting. I do see some new faces that I did not see either last meeting or our meeting on Monday at Carmel Elementary. For those of you that haven ' t seen the changes we are talking about not only the change of the driveway location but additional screening for the neighbors on Albert Court. You will note here a row of evergreen trees, a minimum of 6 ' in height that we have proposed for the entire eastern boundary, so that they have an opaque visual screen from this parking lot, both for cars and to some extent lighting, at least as these mature. Likewise the chain link fence that was proposed for the perimeter, the black vinyl chain link fence has been moved to the inside of that screening, so that the fence will be screened along with the view to the parking lot. That is a 6 ' chain link fence that should be adequate to prevent, at least easy access from pedestrians and people who might want to cross. From the meeting that we had the other evening, we gathered that there are from neighborhood observations a number of elementary school children who like to go in between. They thought that it would be desirable and we did as well after hearing their comments, that it would be a good idea to go ahead and continue that fence along the south side. That is a new feature on the site. There were a number of questions about lighting. I don 't think I adequately addressed those and so I will tonight. The light poles will be approximately 20' high, we have a 20' pole with a 2 1/2 ' lumination. The parking lot is only going to be a foot or so below grade, so we are looking at roughly 20' above grade with a lumina, it will be shielded. I have a picture of that light fixture here. The metal band around the lamp shields it from direct view. That is it is a down lighting fixture, likewise contrary to some of the correspondence that you received we will not be exceeding lamination levels at our property line at 1/10th of a foot candle. We do have a photometric diagram that is in your handout, I don ' t think I will pull it out for the interest of time. It lies somewhere along that screening diagram. I will just go ahead and pull it up briefly. This was also generated by the manufacturer at the light units, there are eight on the parking lot and it falls within our property at the lamination level of 1/10th of a foot candle. This lights will be actuated by a photocell , turning on when it gets to dusk and then they will on a time and that will turn off at such time as is necessary. I don 't know what the precise time, it probably depends on an event, but I would think no later than 11 or 12 at night. We aren ' t looking at parking lot lights that would burn all night, and we are looking at light levels that can be maintained. The last item I think to address on this is the drainage. All the drainage here again, our site is depressed and what we are looking at is a kind of a bowl in essence or in concept that will collect all drainage from the perimeter. It will slope into the site, it will be collected in drainage inlets and it will be piped off site. As mentioned last time, we don ' t have the precise location, but we do have pipes in the storm sewer system that we can get access to. If we have to cross another property, the law requires that we pay them for their property for the enjoyment of that easement. If that happens to be the case, then we will follow the terms of the law and compensate them for their easement. We are not escaping any retention requirements but rather going to some expense in the interest of space to go SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 13 ahead and have our water retention underground . So what you will see are large diameter pipes going into that lot. They will be our retention mechanism and the discharge will come through a much smaller diameter, but you are looking at pretty big pipes, 60" diameter pipes in order to serve that retention or detention. In terms of the landscape screening, a number of people remarked that they didn ' t feel there was adequate screening from the edge of pavement to edge of pavement from 4th Avenue S.E. to the parking lot. It is approximately 70 ' . The existing parking lot for reference here is just a few feet. So you are looking at most of the width of that parking lot and there are a couple of reasons for that and one being a better screening and buffering as indicated here. The other being the possibility of an alignment with the north leg of 4th Avenue S.E. . With that I come to our traffic report that I 'm sorry was distributed so late, but we were burning the midnight oil to get it to you. I think I will just cover the executive summary of that report rather than going through it in detail. One of the items that we mentioned last meeting that we will be mentioning this evening is that an intersection alignment is a good idea. This parking lot is designed to make that a feasible, we are not encroaching on the area that might be required for the additional right-of-way. In fact, what you will find from the report is that we will have significant enough pedestrian traffic that crosses there to warrant a signal under federal regulations. Likewise, it may be eligible for 100% federal funding. This is something that Wes Bucher is very interested in and something that we are interested in as well . Because it will facilitate better traffic turning movements I am sure and provide better pedestrian safety. All the studies have been completed and certainly construction drawings haven ' t been completed but this design will not impede that intersection alignment. Let me get to that study here, some dialogue with your traffic consultant from HNTB. If you will flip to the front of that we are looking at ten conclusions from the summary and I 'm not going to go into the tables and the counts and the methodology and that type of thing because I think your consultant can tell you whether or not those are adequate. But I would like to share the conclusions with members of the public and the board. Number 1 , due to the parking lot assignments and the driveway connection to 136th Street, mentioned this earlier. The high school generated traffic from this parking lot and from the improvements on the north side should be approximately 15% less than during the existing conditions when school is in. So we would anticipate that during the 1991-92 school year when all construction has been completed, we would see that decline. Number 2, students and employees will be assigned to the parking lots in order to manage the arrival and departure route. We have some say in who parks where. We will try to divide that population who parks here geographically to minimize conflicts in turning movements. And that will be the subject of some further analysis by our consultant as well . The existing parking lot in the southeast quadrant between Main Street and 4th Avenue will be expanded to the 450 parking spaces and the only ingress, egress point is on Main Street. Due to these measures taken by the school , the high school generated traffic volume would be greatly reduced on 4th Avenue. In other words, we would not expect any more traffic on 4th Avenue S.E. then is currently experienced. Number 4, a deceleration lane will be constructed by the school on Main Street to separate the right turning vehicles and the east bound through vehicles. There will be a deceleration lane constructed as shown here. That is an extra lane of pavement that will help facilitate people getting in and out of that lot and keep that away from the flow of people driving through on Main. Number 5, approximately 750 parking spaces SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 14 will be located on the high school campus north of Main Street, that is to the rear here, and around the front and the sides. The front and the sides being limited to mostly visitor and bus parking, with the bulk of the student parking being provided back here. We currently are not able to get up to that 750, we are currently showing about 450, we hope to try and achieve those others, but we have got a tight sight. Number 6, a two lane road will be constructed to connect the campus with 136th Street. Number 7, Main Street will be remarked to provide better delineation between the through traffic and those people who are turning. As most of you know have driven west bound on Main, it is kind of tough to make those decisions if you are not used to it because the pavement is not well marked. In the report, and I 'm sorry I don 't have a graphic illustration, we are showing a remarking, something we have discussed with the City Engineer, that would better delineate where