Is Indy Rezone long overdue or cutting edge?

By David Adams, Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP

This article was originally published in the Indiana Lawyer.

Unless you are a land use lawyer, you may not know that there are some very interesting things happening with Indianapolis’ city zoning ordinance and associated development regulations. For those of you who dabble in the real estate practice, you may be aware that among real estate practitioners, you often come across other attorneys and real estate professionals whose practice is nearly dedicated to “land use” or the zoning practice. Others (like me) deal more on the transactional side of real estate and are more than happy to get my partner down the hall to assist in getting a project through the zoning process. With that background in mind, I recently had the privilege of hearing from some of those individuals at the “Indy Rezone” project who are primarily spearheading the city of Indianapolis’ effort to transform and update the city’s zoning ordinance and development regulations.

The problem

According to the Indy Rezone website (www.indyrezone.org), due to the city’s expansive boundaries and diversity of uses within those boundaries, the city’s zoning ordinance is long overdue for an update:

“Today, the City’s jurisdiction encompasses over 400 square miles comprised of a myriad of development patterns ranging from agriculture, recently developed residential subdivisions, commercial areas that are decidedly suburban in character, and the original commercial nodes the heart of the City created during the streetcar era. This diverse array of communities was, and still is, regulated by a one-size-fits-all set of zoning and building ordinances and regulations. The City’s current practice of administering and enforcing a single use pattern of development is auto-centric. As a result, the City is hindered in its ability to create livable, sustainable places of lasting value.”

Indianapolis has changed drastically over the years, but its zoning ordinance and development standards have not been able to keep up.

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