‘Parkwest Neighborhood’ residents sign petition against City’s Potawatomi Park area development
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The City of South Bend’s Department of Community Investment of the Division of Planning and Community Resources held a community meeting Tues. evening at the River Park Branch Public Library.
The meeting was set to go over a final draft development plan to add more than 200 additional parking spaces near the Potawatomi Zoo and park area, and other new street improvements with the goal to help traffic flow at the zoo and the neighborhood to the west.
The residents in that neighborhood refer to it as the "Parkwest Neighborhood", which is between Twyckenham and Greenlawn, from Wall to the railroad tracks, which includes Greenlawn Avenue, Wall Street, Hoover Avenue, Southwood Avenue, and Belmont Avenue.
Residents from the area, including Leonard DeLorenzo showed up to the meeting with a petition in hand on behalf of the "Parkwest Neighborhood".
Along with some other neighbors, DeLorenzo started up the petition, circulating it around the neighborhood and getting dozens of signatures from the almost 100 households in the area.
The petition is directed to The City of South Bend, project leaders, city council and the mayor, declaring the neighborhood’s opposition to the plan.
The petition also states the “Parkwest Neighborhood" is wanting the city to consider three things when making these improvement plans: safety, quality of life, and accessibility.
“We’re very interested in working together and coming up with a really good plan together based on our interests, the interest of the zoo, the interest of the high school, the interest of visitors to the community, to improve this area, to beautify it, to increase the safety, to make it more accessible, and really what we’re asking for is to able to work with the city planners on that,” said DeLorenzo.
DeLorenzo said this is not a new project. The city and community have had the discussions on possible plans for a few years, but as the city is reaching the stage of adopting a final draft, he said the community’s comments and concerns have not been heard.
“What we found was that the feedback we were giving were not being reflected in the plan, so we assumed somebody else’s interest must be served by the plans that are coming forward, and I think a lot of people assumed well it’s the zoo that pushing forward an agenda because their attendance is skyrocketing because they’ve done incredible things at the Zoo or maybe there’s another group that pushing an interest,” shared DeLorenzo.
So, he went and spoke with some of those other groups, “And what I heard was that the plan that’s been put on the table as Phase 1 for this area, doesn’t seem to meet the long-term vision of the leadership of the Zoo even… I went to the high school as well and talked to the principal of the high school… it seems that the interest of the high school actually aligns quite well with the residents. So, it left me a little bit at a loss as to whose interest are put forward or moving this plan,” expressed DeLorenzo.
During the meeting, the public asked what will happen in June, when the Phase 1 construction is scheduled to start. That’s when South Bend’s 3rd District Councilwoman, Sharon McBride, who has been looking into this situation, stepped up.
“If I may, I’ll step in as the council, and what I will do is get back with the administration and with the mayor and have a conversation… I will make sure, and I’m telling you as a council representative, I hear you and I’ll see what I can do from that perspective, because I am the voice for you all,” and McBride.
DeLorenzo hopes everyone can take a step back and re-evaluate this situation before any action, like construction, is taken.
“I think what we’d like to do is press pause, reset this, let’s get the key stakeholders in a room together, people who really know this area, and let’s come up with a great plan, both for now, to alleviate the immediate needs, but also looking ahead 20 years, 25 years, 40 years for this area,” said DeLorenzo.