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Former Carmel mayor presents master plan for Prospect’s Head property
Summary
Jim Brainard, a consultant and former mayor of Carmel, told Prospect’s Architectural Review Committee that a 20–30 acre master plan for the Head property favors a 3–5‑story, walkable downtown with hidden parking financed by tax‑increment financing; residents and Riverfields urged strong floodplain and habitat protections and more landscape‑architecture input. The committee will work on zoning and public hearings; the council took no action today.
Jim Brainard, a consultant and former mayor of Carmel, presented a completed master plan for Prospect’s 20–30 acre Head property and urged a walkable, mixed‑use downtown built at a ‘gentle density’ of about three to five stories with hidden or underground parking paid for through tax‑increment financing (TIF).
The plan, presented at a joint meeting of the Prospect City Architectural Review Committee and City Council, shows a main street with ground‑floor retail, a town green and amphitheater, and a mix of single‑family houses, townhomes and multifamily buildings. Robert Jacob, chairman of the committee, opened the meeting and said the committee is advisory to the council and is soliciting community input as the plan moves toward zoning and implementation.
Brainard pointed to his experience in Carmel and described how denser, walkable development can generate the tax revenue needed to finance public amenities and structured parking. “You need to go a little higher to create the tax revenue to do that,” Brainard said, explaining that the…
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