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Bellemeade-Baird Park preservation area effort moves toward council sponsorship; neighbors raise concerns about recovery residences
Summary
Members of the Bellemeade-Baird Park task force updated the Historic Preservation Commission that they are preparing to seek a city-council sponsor for a proposed preservation area and asked the commission to note neighborhood concerns about recovery residences and a pending lawsuit affecting potential sponsorship.
Members of the Bellemeade-Baird Park task force told the Historic Preservation Commission on April 9 that they plan to seek a sponsor on the City Council for a proposed Bellemeade-Baird Park preservation area and have scheduled a May 2 meeting with Councilor-at-Large Mary Allen.
Task force members identified themselves as Shanna Jarbo (822 East Powell) and Angie Bullock (825 East Mulberry). Jarbo said the task force is advancing toward a city-council sponsor and that, typically, if a preservation area would affect a particular ward the group would approach that ward’s council member.
Bullock and Jarbo asked the commission to note neighborhood concerns about recent public discussion in which several residents had linked a planned recovery-residence use to other facilities. Bullock said the concern in earlier reporting and public discussion involved residential recovery programs that arrange shared housing for program participants, not a residential reentry center for people leaving the Department of Corrections. "That is not the case," Bullock said, describing zoning limitations and distinguishing recovery residences from reentry centers.
Bullock also told the commission the task force had filed a lawsuit that could complicate choosing a sponsor if that sponsor were a named party in the suit. She said the task force already has a meeting scheduled with Councilor Mary Allen on May 2 at 3:30 p.m. and that having Allen as sponsor would avoid potential conflicts tied to the litigation.
Commission staff clarified that formal steps remain: the preservation-area measure would need a council sponsor, be drafted into ordinance language (including required "whereas" clauses), and then go through council and mayoral review; the mayor must sign the ordinance after council passage. Staff said they would work with the city-council attorney on ordinance drafting when the task force is ready.
The task force members emphasized that the preservation-area initiative is separate from recovery-residence concerns and asked the commission to be aware of potential community-relations complications if a council sponsor were directly involved in litigation with the group.