people are supposed to drive. We think that that would greatly improve peoples decision making in making the turning movements along Main. I think we have some concurrence with the City Engineer as well. Number 8, the use of traffic control personal will continue to be used by the school at the intersections of Main Street and 4th Avenue and also Main Street and Lexington to direct traffic. Number 9, students utilizing the enlarged parking lot on the southeast quadrant of Main Street and 4th Avenue will be directed to cross Main Street at the intersection of 4th Avenue under the supervision of the traffic control personal . We will have people on sight to be at the intersection, to whistle people over, they will be directed to walk over to the corner to cross and there may be some signage posted to direct pedestrians to walk over to the corner to cross. Likewise we will have fencing that will limit their movement through the parking lot. The combination of those three things should move people over to the corner to cross at the intersection. And then finally, I mentioned the intersection improvement project. Our consultant recommends an intersection improvement project should be actively pursued at Main Street and 4th Avenue. The project should include the realignment of the south approach, the widening of the west approaches, slightly in front of there and the installation of a fully actuated traffic signal with pedestrian push buttons. And by fully actuated we are talking about something that would have a loop in the pavement that would sense a vehicle there, not that it would simply be on a time cycle. So you would have through traffic having priority in the event that no traffic is approaching either leg of that intersection. The Carmel/Clay School District has designed the parking lot in the southeast quadrants such that it should not impede this type of project. Federal Funds may be available for such a project and we are exploring that for the city. Another thing that was mentioned at the meeting and something that simply is really a city concern, but the school corporation would not oppose , would be cutting off that access. There is access to this subdivision, it is not a large subdivision, somebody mentioned there were 39 homes, I don ' t know if that is the precise count on that loop. We are not suggesting that but on the other hand we are not in opposition to that. We feel like if that little stretch of pavement was removed a lot of peoples problems might subside. If access by emergency vehicles might be maintained that may be an alternative also to the this traffic situation. Unfortunately, that is not within our power, but we don ' t oppose it. With that last comment about the design changes, back to you Mr. Chairman. GILBERT KETT: Thank you Mr. Stevens. I think ? his time it might be pertinent to ask Mr. Myers again to make any comments his findings on this particular plan as far as the traffic situation is con Ad, John. SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 15 JOHN MYERS: My name is John Myers of HNTB, 225 N. New Jersey, Indianapolis. Once again just to mention a few of the mundane things, I did review the trip generation calculations that are included in the supplemental report and I think it is kind of interesting to note the trip generations shown here, the number of trips is actually higher than you might get using a standard reference, the fourth edition of the trip generation report from the Institute of Transportation Engineers. In fact, there is quite an extensive table that breaks the trips down to buses, drop offs, student drivers, employees drivers and etc. . It looks like a pretty good job was done on that in an unusual amount of detail. Once again, I think that the background traffic growth rate on the street is reasonable, I think that the assignment is reasonable. A few comments, first of all , I think I would like to go right to the bottom line first and that 's that given the statements of where the parking is going to be on site and given also the statement that there would be some regulation of who would be parking where, that there is a bottom line that there are going to be fewer people parking along Main Street. I think that once again there is going to be a congested time at the beginning and at the end of every day. It is going to be very similar to what is being experienced now. It think it is a very relevant change to put that drive on Main Street. As a matter of fact, I 'm not even sure that at this point it is even a technical issue of how many people are going to leave that parking lot and go onto 4th Avenue. I would just about suggest that you can evaluate that as well as I can and as well as Tom Ford can. I would point out that as things exist right now, people would make a right turn from the parking lot to go towards Range Line Road. With the 450 spaces on the south side to make that movement it is going to be a left hand turn and it would be a little more difficult. In fact, it is our recommendation that there be a two lane exit drive and I think that 's what is in mind for that, because those left turns are going to be more difficult than the right turn and the parking lot is large enough that it would be advantageous to be able to clear that lot. So with the one observation that it is going to be a little bit harder to go west when you leave the school area than it is now, from that point I think that a tremendous amount of study could be done and you still may not have a good reliable answer on how many are going to make that left turn onto 4th Avenue. There is really nothing in the plan that I can see that would encourage that in of itself. Once again, I would make the observation that I think that it is difficult to estimate the level of service when the peak is so striking as it is at the end of a school day. Based on 1985 study of circulation in and out of the school on Main Street, before the recent improvements were made, there was really a 20 minute period when the traffic was at its peak and there was a congested situation. I would assume that that would be similar now, in fact, would be virtually saturation for about a 20 minute period. I think that kind of defies our ordinary measures of level of service, but I think that we can be pretty sure that that 's the way it is going to be. I don ' t think we could expect anything else at school drives. I wondered a little bit as I listened tonight, this is probably a minor point, in terms of the timing when the 450 space lot is opened, when the parking still exists on the other side between Phase lA and Phase 2. I might also say, that it sounds like that is going to be for possibly one school year, there won ' t be the growth in enrollment that is being anticipated for the ultimate plan. That is just an observation. One other point I think that one of the disadvantages of the planned marking system could be in drop offs by the school. Even though it may be a little bit confusing for motorists who aren 't used to driving along Main Street, and I expect they could feel that way if they happen to be there right at the time school let out. There is a lot of flexibility in the way SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 16 the markings are there now. I can 't say, I don 't know whether people stop on Main Street to drop off students and go on or whether they drive onto school property and drop off students and move on. If there are a lot of drop offs on the street well then the way the markings are planned now that would be in a single through lane. There would be more difficulty in by passing that. I think that the answer to that is probably to try and control the drop offs rather than change the pavement markings. Because I think that the general concept of guiding traffic to turn lanes and through lanes is a good one. I 'll be glad to assist in answering any questions. By the way I did work closely with the consultant, particularly on this supplement. We spent a lot more time on this than we did on the other part because, of course, it was done during the time after you actually got involved. GILBERT KETT: Thank you very much, John. ILA BADGER: I would personally like to thank John Myers for his input on this and coming and making a command performance this evening, John. Thank you. GILBERT KETT: We didn 't give you a lot of notice, but thank you for jumping on it right a way for us. I think at this time if that concludes your presentation, is there anyone else here in your group that wishes to speak in favor of the petition or make any further comments. TIM STEVENS: No, Mr. Chairman. GILBERT KETT: At this time then before