Residents of Patterson Place and Timber Ridge additions Monday helped defeat a proposal to build storage warehouses on nearby property.

Nearly 50 remonstrators from those neighborhoods attended Warsaw's Board of Zoning Appeals meeting Monday to protest DeWayne Barker's request for a use variance. Barker proposed building and operating a storage business on 8.56 acres near Stonecreek Homes Inc. and the First Baptist Church on Patterson Road.

Warren Kahn, a resident of Patterson Place, gave the BZA a petition, signed by 114 residents of both additions, that opposed Barker's request. Kahn and other remonstrators told the board they objected to further commercial development, increased traffic problems, drainage complications and a decline in property values.

Since the property forms a buffer strip between commercial and residential areas, local resident Tracy Furnivall suggested turning the area into a park, which also would be compatible with its present zoning.

In denying permission for the use variance, board member Dick Witt said he opposed the request because it was the property owner's choice to cut up the property and leave this strip of land empty after selling other land to the First Baptist Church.

Kim Leake, Warsaw's public works superintendent and BZA member, said the board granted use variances in residential areas only with the blessings of the neighborhood. Without that blessing, Leake said, the BZA can't grant the use variance.

The BZA voted unanimously to deny Barker's petition.

In other business, the board approved a request by Tracy Luu to allow temporary residential use of property on Commerce Drive, and Kim Frauhiger's petition for permission to install a fence around a storage warehouse business on Winona Avenue. [[In-content Ad]]