09/30/2019

The City of Noblesville will host two informational meetings for the public on Tuesday, October 1 at City Hall, 16 S. 10^th Street. The planning department is making updates to its Comprehensive Master Plan and will inform the public about process from 5 to 6 p.m. in A214 on the second floor. The new downtown parking pilot proposal will be explained to the public at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers.

Noblesville’s Comprehensive Plan Finalization: Public Open House (5-6 p.m.)

The city is continuing efforts to update PLANoblesville, the current Comprehensive Master Plan document that was adopted in 2014 and updated in 2016. This plan will tie together all of the past five years’ planning efforts/studies including but not limited to: housing analysis, downtown streetscape master plan and the White River Vision Plan. This first public open house will be divided into several stations that will ask for input on different topics to obtain information early in this finalization effort. Anticipated adoption of this plan is February 2020.

Downtown Parking Pilot Public Meeting (7-8 p.m.)

Police Chief Kevin Jowitt will lead this meeting to inform the public on the proposal for a new parking pilot program that would change and simplify the parking ordinance, which includes adjusting hours of enforcement, location of free and time-restricted spaces and adding new short duration spots.

The current parking ordinance has been in existence since 1989. This proposal has downtown parking separated into three locations: paid parking lots, free on-street spaces and the new tic-tac-toe board or hashtag area that includes the Downtown Square and one block away in each direction for two consecutive hours of free parking per day. By capping it as two consecutive hours, the hashtag area encourages turnover of parking as supported by data collected in the Downtown Parking Study. Jowitt and other city staff members will provide details on all the changes, process and communication efforts and will be available to answer questions after a presentation.

If approved by the Noblesville Common Council in October, the city will use 2020 as a one-year “pilot” to study the impact of these changes in order to set a permanent strategy after the Levinson parking garage opens.