we listen to anyone who wishes to make any new comments with regard to being against the petitioner, I would like to take a very brief recess or so for the sake of the board members to review the communications that we received. The public is welcome to stay and if you do want to excuse yourself, we would request that you keep things quiet so that we might review the communications that we have here from the people that were not able to present themselves tonight. I think a five or six minute recess would be adequate. GILBERT KETT: The communications that we reviewed were three letters from concerned residents, one from Sally Rushmore, one from William and Drinda Fields, one from Dorothy Skidham, if I am pronouncing that correctly. It will be a matter of record and will pass those to Mrs. Neisler. I think that many of those concerns that were addressed in the letter, have become not entirely but somewhat a moved point now that the major change has been made on the egress and the entrance. The exits for the proposed parking lot it seems to have relieved a lot of the problems that were brought up in the first session with regard to 4th Street. Three people have asked to speak against the petitioner and I will hear those people, Marilyn Thomas. SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 17 MARILYN THOMAS: I just have three short points that I would like to share with you. GILBERT KETT: Would you state your name and address and speak up to the microphone. MARILYN THOMAS: My name is Marilyn Thomas, 80 4th Ave. SE, and I 'm right across from the proposed parking lot. I brought the map to show you that Mr. Stevens brought to me. First of all I just want to say that I am for Carmel/Clay schools. I taught for them for 17 years and my kids have graduated from them and I have grand kids and all of them now. I am not really against the parking lot, it is just that I want some covenants before anybody says there will be one that will show us that they really mean business, OK. If you will look they changed the drainage to go so that it goes along the edge of my property and they want 20' of my property and if I would set back another 14 ' which is required for building, it would make it 34 ' of my property. The thing is that right along that very same property line, Jim Dugan has a whole lot for sale and all they have to do is get that land, he doesn ' t care it is for sale anyway, he bought it for that. I feel that I shouldn ' t have to give up 20 ' of my land and 34' really for a drain for the city. I 've had this for a long time and I have worked hard two jobs until this year when I 'm just working one to keep it and its because my kids live close. I have one in Carmel View and another one who intends to build on that and in fact, hope to have a business that will be out on Main Street on Jim Dugan 's land. The thing is if they put that thing down through there it is going to make a barrier, like you can ' t build across that right of way, it is only 50' or more, just right down to Main Street and they have the right of way. So they could drain onto Main Street instead of draining onto me. It would be different if there was no alternative but there is an alternative. I don ' t know why they don ' t want to do it but I think that Carmel as a City would profit from it if they did. I don ' t know if you are familiar with the front of the Lions Club and that sewer, but you know when it rains hard that street is cut off right there in front of the Lions Club. If they would go ahead and improve the sewage, I don ' t know if they could get federal funds for it or not, but it would certainly improve the sewage in all of Carmels Main Street and they wouldn ' t have to come through my land, which I feel like is prime land. I feel like I have fought for it so hard, I hate to give it up for drainage, you know. You would not believe the people that have tried to buy it including Tom Irwin and Forest Dukes and many developers who want to put more apartments, because I am between Park Lane and Mead Comptons apartments and they want to put multiple units in there. Whatever they did with drainage it would keep me from getting that kind of a price for the land. So I just feel that they should make some kind of covenant about what they are going to do for drainage before they get the right to do it. My second point is, that they have raised the parking lot since last time we were here, they have raised it 4 ' . They have also taken down the fence on the west side of it so there would be no fence on my side of it. There will be a fence on the west side, ok, that makes me feel a lot better and I will tell you why. I walk my dog every morning at 7:30 A.M. and yesterday morning there was a drunk teenager laying out there on the sidewalk and that is not the first time, because when I taught last year I called the police one morning . Because there was a drunk teenager out there and the police tell me there is nothing they can do, he is in the parking lot and he SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 18 is not hurting anybody. He was making bad remarks to all the little kids that were walking along there and I thought that was reason for the police to come. They said they didn ' t have anybody to send it was during a traffic hour, it was 7:30 in the morning. Right now, I don ' t know how many of you pass that corner, if you pass that corner tonight you look at what is in that parking lot. There are two 4x4 pieces of old some kind of wood, there must 6 bushels of kindling , there is an old bandstand turned over, that looks like a trash heap on Main Street. I went over there this morning and I picked up all kinds of fast food wrappers, pepsi cans and everything. If that isn 't kept clean along that and if there isn ' t a fence there, that is just going to be a terrible eye sorer for downtown Carmel. I just think that 's ashamed. Tim has asked that we make positive comments and I have thought and thought and I 've walked and walked that and I think I have a solution for the traffic problem going around Carmel View. I 'm not sure it will work but at least I have tried. I gave 3' when we built our house for that road. The farmer who owned the other side wouldn ' t give any, when the church bought it they wouldn ' t give any. Tom Irwin fought and fought and finally got a sidewalk down the other side. But if the school would give 30 ' , like I did all the way to Carmel Elementary School , it would make that a four lane and where it turns off into Carmel View Drive, right away when somebody turned right they would realize they were in a two lane and they were in a residential area. There is no way now because you can ' t even tell where the school property ends and begins. There is at least one wreck a week there, because everybody goes in the exit. If they would give two full lanes like 30 ' and make it go into the school and then make Carmel View Drive the two lane that it is go on around. When people had to turn right and stop because there is a stop there. Maybe they would stop and they don 't now, nobody stops. I think that is all I really had to say, I just wish that you wouldn ' t say that they could do until they make covenants. As much as I like Tim he has a way of thinking that he has everything solved just because he has told you that, I just don ' t think that solves everything. TIM STEVENS: Marilyn, do you mind if I use that for a moment. Right now all of the water collects on this site, little bit from the backyards here, little bit maybe from the church lot collects on the site, gathers at a low spot here and then is piped through a culvert onto Marilyn 's property about right here. You can see where that street inlet is and that is about where the culvert pipe is. That inlet is right on the culvert. That kind of meanders through her property about to this existing open grate so she currently receives through an open channel all the drainage from the site in that open ditch. What he had proposed is an alternative, this is probably not the only one, is that this would be collected by a system of pipes including all drainage east of 4th Avenue S.E. and then piped into one discharge pipe, 15" diameter pipe, that would run along her north property boundary. We were indeed looking into the possibility that she might give GILBERT KETT: Why would you cut across there, why it can 't it come along the line like you said? Instead of cutting across why can 't it come down the north property line? TIM STEVENS: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 19 We will get it as close to the property line or we would get as close to the property line as we can. PSI