More units no barrier to Space Place expansion

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Adding to The Space Place may subtract a nagging problem for a Tennessee Street neighbor, the Greencastle Board of Zoning Appeals realized Tuesday night.

During its first monthly meeting in at least six months, the board unanimously approved a special exception for Jack Dalton to add six storage units to the nine structures already in place on the Space Place property south of Tennessee Street, west of Putnam County Comprehensive Services (PCCS) and east of Operation Life and the Swifty gas station.

In approving the request, however, the BZA asked Dalton to provide a barrier along the east property line where his land abuts the 700 Tennessee St. residential property of Debbi L. Walton.

That barrier could be a row of trees, concrete dividers or a fence, just something to impede traffic from driving through the site.

Whichever way it turns out, the concept is to deter vehicles from driving onto the Walton property to turn around since there is no egress to the east or south due to the presence of the limited-access Veterans Memorial Highway. As drivers currently try to circulate around the PCCS building, they often apparently end up in the Waltons' yard, City Planner Shannon

Norman explained.

Norman suggested that additional blacktop accompanying the added storage units might otherwise encourage even more vehicles to drive onto the Walton property.

"I think it is appropriate," she said of a barrier or fencing along the east side of Dalton's development, which had been master planned in 1996 but has seen only one or two buildings added since the original build out.

Dalton was agreeable to a barrier.

"We'll have something up there," he told the BZA.

Board member Wayne Lewis applauded the cooperation, telling Dalton he was "glad to see something" go into the undeveloped area adjacent to the highway.

"What I'm hearing," Lewis praised, "is that Mr. Dalton wants to be a good neighbor."

BZA member Scott Davis made the motion to approve the special exception with the barrier a provision of the approval. Following a second by Lewis, added aye votes by John Phillips, Donnie Watson and Margaret Kenton made it unanimous.

The need for the special exception, engineer and Dalton spokesman Garth Hughes noted, came about after zoning district lines were redrawn in 2003, changing zoning of the undeveloped section of Dalton's land immediately north of Veterans Highway and making storage units an allowable use in light industrial areas.

At the outset of the 45-minute meeting, Kenton was sworn in as the newest member of the BZA, succeeding Doris Miller, who has taken a position on the Cemetery Board.

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