TERRE HAUTE —
Opponents of a planned senior-living complex on Ohio Boulevard near Deming Park showed up in force at Wednesday night’s Vigo County Area Plan Commission meeting.
The Tribune-Star reported Sunday that the commission was being asked to “table” a vote on the project until March. Nevertheless, about 120 people showed up at the meeting to express their apparently unanimous opposition.
Magnolia Health Systems, which operates approximately 30 nursing homes in Indiana, is seeking to build a three-stage senior living community between Brown and Fruitridge avenues on the north side of the boulevard. To do so, about 46 acres of currently undeveloped land would need to be rezoned from R-1 “single family residential” to R-3 “general residential.”
The Area Plan Commission is an advisory body that makes recommendations to other government entities, including the Terre Haute City Council. And it is the council that will have the ultimate say on this decision. However, the City Council cannot take up the matter until the Area Plan Commission makes a formal recommendation, something that will not happen before its next meeting on March 7.
About seven opponents of the complex spoke to the commission Wednesday night. The first speaker, Terre Haute attorney Chris Gambill, told of his past experience with Stuart Reed, the president of Magnolia Health Systems. Gambill represented a family that won a $140,000 judgment against a formerly Reed-owned nursing home in Clay County in 2010. That judgment has not been paid, Gambill said.
“A community should not go out of its way to do favors to corporations in this state that do business this way,” he said.
Representatives of Magnolia Health Systems could not be reached for comment after Wednesday night’s meeting, which took place at the Vigo County Annex.
Other speakers said the development would damage the beauty and historic significance of Ohio Boulevard. They also expressed concern about traffic, noise, lighting, water drainage, danger to school children and neighborhood property values. The proposed development would be better suited for other parts of the community, some stated.
Magnolia Health Systems requested the commission table a decision until March to allow more time to meet with neighborhood residents. However, there appeared to be little room for compromise among those present at the meeting.
“Ohio Boulevard was not meant for this,” said Dan Hopkins, another speaker at the meeting. “Ohio Boulevard was never meant for this.”
The retirement community, as proposed, would include a 96-unit nursing home, a 52-unit assisted living facility and 17 duplex “patio homes,” according to Magnolia. The approximately $20-million project would employ about 150 people in full-time positions serving about 180 residents, company officials have said.
• Also Wednesday, the commission voted in favor of a rezoning request from Union Hospital. The rezoning will allow the hospital to build an approximately 6,000-square-foot building on the southwest corner of Fourth Avenue and North Seventh Street for lease to Ivy Tech Community College.
The professional staff of the Area Planning Department had previously given an unfavorable recommendation to the proposal. However, after talks with hospital officials, that recommendation was changed to “favorable,” said Jeremy Weir, executive director of the Vigo County Area Planning Department.
The recommendation was reversed because of a change that calls for the building to be designed as a “flexible commercial structure” that would better fit with existing plans for the neighborhood, Weir said.
The new building is expected to house the Martin Luther King Center currently operated by Ivy Tech on South 13th Street.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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