has to have a line in there, because this green line which was sort of our original idea parallels and existing PSI service line through there. PSI has to get in that easement too. If we can work with a skinnier easement we will work with a skinnier easement. So I suppose it could get closer to that fence line. I don ' t know why it could not, we can look into, as a matter of fact we are looking at right now, I had a meeting with Marilyn at her home, we are looking into whether or not there is an existing easement along the south property line of the adjoining property because there is a gas company building there. If there is in fact an easement there we will use that to the extent that its there, but a survey did not show it. It is probably like the PSI easement where it could be and that is there is no easement. Those services exist but we can ' t find record of easements for them. There are some other alternatives that we are looking into but this is where the City of Carmel had directed us. They said to come over here and tie into the line on the parking lot. That is why that design was preferred to Marilyn to consider. ILA BADGER: Would it be a buried pipe? TIM STEVENS: Yes, it would be a buried pipe? ILA BADGER: Am I incorrect, do you have easement brick and if you want to build something on the property does that affect your actual setback line? Can an easement be part of your setback? RICK BRANDAU: In the zoning ordinance there is a requirement with regard to accessory buildings that they must be at least, for example 5 ' from property line or easement plus 3' . In any case, whenever there is an easement on our property if somebody chooses to put a structure, a fence or anything within an easement there doing it at there own risk. ILA BADGER: No, I realize you can ' t, but I 'm just asking you in a case of a permanent structure would you have to add on a normal setback from the easement line? RICK BRANDAU: The only case that I can think of is in a case of an accessory building where the ordinance states that the setback must be at least 5' or some dimension from the property line. ILA BADGER: I was talking about primary structure? RICK BRANDAU: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 20 Those go from the property line. TIM STEVENS: I might also point out that this is a B-3 district. Marilyn 's property is a B-3 district and Sally Rushmore did correctly point out in her letter to the board that a greenbelt of 30 ' is required, where a B-3 use abuts a residential use, which is to the north. If in fact, this property was developed commercially I would assume that 30 ' setback would apply and that greenbelt would have to be maintained. We don 't hope to restrict her use of her property at all . As a matter of fact, this design isn 't just a design, it is something that we will look into and see how we can do otherwise. The suggestion of taking the drainage out to Main is not a possibility from the cities standpoint. They said the line is not available on Main, we may not use it. GILBERT KETT: But you are still going to end up with a buried line? TIM STEVENS: We will end up with a buried point of discharge whether it occurs on this side, this side or whatever. GILBERT KETT: Thank you. Donna Calvert. DONNA CALVERT: My name is Donna Calvert, I live at 211 Carmel View Dr. , may I give you a copy of this? Since the last meeting we have spoken with several residents within about a half mile radius of the Main Street entrance to the high school . The crux of the problem is not that we want so much to change to a large degree the parking area. The crux of the problem is we simply don ' t want the parking area. The utmost concern of the residents of Carmel View Drive, Main Street, Concord Village, Harrowgate, "Old Carmel" , and the parents of Carmel Elementary students is the safety of the children who live, play, and walk to and from school or bus stops within a 1/2 mile radius of the Main Street entrance to the high school . We currently and have had for several years, experienced traffic problems with periods of extreme congestion and severely unsafe driving conditions that have often jeopardized the safety of the children. I would like to mention at this point that the traffic study that was made of this area has been made within the last two weeks, when no schools have been in session and no sports have been going on. So that is really a false traffic report. Thus far, Carmel has been very fortunate. A report released from Washington, D.C. that appeared in the Indianapolis Star this morning states that the leading cause of death for children from ages 5 to 9, second only to cancer, is being struck by an automobile while walking. If this current parking arrangement is continued and is ultimately aggravated by this proposed parking area, the safety of our children is at great risk. We were informed that there will be 2 off duty officers hired to control traffic at the close of school each day. Unfnrtun.atply —4 -,.,.... SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 21 our problems. He mentioned that there would be police officers at Main and 4th Avenue and at Main and Lexington but apparently there will be no one controlling the traffic exiting immediately from the parking lot, which may also cause some problems. The Carmel Junior High School buses arrive for drop-off at this same corner between 3:10 and 3:20 p.m. at the same time that 450 cars will be attempting to exit onto Main Street. As stated by a Carmel Elementary teacher, there are several after school activities at Carmel Elementary that would also be affected by this traffic. There is no way to control the morning routes of the high school students en route to the parking area. As a result, many will be using these residential areas as "cut- through" while junior high students are walking to bus stops. There will be no traffic control for before school or after school functions and activities. We already accommodate frequent traffic from Carmel Elementary and Wodock Field. These small , 2 lane (some with NO sidewalks or curbing) , residential streets cannot continue to accept this traffic. There was something else mentioned earlier about a traffic light being put up. I 'm afraid, I can ' t see where that will solve a problem because if a light is installed then the traffic will probably back up more which will encourage use of all the side streets. The suggestion that the students would take an alternate route north through the school area on a two lane road that may be constructed, I really can 't see '16 and 17 year old taking an alternate route where they have to travel 10 miles an hour as opposed to neighborhoods that they are allowed to race through at this point. This parking area is ESTIMATED to cost the taxpayers of Carmel APPROXIMATELY $450,000. This was only an estimate. There is no guarantee. This figure did NOT include the salaries for off duty officers after school each day. Nor does this include the cost of maintenance or upkeep OR the additional tree islands and landscaping needed to create an aesthetic atmosphere for a residential area. OUR SOLUTION: During the construction of Phase I , we were informed that a 1500 car parking lot will be completed adjacent to the new stadium. We feel that we have a more cost efficient and safe parking solution that will benefit both the local residents and the high school students: 1 ) Reserve the remainder of the existing parking area (approximately 400 spaces) during construction directly adjacent to the high school for the faculty and staff. 2) Allow the students to use the new 1500 car lot adjacent to the new stadium for parking. 3) Utilize some of this $450,000 + parking fund to hire security from the stadium parking to the school before and after school. Keep the gates locked during non-school hours at which time the smaller lot adjacent to the school could be used. 4) During special activities (concerts, plays, etc. ) offer a shuttle (school bus) . It seems to me also that when they were discussing earlier the stadium project that they have a lot of the traffic flow solved there already. They plan on widening 136th Street, it will be enclosed by a fence, the drainage is taken care of, the lighting is taken care of for security, there are fewer homes and no residential areas immediately in that area within which the students to feed into. The RESULT of our solution: By utilizing the stadium parking that otherwise would be sitting vacant with the exception of athletic events for student parking, the following would be achieved: 1) The majority of the $450,000 allocated for the construction of the proposed parking area at the corner of East Main Street and 4th Avenue S.E. may be reappropriated to serve an educational purpose with a portion of the funds placed in reserve to pay for security and shuttle. 