Environment

When Zoning Becomes A Public Health Hazard

Petition is addressed to
Major Joe Hogsett

28 signatures

Collection finished

28 signatures

Collection finished

  1. Launched September 2024
  2. Collection finished
  3. Prepare submission
  4. Dialog with recipient
  5. Decision

Petition is addressed to: Major Joe Hogsett

We live on the edge of downtown Indy surrounded by railroads. The zoning around these railroads are out dated and now any corporation can lease a property along these railroads due to those out dated zones.
Dropping property values and inflicting residential neighborhoods on a public health safety level. Our new neighbor at the end of my street is a metal scrap company. Everyday I look out my window and see a mountain of washers & dryers, refrigerators, stoves, and anything metal from across Indianapolis; delivered too a mountain resereccting 50 feet from my home. We've seen a city worker drive by once after we called them and none of the regulations we hoped they would enforce being taken. That city worker came before the scrap mountain resserected and we haven't seen one since. And no one came to inform us where our case stands. Not a call, not an email, not a knock on our door. This company has been open now for a few short weeks. Recently a waste management company was leasing this lot prior to the now scrap metal company. Even then we were ignored by Mayors Action told the zoning is right. Lawyers clearly don't want the fight and yes we are willing to higher one. Board of health comes looks leaves never to be seen or heard from again. Even worse we can't get our neighborhood rep to return our phone calls or emails. They should be able to point us in the right direction we thought. We called the police to enforce the noise ordanance on the last company. They still ran all night long. This company at least only makes noise through out the first shift of the day. We got all our neighbors signatures so we could use that in a case or petition. Our concerns are being ignored. And now we're being affected in ways we didn't see coming. I'll explain how we're affected further below.

We have proof of all calls to Action not gone ignored totally but also not taken seriously enough. So we thought we need help understanding our rights as a residential neighborhood and who we contact when all else fails us.

Reason

I'm walking through my home and finding cockroaches and mice. I haven't had either in over 20 years. We also have a steady exterminator service we've used for the last 20 years.
A mountain of appliances and trash sits 50 feet from my side door.
The noise level starts at 7am and goes on throughout the day until 4pm.
The fence is 5 and half feet tall.
The mountain of appliances ranges from 20 feet to 50 feet. The fence is supposed to be taller than the scrap mountain or vice versa the scrap mountain should be lower than the fence. Regulation states that scrap mountain should be 150 feet from a residential road. This scrap mountain sits 15 feet from a residential road.
We called the permit office when they started digging into the concrete lot for their scales to be placed. Don't know if that was met. Not to mention they paved the entire lot with what looks like dry crushed asphalt. Also supposed to be regulated as to not contaminate water run offs.
We recently watched one of the very large cranes grab a metal barrel and squeeze the fluids within it all over the lot. Metal barrels should be properly disposed of their fluids before entering a scrap yard. That lot drains into the sewer drain directly in front of our home.
We were told the appliances should be broken down to get the valuable metal out before dropped into the scrap yard. Whole appliances are sitting in this mountain of a pile.
These regulations could protect our neighborhood of the rodents and cockroaches and contamination. Not to mention our beautiful homes property value just dropped dramatically having this company as our new neighbor. We've worked so hard to make our home beautiful and up to date. We followed all laws, filed for all permits and those regulations were enforced and we had no problem meeting them.
We were even told we would have to send letters to all our neighbors asking permission to build our garage 2 stories high. They had to agree to allow us to obstruct their view! Where is our letter asking us if we approve of this appliance mountain obstructing ours? Where is the human being that regulates these kinds of businesses regularly? And when did a citizen complaint quit being updated and addressed? Why haven't we been informed our concerns are being acknowledged and addressed?
We need help, hopefully I'm finally in the right place.

Thank you for your support, Tammy White , Indianapolis
Question to the initiator

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Petition details

Petition started: 09/11/2024
Petition ends: 01/04/2025
Region: Marion County
Topic: Environment

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