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Speedway BZA approves variances to omit rooftop mechanical screening on high school additions
Summary
On April 2, 2025, the Speedway Board of Zoning Appeals approved two variances allowing rooftop mechanical units on new high school additions to be left unscreened on the south sides; Etika staff recommended approval and board members asked few questions before voting.
The Speedway Board of Zoning Appeals approved variances on April 2 to allow rooftop mechanical units on two new additions to Speedway High School to go without screening on one south-facing side.
The variances — filed as petitions 2025DVS002 (field house addition) and 2025DVS003 (end zone building) for the school property listed in the petitions — would permit the petitioner to omit screening on the south side of each roof-mounted mechanical unit while keeping screening or parapets on the other sides.
The board took the actions after a staff report from Mitch Rector of Etika Group, who recommended approval. “I am recommending that this variance be approved,” Rector said in his staff presentation, citing the site plan and surrounding land uses. Architect Bob Ross of Schmidt Associates described the changes to the two additions, saying the field house addition is a roughly 24,000-square-foot addition with three high school basketball courts and that “we're screening 3 out of the 4 sides, and it's just the south side that we're looking for the variance for.”
Rector told the board the school site sits in an SU2 school-use zone with adjacent medium-density residential and a C4 community-regional classification nearby, noted the school property is about 53 acres, and said the rooftop equipment is located far enough from ground-level view that the building edge and existing trees would limit visibility. For the field house he noted the mechanical equipment is placed toward the center of the roof and that the standards the variance addresses focus primarily on ground-level visual impacts.
Board members asked a few practical questions — including approximate distance to nearby apartments and whether screening would reduce noise — and Ross and Rector replied that the nearest apartments were more than 100 feet away, that trees provide additional screening, and that some screening types (louvers) would still allow sound transmission. There were no remonstrators or proponents who spoke against the petitions at the hearing.
The board approved the petitions; the transcript records approval of the second petition as passing 5 to 0 and records the first petition as approved in the meeting (vote tally for the first petition was not read aloud in the transcript). The petitions were recorded under the docket numbers shown on the agenda and will be implemented as part of the high school construction plans.