2) By directing traffic from the stadium parking area (and with the street widened that should help a great deal ) east to Keystone, SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 22 the students could then easily exit onto a 4 lane thoroughfare and disburse safely through the city rather than exiting directly into residential areas that are unable to accommodate this traffic. 3) The ultimate safety of the immediate neighborhoods and the children would be greatly increased. Our CONCLUSION is: Due to the safety factors and the duplication of parking that seem a gross misappropriation of funds, we CANNOT support the current proposal of the high school parking lot at the southeast corner of East Main Street and 4th Avenue S.E. We hope that you will take into consideration our concerns and suggestions. Should the board choose to pass this proposal we would appreciate an opportunity to make further request regarding the safety of the children. GILBERT KETT: Robin Gerskin ROBIN GERSKIN: My name is Robin Gerskin , I live at 120 Carmel View Dr. , a lot of the things that Donna spoke about are things that I was planning on talking about. So bear in mind I got a lot of things to juggle through. Some of the questions I do have that I want to put in numbers is the new parking lot will consist of 1500 new spots, the present parking lot consists of what? TIM STEVENS: Present parking lot is about 50. ROBIN GERSKIN: 850 TIM STEVENS: Are you talking about the overall site parking? ROBIN GERSKIN: The overall site, in front of the high school which you are planning. TIM STEVENS: Existing is 857 on the north side and 50 on the south and looking for between about 450 on the south side and trying to get 750 on the north. ROBIN GERSKIN: So you have 850 on the south side of the school and in front of the high school now? TIM STEVENS: No, all around. If you look at the aerial photograph you can see that it is pretty much positioned all the way around. ROBIN GERSKIN: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 23 So you have 857, you are going to eliminate how many due to the new construction? TIM STEVENS: I think approximately the amount we are replacing, I think 450. I ' ll have to defer that to our architect. ROBIN GERSKIN: So you are going to eliminate 450 which means you still have 307 spots available left. There will 407 spots available let. Then you are going to pick up on top of that 1500 new spaces? TIM STEVENS: No, 1500 was the amount sited for up here. ROBIN GERSKIN: So you are going to pick up 1500 parking for the new stadium, which was pretty much what Donna was saying you are going to loose 450 and you are going to pick up 1500. That is a distance to walk, the shuttle bus idea was noted, walking obviously is a concept. So I think that needs to be considered. I think another thing that sounds interesting is that it is contained in sort of a circle or a square or a rectangle area versus crossing Main Street. If you eliminated that concept of that parking lot on the south side of Main Street, that would take a lot of congestion away from Main Street and put it pretty much in the new area of the high school . And , you are also building a road to alleviate entrance and exit to the stadium parking. I think that one thing that was mentioned Monday night was the fact that maybe some parents may not like their kids to walk so far, but my answer to that is, which is more important a little more walking or the concern of our children walking around the elementary school and Main Street. I think another thought to is I was told that if the parking lot is put on the south side, it would be very enticing to park possibly in the elementary school . I think that is a thought ! It kind of goes back to the congestion that potentially on Main Street, on Lexington, on Albert Court would be alleviated if all the kids were directed pretty much to the center or to the main area surrounding the high school . If we are going to have to pay for security, I would like my tax dollars to go to security inside the school system versus across the street from the school. That might be an interesting thought! I think another to was the fact that if we are going to be expanding and obviously the north side is going to grow and grow and grow, then maybe more buses might be a thought of purchasing and using the kids to take the bus to and from school . I wouldn ' t mind my tax dollars going to that versus more kids driving, I think there have been different thoughts about certain school ages allowed to drive and then there are the concepts about grade averages allowing to drive, then there was also an idea about certain buses coming quite empty to school . If the buses were used that would alleviate a lot of the parking problems too. I think that Mr. Myers suggested that the south side of Main Street, that parking lot would not be needed immediately until one year after the initial expansion. Why need it all , if we can put the parking with all those parking spots. If we are going to expand then with more kids coming the parking spots are already there. If there is a concern about construction material and construction places to park and their trailers, north of the stadium has a lot of grassy area until they build the SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 24 soccer field and whatever else is up there. That is a good place to start, putting material and trailers. Then on the east side of the stadium we have a little smaller parking lot, there is a grassy area north of that. That potentially could be used to put the construction in order to build the rest of it. We have a lot of land up there and I guess the bottom line that comes to my mind is what is more important our children or expansion? That is all I need to say! GILBERT KETT: Thank you, Robin. One thing I believe the traffic study there was a comment made that it was only done in July, there was considerations taken for traffic flow in February, was there not John. Didn ' t those studies both include summer and winter traffic activities? JOHN MYERS . Maybe Tom could better answer this, he is not saying anything but as I understood the study is a matter of generating the traffic from the school . Having that in fact the background traffic reflects summer traffic case could be made for that. In fact, over estimating it slightly, I would assume that there is some traffic uses Main Street right now that would avoid it during school hours in the winter. I think that it is too bad this happens to happen in August so that you can 't go out and count traffic when school is in session. I 'm sure they would have much rather have done that. GILBERT KETT: Thank you. Tim, one question on the fence there was, maybe I missed it I know you talked about it, an ornamental fence around part of it, a chain link fence around part of it, is the entire parking lot supposed to be fenced? TIM STEVENS: It will be fenced. What we were talking about before is that Williamsburg style fence, I think I have a rendering here with masonry corner posts on the west side and also along the north side. The 6' vinyl coated chain link on the inside of the landscape screening here and then along the south side. ILA BADGER: Are you proposing any sidewalks along the west side of that parking lot? TIM STEVENS: There is a sidewalk on the west side, there will be a sidewalk along the west side. ILA BADGER: That is outside of the fence area? TIM STEVENS: Yes, that is correct. ILA BADGER: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 25 How about the students that are going in there and parking, they are going to have to walk catie corner across that parking lot there is no path of which they can walk if they are going to be avoiding the traffic coming in and exiting . TIM STEVENS: Well , like most parking lots no there is no walkway delineated within the parking lot for pedestrian movement and at some point we all take our personal safety to our own responsibility and generally speaking it is best for that to occur where traffic movements are slow. That is within a parking lot. ILA BADGER: Would there be any way of maybe making a couple of walkway breaks in that ornamental fencing that would allow students to go out and use the existing sidewalk if they so desire. TIM STEVENS: We had put that around the perimeter in order to best manage the traffic going across Main. We felt that if there were breaks in that and some of the adjoining property owners might not appreciate the