Published: July 01, 2009 11:53 am      

Tire store planned on 10th Street in Jeffersonville

Commission OKs Michel Tires near Hoskins Drive

Jeffersonville’s Plan Commission approved a development plan for a new Michel Tire store on 10th Street Tuesday night.

The approval came with conditions, however, after nearby residents voiced complaints over what they felt could become a noisy neighbor.

The proposed 7,800-square-foot store will be located at 2801 E. 10th St., on what is a vacant lot. It will have 10 service bays for installing tires and doing minor automobile maintenance.

Surrounding the building will be a 29-space parking lot. Joshua Baran, representing the company, said construction is scheduled to start in December.

However, the development was not without its opposition.

Nearby resident Garry McCandless said he was not opposed to a business building on the lot, but worried that the tire store — specifically its air-impact wrenches, which screw on lug nuts — would create too much noise.

“We are a relatively quiet neighborhood,” he said.

He said he traveled to other neighborhoods in Southern Indiana with nearby tire stores and noise could be heard clearly from a distance. He wanted the business to put a wall, fence or extra landscaping between it and the neighborhood. Baran said the company would be willing to agree to that.

The board approved the plan pending further agreement between the business, neighbors and planning officials.

McCandless also asked the business if it would consider building the store so that the service bays would be parallel, rather than perpendicular, to 10th Street.

The commission wouldn’t agree to that. Board member Rita Flemming said she wouldn’t want the open bays fronting the major city artery.



Other city business

Jeffersonville’s Board of Zoning Appeals rejected a variance request from developer Bob Lynn which would have allowed him to build slimmer streets in the Laurel Springs and Stacy Springs subdivisions. The board met immediately after the plan commission Tuesday.

Lynn wanted to build the subdivisions with 26-foot-wide streets, rather than the 32-foot-wide streets required by the city’s subdivision-control ordinance. Lynn told members he wanted the smaller streets with high curbs in order to discourage motorists from parking along the roadway.

“That’s a desirable situation, if you can keep that street parking away,” he said, arguing that it makes for a quality development. He even presented satellite photos he’d downloaded from Google that showed fewer street-parked cars on local subdivisions that used smaller roads.

Denise Poukish, a resident of the adjoining Bethany Farms subdivision, spoke against the variance request, saying that the roads were below standard and could be a problem for emergency officials. She also said that it would be difficult to enforce proposed neighborhood rules against street parking.

Poukish and Lynn have a history of disagreement. She sued him and the city over a recent annexation, which took in the area he’s trying to develop. That case was settled last year, when Lynn agreed to build a pine tree buffer between his development and Bethany Farms.

Board member Mike McCutcheon, a Jeffersonville firefighter, said he was against the 26-foot-wide road because it could be difficult for increasingly large fire trucks to get down. He asked Lynn to come back with a variance request for 28-foot-wide roads.

After the meeting, Lynn said he would consider doing so.