Published: August 07, 2009 02:00 pm      

Court: Restaurants don’t have standing to challenge parking in Jeffersonville

Ruling says Buckhead, Rocky’s could not demonstrate losses

Two restaurants that complained when parking requirements were waived on Jeffersonville’s Riverside Drive did not have standing to challenge the city because they could not demonstrate monetary damages.

That’s according to an Indiana Court of Appeals decision issued Thursday in a suit involving a handful of businesses along Jeffersonville’s Restaurant Row.

The decision, which essentially sides with the city by dismissing the legal challenge, has been about three years in the making.



HOW IT STARTED

In 2006, a hotel management company called MHI Hospitality purchased what had been a Ramada Inn along Riverside Drive. The company remodeled and rebranded the hotel, turning it into a Sheraton.

The development was taking place across the street from two other restaurants that put down roots along Riverside Drive six years prior — Buckhead Mountain Grill and Rocky’s Italian Grill.

In late 2007, Jeffersonville’s Board of Zoning Appeals granted MHI a parking waiver, which allowed it to open a Bearno’s Pizza in what had been the Ramada Inn’s old Conference Room.

Shortly afterward, Buckhead and Rocky’s filed a lawsuit against the city and MHI alleging the parking waiver was injurious to public health and safety and would adversely affect the value of their property.

The trial court heard the case in October 2008 and affirmed the city’s variance.



THE DECISION

In the decision it issued Thursday, the appeals court cited state statute, noting that in order to have standing to seek judicial review of a zoning appeals decision, a person must be “aggrieved.”

“Here, there is no evidence that Buckhead and Rocky’s would suffer any monetary loss by the granting of the developmental standards variance,” the court says.

Even though Rocky’s and Buckhead claim that numerous customers of the businesses across the street park in their spots without consent, “they failed to assert how this harmed them monetarily,” the decision said.



REACTION

Attorneys from each side reacted to the decision Thursday.

“How someone using your property — without your consent — is not a burden is beyond me,” said Greg Fifer, who represented the restaurants.

He said the decision avoids the underlying issue — a lack of parking spaces — and instead is made on whether the restaurants had standing to make a complaint.

“I just think that this is a decision that’s absurd on its face,” Fifer said.

“That’s the standing issue,” said attorney Larry Wilder, who represented the city. “That person [making the complaint] has to show some potential damages.”

Wilder praised the decision, saying it was one that will allow growth to continue along Riverside Drive.

Fifer was unsure whether his clients were interested in petitioning the Indiana Supreme Court to hear the case, saying it has not yet been discussed.

He expects to make a decision on that matter within the next few days.