lack of control that we had of our pedestrians and likewise and any opportunity for trash to blow through an opening or anything. The perimeter fence would prevent all of those things. I would agree that it may get rather congested up there towards the northwest corner with pedestrians at a given point. Those could be avoided within the context of the parking lot. ILA BADGER: Are both these entrances and exits two way or are they one way. TIM STEVENS: The one in the corner is a strictly pedestrian and then the other one is strictly for vehicles. GILBERT KETT: Talking about that driveway that cuts through the property onto the stadium area, last time we were talking it was going to be a controlled access, there was going to be a gate or something. Now tonight it sounds like you are going to allow students and teachers and employees to drive from wherever they are parking on the school property and they had to use that as an exit road when they want to leave and maybe not fight the Main Street. Are you saying that that won ' t be a controlled road anymore? TIM STEVENS: It will be a• controlled road . I might have given you the wrong idea when I said it would be controlled at all times. It is for distribution of traffic during normal school days. It will controlled so that people will not use it for sporting events to gain access to the stadium site. So it would be closed off at those times. GILBERT KETT: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 26 I don ' t really know, I 've seen this in writing. Are only certain students allow to drive to school now? Seniors and Juniors or what? TIM STEVENS: Juniors and Seniors. GILBERT KETT: Ok, so if you have got 2600 students anticipated in two or three years and half of them are going to drive or half of them are allowed to drive, that is 1300 and so many of them will have cars. How many of them have cars, half of them? Nobody knows that. TIM STEVENS: We don ' t have any good data on that. GILBERT KETT: We are talking about providing a 7-800, you got 300 employees at the high school , probably most of them, at least 200 and some cars generated by those, teachers and employees. TIM STEVENS: We are looking a monumental parking demand. GILBERT KETT: The demand could easily be curtailed. You just say seniors only can drive. TIM STEVENS: We can say they can only park. Unfortunately, we can only say that they can only park. I do want to make this point, it is not a fiches point, anybody over the age of 16 with a valid drivers license, valid registration can drive. Those with the will to drive will probably drive. GILBERT KETT: But they couldn ' t park on the school property, is that right? TIM STEVENS: That is right, we would prevent them from doing that. JIM MILLER: Tonight we have heard a number of concerns concerning safety and potential property values diminishing due to the this parking lot on 4th Avenue. I think those things have been well covered and I appreciate the excellent comments that members of the community have raised and I think your points are well taken. The availability of using the 1500 car parking lot is certainly an obvious alternative right down to the fact that you if you wanted to build covered walkways so that they could walk without the rain and stuff like that. So that is certainly an excellent alternative. I think another thing that wP SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 27 should think about, I know it is not part of the BZA but we are talking about $450,000. We have all read the huge increase in our property taxes and I know teams like the Indianapolis Colts have to have a practice field, but I 'm looking at a huge excellent football stadium there that I don ' t know what they are going to be doing on it except practicing or something like that. Gosh that facility could certainly be utilized for parking or some other uses other than just sitting there being a real nice obsolete football stadium. There is also some areas that they call new courts and some other places there that additional parking could very easily be utilized without taking away from our excellent facility that we have ok'd to the north there with 1500 parking and the 6000 seats, etc. . I 'm not trying to say I 'm 100% for the improvement and I think it is excellent and I think we might look at some other uses for some of those quote "obsolete areas of land that are not being addressed right now that maybe could be utilized in parking or some other facilities like that. Without having to encroach in a neighborhood over here with a large parking lot that takes up a lot of green space and with that many young children being in that neighborhood 350 or something like that you can ' t tell me that it 's not a safety hazard to have all those kids popping out of there, 16 and 17 years old. They don ' t drive to slow and with all those little kids roaming around coming to and from I can ' t see that that would be a safe situation to have a big parking lot like that dumping on the Main Street when they could very easily unload from the stadium area onto a lesser traveled, lesser residential neighborhood. GILBERT KETT: Thank you, Jim. Dick do you have any comments? RICHARD KLAR: I have a list of 9 points here that several of them have been answered, several of them are still questionable. As far as the parking lot it doesn ' t show much for me as far as when you put an extra access on the Main Street that you are going to have a police directing traffic at 4th and have another entrance coming out from the south side that you are almost going to need another policeman. Which is going to be an extra expense there. The point of the 1500 extra spaces on 136th Street was one of the points that I had also, you have 1500 spots back up there, also too we have plenty of space behind the high school which is behind the existing football field, which I don ' t know what the school needs two football fields for. I know, Tim you made a comment that complex up there is for physical education also. If that is for physical education also too, that I cannot understand why you need an extra football field for either. That area back there is enough space back there to put 750 more cars, back in that area without even using the 1500 on 136th Street, and there still would be plenty of room for physical eduction. You don ' t have to transport everybody from the 1500 car lot to the school but if you still use the new sports complex for physical education you are only transporting classes at a time, which is probably less than 40 or 50. Also too, this traffic study that was made, I must compliment the engineers, they must be getting better or I 'm reading them better. I can understand it a lot easier then some of the others that I have seen. The parking lots around the high school now I realize they are crowded but I also see a lot of empty spots too when school is in session. So I am sure that the current rate of students they are not utilizing the full 857 parking spots. The traffic flow to use the backside is probably one of the best comments come up by anybody, because that would keep more traffic off Main Street and bring it to the north. The last point I want to make is why do we make our elementary school kids walk to SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 28 school when we can ' t make our high school students walk from the back parking lot. They are healthier and they ought to know better how to get to school quicker. The little kids meander. My kids, I got three through the high school already and I 've got one going in now. My kids don 't drive to school and never have, I wouldn 't allow. Because I never drove to school and I don 't see any sense in it when the school system supplies school buses for these kids to ride. I pay taxes for it. They had parking permits but they never drove, unless it was for band or something like that. Thank you. GILBERT KETT: Thank you, Mr. Klar. I will entertain a motion. ILA BADGER: This intersection of Main Street and 4th Avenue S.E. , have you committed to a stop light at that intersection. TIM STEVENS: Our traffic consultant recommends that there should be one there and we have committed to working with the City in order to see if one could be realized by means of our land and by means of the design and federal funds that might be approached from the City of Carmel . ILA BADGER: You have not committed to pay for a stop light even though the traffic study shows that it is definitely needed. TIM STEVENS: If one is needed and that is strictly from the pedestrian generation from the schools and I would think that we would have some responsibility toward paying for that. ILA