Carmel Finance Utilities and Rules Committee Meeting: Parking Ordinance Amendment on Autumn Drive - March 11, 2026
Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee Meeting – March 11, 2026
The Committee met on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, to consider Ordinance D-2811-26, which would amend parking regulations on Autumn Drive by allowing parking on the north side of the street between Third Avenue Southwest and Atherton Drive. After discussion and public comment, the Committee voted unanimously to send a positive recommendation to the full Council.
Discussion Items
- Ordinance D-2811-26 – Parking on Autumn Drive: The ordinance proposes to remove “no parking” signs on the north side of Autumn Drive from the intersection with Third Avenue Southwest to its intersection with Atherton Drive. Currently, parking is prohibited on both sides. Director Pease noted the road is 36 feet wide and that allowing parking on one side would reduce vehicle speeds and improve safety. The change would create approximately 10 parking spaces (roughly 220 feet of curb). No parking would be allowed within 30 feet of crosswalks. Engineering assessed police/fire access and found no issues.
- History and Concerns: Councilmembers discussed that parking was previously removed about 10 years ago. Recent confusion arose because some drivers parked illegally on Third Avenue near the Chris Kindle Market. The HOA and some residents raised concerns about the number of spaces, potential traffic turning around, road wear, and the lack of notification. Director Pease clarified that engineering decisions are objective and not driven by individual requests. The city will maintain the street regardless. Enforcement of the residential parking sticker program was also discussed; the city is developing a new technology system for enforcement, to be phased in starting with midtown/main street areas.
- Public Comment: Brent Borham, Director of Strategic Growth and Partnerships at Senior Home Companions in Story Cottage (owner/occupant of 630 3rd Avenue SW), expressed support for the additional parking. He noted that the business, along with other tenants (an eye care business and a dentistry office), would benefit from more spaces for clients and staff, especially during events at the nearby Booth Tarkington and Fehrtz Theatre.
Key Outcomes
- The Committee voted unanimously to advance Ordinance D-2811-26 to the full City Council with a positive recommendation.
- Director Pease provided an update that the disability committee ordinance and audit committee suggestions are expected to be discussed at the next meeting.
- The meeting adjourned at 5:48 p.m.
Meeting Transcript
Welcome to the Wednesday, March 11th, 2026. Finance Utilities and Rules Committee meeting. We have one item on our agenda this evening. It's ordinance D-2811-26. Article 5, Section 8-47 of the Carmel City Code. Sponsors are Taylor and Warrow. This ordinance is amending the regulation of parking on Autumn Drive. It's one slight change on line 29 of the ordinance in our package that changes on both sides of Autumn Drive from intersection with Third Avenue Southwest and its intersection with Atherton Drive to on the south side of Autumn Drive from the intersection with Third Avenue Southwest to its intersection with Atherton Drive. If you'd show the just so we could show the image on the screen there. Yeah, so it might be hard to see, but there's a green line there on the north side of that curb line between uh Third Avenue and uh this other road off Autumn Drive. Uh currently no parking. It would we would remove the no parking signs and allow parking. Um there would be no parking within 30 feet of the crosswalk still, so that green line represents uh roughly 220 feet of parking, um a little more than 10 space, we'd probably be about 10 spaces. Okay. Uh so we when we consider whether there's on-street parking or not, uh we would look at uh the road widths is 36 feet wide. You know, potentially that would qualify for parking on both sides, so certainly one side um would be within the bounds of when we would normally uh agree that parking is safe, uh not only safe, but uh where we allow parking on the road and people park is uh significant effect on speeds of roads, so it improves the safety in some aspects. Uh so we would hope to see reduced uh speed on here because of roads uh cars parked on the road here. So that's kind of the assessment that we make. Obviously, we look at police and fire access and other implications for that. There's no issues here with that, so uh we would be in support of allowing parking on the north side of the curb here. Questions for Director Pease Councillor Warrell. All right. Um, so there used to be parking on Autumn Drive. Correct. And we removed that. What year we looked at this and I should have brought it. It was 10 years ago or something, I think. Uh probably not 10 years ago. I thought it was before you were on the council. Didn't we? Um my recollection was it was removed because of the Chris Kindle market parking. So I maybe we should look at the ordinance. Before the plating was constructed. Yeah, so we did look at this because there was this is the confusion. If I remember if I should have got this so we had to straight again. We looked into this because we both thought that. Right. That was on Third Avenue. So there was some people actually parking on Third Avenue because of the market, and more people get a little more aggressive with where they think you can park and not park. And so technically, if you don't say no parking in some of these places, people could park there. So they were the ordinance that you were a part of uh more recently was actually on Third Avenue parking near this entrance here. Yeah, but I know we were getting complaints from Parkside uh you know about this. But anyway, it wasn't people parking near I uh again I can go back and verify because I do want to make sure because I'm going off memory, I should have looked this up, but I I think the complaints were coming from this neighborhood because around this entrance right here, people were parking on Third Avenue making it difficult to get in and out. Yeah. We've we looked up the actual north side of this curb line. I think that was more than 10 years old. What that was related to, it was hard to determine about why they would go through and say no parking. Um, you know, they don't always explain in the ordinance. So regardless, um what is I mean during Chris Kindle market, yeah. These spaces would probably be open game or okay.
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