Naked City

Hyde Park Baptist Church plans to build a five-story, block-long garage near its existing garage in the Hyde Park neighborhood. (Photo By Michelle Dapra)

Lest anyone doubt Richard Suttle's ability to throw his considerable weight around in council chambers, the irrepressible developers' attorney spent much of the last week imploring council members and city staff to prohibit Hyde Park residents from appealing a site plan (currently awaiting approval by city development staff) for the massive five-story parking garage Hyde Park Baptist Church plans to build in the neighborhood.

The imbroglio had neighbors aflutter over the long Thanksgiving weekend, and centered on a few key phrases in a 1990 ordinance, written largely by then-Assistant City Attorney Andy Martin. The law established a special zoning district (a "neighborhood conservation and combining district," or NCCD) for the church and its surrounding properties. Suttle and his clients at the church say that the wording of the ordinance restricts neighbors from protesting any site plan the church files for the garage. Baloney, neighborhood residents insist -- they've been told all along that they can appeal any site plan, and that, in fact, an appeal to the council is the only recourse they have left against the garage. If combined with the existing garage (as the church intends), the building would completely cover nearly an entire city block. (City rules, however, call for no more than 40% impervious cover on land zoned for single-family use, as is the garage site, and neighborhood residents say the NCCD didn't change the base zoning or impervious cover requirement. Thus the appeal.)

After several confusing days of back-and-forth allegations -- during which City Attorney Martin apparently called several council members to inform them that neighbors could not appeal, then shifted course after consulting with City Attorney Marty Terry on Monday morning -- the dispute should be settled, one way or another, on Thursday.

Photo By Michelle Dapra

An item on this week's council agenda, added at the behest of former council member Bill Spelman by Council Members Will Wynn and Raul Alvarez, would clarify that neighborhood residents do, in fact, have a right to appeal. "The reason I asked Raul and Will to sponsor this item was because the consequences were so great ... that on the off chance they didn't do the right thing, [the church] could have bulldozers out there literally tomorrow," Spelman says. He adds that history supports that concern -- in the 1980s, the church was famous among neighborhood residents for its late-night demolition schedule. However, according to Council Member Daryl Slusher and Wynn's aide Mark Nathan, the item could well be pulled by Thursday morning, on the understanding that the neighbors' right to appeal goes without saying. (At press time Wednesday, no decision had been made.)

If the consensus on the council is to allow an appeal -- and judging from council members' comments, at least that much seems certain -- neighbors could, according to Hyde Park Neighborhood Association co-president Niyanta Spelman (Bill Spelman's wife), be lining up to protest the site plan as early as next January.

Complicating the timing a bit is another move by Suttle -- this time, to appeal a decision the Planning Commission made back in July, rejecting the church's request to vacate the alley that runs between its current garage and the site of the proposed garage extension. Why, after the PC handed down its decision last summer, did Suttle and the church wait so long to appeal?

Two theories are circulating around council chambers. First, there's the issue of traffic: The church may fear that its current site plan could be rejected on the basis of traffic impact -- its current plan would dump the entire contents of the garage onto quiet, residential Avenue D -- and would rather join the two garages into one massive structure with two separate exits. But in order to do that, it needs the alley vacation which was soundly rejected by the Planning Commission six months ago.

Second, there's the question of timing: Neighbors suspect, with some justification, that the church has once again planned a major garage-related move around the Christmas holidays -- a time when many neighbors, including members of the Hyde Park NA and the Alliance to Save Hyde Park, will be out of town or otherwise occupied. The Alliance has requested a postponement of the church's motion, scheduled for Dec. 7, until mid-January.