BADGER: I guess my greatest concern with this whole thing is the fact that yes in fact you not be increasing the parking space all that much except now you have got to get 450 kids up to maybe a 1000 from the wrong side of the street over to the school side of the street. I don 't know with the traffic going on Main Street the way it is now. I do drive it and I am familiar with it, I don 't know how you are going to get that many pedestrians across that street in conjunction with all the rest of the traffic that is there at the peak hours of the day. TIM STEVENS: I would like to point out that regardless of where they are crossing, I wish it was as simple as simply looking at Main but this is in a vacuum. If we put them on the north side of 136th I would say they are on the wrong side of 136th and if you look at the traffic report that was originally given you will find those traffic counts aren 't to different. I think that John Myers would also substantiate that they expect significant traffic growth on 136th. So if we are looking at crossing the street as being the focal point of this issue, I would like you to consider asking all of those kids to cross that street as SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 29 well. I don 't know how much improved we have been from crossing Main to crossing 136th Street. GILBERT KETT: Neither situation is good, Tim, as far as crossing either street. ILA BADGER: I would have to agree with you and at least you probably feel like you have better control over it the closer it was to the actual building. Have you thought or considered the fact of putting in a maybe a two story parking building? I don ' t know what that cost per square foot, I know it far more expensive, I don ' t know how much, I don ' t know what the percentage would be. TIM STEVENS: I think we get mixed messages on the parking but I think that that cost was certainly investigated and I think it was found to be prohibited. I might also add that there are residential neighborhoods along 136th Street and I think if we ask the kids to park up here and walk then as they leave school and arrive to school they will decide to drive through those neighborhoods in the same fashion. The folks down here don ' t want them driving through there and I don ' t think they should. They come out on Main and they decide to go to Range Line Rd. or Keystone but when those lights back up they naturally choose a residential street. We have got the same exit points, we got Keystone and Range Line and it is certainly no better at Range Line than its debateable whether it is better at Keystone. These neighborhoods now will come in and talk to you and the school board and decide that they don ' t want the student traffic in their neighborhood. Just a point of clarification on that because that will inevitably happen and I think that your traffic consultant will confirm that. Likewise, we expect to use this for event parking. I don ' t know how many of the people out here, this is not simply for pampered high school children, to easily get to their classes from their nice personal cars. It is also for members of the community to have easy access to an auditorium and if we limit parking there will fill up rather quickly during these events and everybody in the community will have to park over here and walk through the slush in January. Our point is not that just for the high school children but also for anybody who needs access. The folks who say let them walk probably can walk pretty well , lot of the people in the community can ' t walk pretty well . The shorter distance we get to an auditorium or place of public assembly we feel like the better. GILBERT KETT: Thank you, Tim. Ila, you have more questions? ILA BADGER: What is the proposed use for the land surrounding the existing football field now? TIM STEVENS: I think I will let Don answer that. DON SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 30 Physical education fields on the rear of the building. A portion of that ground is going to be taken up with some of the construction and then some of the additional parking, but most of the greenspace that you see here would be for physical education. Likewise these seem viewed as auxiliary fields, I don 't know if you have seen how five soccer or football fields can fill up with community activities, but I have watched it in a couple of communities and I wouldn ' t consider this dead space. The idea of storing construction material , those of you who might have been associated with construction would understand the logistics that we can 't put pipe and brick up here that we are using a half mile away because the fork lift driver, the safety concerns there are obvious as well. Some of the alternatives here we have thought of we are interested in the safety of the children as well , seems odd to me it might be implied here that somehow we aren ' t concerned. We've thought of all these things as well. Construction materials storage here is not a good idea, it not workable, our contractor wouldn ' t do it. I don 't believe any would. Traffic distribution. It will go in a neighborhood, it 'll go in this one, it won ' t go down here. This is not a simple case of let 's get it out of the neighborhood, it 's let get it out of this neighborhood. Make them can park up here, they ' ll drive in these other neighborhoods. DONNA CALVERT: When I suggested the students exit from the back of the school from the north side and out 136th Street to Keystone, the purpose of that exit is because there are virtually two or three homes east on Smokey Row from the parking area or from the high school exit to Keystone. So they disrupting no neighborhoods. When they get to Keystone they are on a four lane thoroughfare they are not on two lane narrow residential streets with school children, preschool and junior high students walking to and from school, to and from school activities, walking with their parents in strollers, learning to ride their bikes on the street and playing. That is a very invalid argument to tell us that they exit east on 136th to a four lane thoroughfare they are going to interrupt a residential area as greatly as they do in a very concentrated already saturated area that they do on Main Street. Thank you. GILBERT KETT: At this point I am going to allow the petitioner to make a final rebuttal to some of these statements by remonstrators, then we are going to conclude the general conversation. ILA BADGER: Would you concentrate on how you intend to get these kids from the south parking over Main Street? DEBBIE FARMER: (change of tapes) south Main Street into the high school site. That remains something that we are very very interested, we've not gotten a lot of enthusiasm from people who are legitir. +ply concerned about the aesthetics of that. But that does remain a very viable possibility and one we are still interested in exploring. C+Prnnd r +hint ;t - -- ..,� ,,.,,.,, +.. SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 31 that the idea of asking many of our high school students to park in the proposed physical education complex north of 136th Street is not something that has just come to our attention for the first time as we come to you for special use approval . We've thought about this for a good long time and we concluded that we' ll do the community a better service if we keep the parking for high school students as close to the building as we can keep it. If a 16 year old boy or girl has a car and a drivers license and a parent willing to let that student drive we can ' t prevent that student from driving. If we tell that student that we have a spot for you in the parking lot that is right across the street from the high school we can at least control where that student parks and we can control with a security officer the manner in which that student leaves the parking lot. If we tell a bunch of high school students that the only parking alternative you have is north of 136th Street, we are legitimately concerned that what they are going to do is not park in any school parking lot, but that they are going to drive and park in front of peoples houses and we think that is not a pleasant alternative. It doesn ' t allow us to control our students and doesn 't give the property owners any control at all . We think that the alternative we've proposed which is putting 450 of our students in a fenced parking lot with only vehicle means of ingress and egress where we can station a security officer is just by far the very best means that we have to protect the students. We are as concerned as the property owners are about protecting students. We are a school