
Indy Rezone, the city’s new comprehensive zoning ordinance, was approved by the City-County Council and adopted by the Metropolitan Development Commission in 2015. A new code normally would have taken effect Jan. 1, 2016, but because of nearly four years of intense outreach for public input, and the resulting extensive revisions made, City leaders were prompted to move the date to April 1.
According to John Neal, a planner with the City of Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development, the time between adoption and implementation is necessary to bring staff up to speed. “We’ve started training in-house with Division of Planning and Code Enforcement staff,” he said in January. Neal and his colleague, Tammara Tracy, were the DMD staffers who managed the Indy Rezone process with support from a U.S. Housing and Urban Development grant. They are leading the training, he said, which will air as a webinar on Government Access Channel 16. Links will also be posted to the DMD website, he said.
Neal said DMD has partnered with the Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center (INRC) to offer a series of public outreach events that cover a range of topics related to Indy Rezone.
Former DMD director Maury Plambeck, who now works at INRC as an education specialist, said the 90-minute seminars feature lecture and discussion components. “An hour of lecture is enough. We want to leave time for questions,” he said, adding, “We want to make it comfortable for small groups of 10 to 20 people.” Plambeck characterized the sessions as geared to the general public. He and his former DMD colleagues hope that neighborhood leaders and activists, professional land use attorneys, and members of the development community will attend. Plambeck will lead the Variance and Rezoning workshops to describe how the process works. Tracy and Neal will lead workshops providing an overview of the changes embedded in Indy Rezone as well as sessions that focus on critical issues such as parking and landscaping.
Workshops are free and will be held evenings at the INRC office, 708 E. Michigan St. Registration is required. To sign up, visit INRC.org/workshops.