corporation, and that is our number one priority. Essentially all we are doing is taking existing parking which is all located north of Main Street and asking you to be able to split that part of it north of Main Street and part of it South of Main Street. We think that by controlling geographically where we give those students permits, that is telling them in which parking area you need to park in, we think we can benefit the safety concerns. We find that we have high school students for the most part leaving our high school between 3 o'clock and 4 o'clock. That is not the peak traffic hours on Main Street. When they are coming to school , there approach is to school do occur during peak traffic hours because that is the time that people are also going to work. If we can keep a parking lot or place a parking lot partly north of Main Street and partly South of Main Street we can control them. The best way of getting those kids into and out of a parking lot and that is what we are trying to accomplish here. What we just simply don ' t want is a bunch of high school students who are parking and we don ' t have the means of controlling. GILBERT KETT: Thank you, the new stadium has a track I understand, for track and field. The old stadium is still staying. It is to be used for not practice because you got practice fields up there and it 's not track. What is the old stadium used for? DR. ROBERT HARTMAN: May I speak? GILBERT KETT: Yes sir. DR. ROBERT HARTMAN: My name is Dr. Hartman, Superintendent of Schools here in Carmel , have been for 23 years. I would like to address some of the educational issues and also SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 32 some of the traffic issues. One, that current football field will no longer be a football field, it will be used for physical education. We are not going to have two football fields, two varsity football fields. If you follow modern comprehensive high schools you know that schools of this size you need 100 acres or so and we are sitting on 33 and now we have expanded up to or getting close to the number of acreage that you need to conduct a modern comprehensive educational program. Which includes a lot of physical education and those spaces, the old football field, that is what that is going to be used for. Obviously, right in that area we are going to have 16 tennis courts, I think we have 8 or 9 now, so those spaces around there are going to be used for physical education. Obviously it is a conflict between parking and physical education, you try to do a little bit of both. I would be very pleased if all the kids rode the buses to school. All I think you have to do is have the parents make them do that. It is sort of like driving down town, those buses are there they are not completely filled, I wish they were filled. The students, you may have noticed a few years ago, we had a lot of problems with students parking off site and you cannot regulate what students do off your school property. Then it becomes a problem for some other municipality as to where people park and the problems attended there to. Obviously if you have them in your parking lot you can control them and I don ' t think that it is any surprise that there is a need to control high school kids and some of the things that go on in parking lots these days. I feel it is intended upon our responsibility to try to control that activity as much as possible, so it a series of problems that way. The matter of safety is a prime concern of the school corporation for at least 23 years and probably longer than that. We have hired a person to walk the Carmel Elementary kids across Main Street and up and down Main Street, so that is nothing new to us. We have hired two security officers at those corners for years, I 'm not sure that is the schools legal responsibility. But, we 've done it because we think it is our moral responsibility. Those are some things that we feel are very important. You can 't educate a child if he has been killed in a car accident and we feel that very very deeply and our I think our safety record and our record in our school system will stand on itself. I don 't need to try and defend that. We don 't think we are going to be sending as many cars out into Carmel View as there are already being sent out that way with this new plan. It looks to me by emptying it out onto Main Street there might be less cars going out through Carmel View than there were before. That I suppose remains to be seen. But we have considered all these alternatives, believe me. This project has been studied for years and these things have been discussed overhead passages, tunnels under the road and so on. It is a complex because there are many many agencies that have a role in this, City Council , Board of Public Works, yourself, Planning Commission, County, State, not to mention all the schools and all the state agencies. I could probably name 15 agencies that have to be coordinated on this job. It is a complex job and we are trying to make all those things, but our prime concern is first of all the safety of the kids. I 'll admit it is not perfect, it's not perfect, but I think it is about the best you can do given all the restraints that you have. Thank you. GILBERT KETT: Thank you, sir. Staff, technical advisory any comments at all. If the board is ready to proceed to a vote I will close the public hearing at. Do we have any other board members that want to say anything else before we close? Ila. ILA BADGER: SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 33 I don ' t really have a problem with the parking lot, I have a real concern with getting pedestrian traffic across Main Street under these circumstances as they exist today. I guess what I would like to do is ask Rick. Rick if this goes, if this is voted by any chance if this is voted down this evening and receives a negative vote from this body, what is the procedure from thereon? Do they have to wait a matter of six months before they could return with another proposal? RICK BRANDAU: It would be a matter of they could not return for six months with identical project? ILA BADGER: There would have to be substantial changes made to the project before they could return to this board with this issue. RICK BRANDAU: That 's is correct. The rules of procedures are outlined. STEVE ANDREWS: It is six months. If they want to come back with a different plan, they can do that. Whether it is substantial or not I guess it depends on whether the Department of Community Development thinks it is and you all do. ILA BADGER: I guess would ask the school system when you investigated the possibility of a walk over on Main Street, what kind of cost proposals did you get on that? I think this body is more concerned with safety at this point than anything. TIM STEVENS: I have a suggestion to make here, I understand that everybody 's concerns are safety, I wouldn 't not like to see this board entertain a negative motion if they have some substantial change they wish to see in this plan, so we don ' t go through some procedural where we return with a substantial changed plan. I would be interested in input from this board. We 've heard input from the community, we 've made substantial change in the plan to the extent that we are looking at very similar circumstances, that 's pretty darn with an expansion. Somebody has substantial changes in mind this evening, I think we would seriously entertain them. GILBERT KETT: I think at this point I ' ll defer to Mr. Andrews, but I think we have a petition before us that is not a negotiable thing. STEVE ANDREWS: I would suggest to the board that we are not in a position to negotiate changes, we are in a position in taking what they have and they can either let it roll tonight or they can table it or whatever they want to do. I would strongly advise the board not to enter into a negotiation. SPECIAL BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS MEETING - AUGUST 8, 1990 34 GILBERT KETT: That is what I was going to say, thank you Mr. Andrews. I am going to close the public hearing at 10 o'clock. I ask for a motion. JIM MILLER: I move we vote on the proposal before us tonight from the Carmel/Clay School Corporation concerning the special use for the south parking lot. GILBERT KETT: Do I have a second? ILA BADGER: Seconded. GILBERT KETT: Seconded by Mrs. Badger. Findings of facts please?. Petition denied 4-0. I ' ll entertain a motion to adjourn. ILA BADGER: I moved to adjourn this meeting. RICHARD KLAR: Seconded. GILBERT KETT: It has been moved and seconded that the Carmel Board of Zoning Appeals is adjourned. The meeting was adjourned at 10:07 P.M. Chairman Secretary