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Fenced patios on Muncie downtown sidewalks draw complaints
http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20120211/NEWS01/202110328/Fenced-patios-Muncie-downtown-sidewalks-draw-complaints
11:36 PM, Feb. 10, 2012
MUNCIE -- Downtown Muncie sidewalks are an obstacle course for the disabled despite years of improvements, an accessibility advocate said this week.
But the problems cited by Linda Muckway at a city board of works meeting this week weren't about curbs that are impossible to surmount or uneven surfaces.
"Lots of places are impassable because of the fences around dining places," Muckway, chairman of the City-County Council for People with Disabilities, told the city's works board on Wednesday.
Muckway, citing several downtown Muncie businesses that have erected sidewalk patios with metal fencing, asked the works board to determine if a local ordinance -- perhaps echoing Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines and requirements -- might address existing issues and prevent future problems.
Works board chairman and attorney John Quirk said he would try to determine what local ordinances, if any, exist.
But the executive director of Muncie's Downtown Development Partnership said there's little doubt about the issues that Muckway and others have raised.
"We are not ADA compliant downtown right now and we need to become ADA compliant," Vicki Veach said in a later interview.
The concerns raised this week aren't new. In 2010, city officials and advocates for the disabled told The Star Press that some advances had been made -- including new sidewalk access points at street corners -- but more issues remained to be addressed. The city completed its latest ADA plan at the end of the year, just before Mayor Sharon McShurley left office.
Muckway raised another concern about the sidewalks along Walnut Street: The brick sidewalks, part of a streetscape project completed by the city more than a decade ago, slope down to street level but can be difficult for people with limited mobility.
And works board member Marty Campisi cited another issue.
"Light poles are also in the way," she said.
For Tom Green, a member of the Metropolitan Plan Commission and until recent months owner of Blue Bottle downtown, concerns about fenced patios are familiar.
"As far as I know, we do not have an ordinance," Green said. "I've never seen a specific reference to an ordinance."
When Green installed a sidewalk fence in front of Blue Bottle a few years ago, he found online references to 48 inches of clearance necessary for ADA-compliant sidewalks.
"I measured from the top of the slope and added a couple of inches," Green said, noting that the city's building commissioner at the time approved chalk outlines Green had made on the sidewalk to show where the fence would be erected.
But the sloping sidewalks add an element of uncertainty, Green said.
"One of the issues when people measure for patios is, where does the street end, because there's not a conventional curb," he said. "People concerned about clearance measure from the top of the slope because in their estimation the slope is not navigable. Shop owners measure from the street."
Kent Shuff, co-owner of Vera Mae's Bistro, said the fence around his patio was approved by the city building commissioner's office when it was installed in the summer of 2000.
When a later building commissioner took exception to the fence, Shuff said, he spoke to then-Mayor Dan Canan.
"He assured me there would be no problem, he would handle it," Shuff recalled, adding, "The problem lies in the design of the streetscape. I understand why they did it, but the curb is where the concrete meets the asphalt."
The city has taken action against some sidewalk patios in recent years, especially since a Delaware County smoking ordinance enacted last summer prompted many local bars to erect smoking sections outside. The building commissioner's office required the removal of a fence around a sidewalk patio at Savage's Ale House on High Street downtown.
Green said that while he believed the plan commission office was looking into the issue, nothing had come before the board itself.
Veach said the downtown group planned to meet with Mayor Dennis Tyler and officials from the Metropolitan Plan Commission to talk about steps that should be taken about sidewalk accessibility.
Contact business editor Keith Roysdon at 213-5828. Find him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/keithroysdon.
http://www.thestarpress.com/article/20120211/NEWS01/202110328/Fenced-patios-Muncie-downtown-sidewalks-draw-complaints
11:36 PM, Feb. 10, 2012
MUNCIE -- Downtown Muncie sidewalks are an obstacle course for the disabled despite years of improvements, an accessibility advocate said this week.
But the problems cited by Linda Muckway at a city board of works meeting this week weren't about curbs that are impossible to surmount or uneven surfaces.
"Lots of places are impassable because of the fences around dining places," Muckway, chairman of the City-County Council for People with Disabilities, told the city's works board on Wednesday.
Muckway, citing several downtown Muncie businesses that have erected sidewalk patios with metal fencing, asked the works board to determine if a local ordinance -- perhaps echoing Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines and requirements -- might address existing issues and prevent future problems.
Works board chairman and attorney John Quirk said he would try to determine what local ordinances, if any, exist.
But the executive director of Muncie's Downtown Development Partnership said there's little doubt about the issues that Muckway and others have raised.
"We are not ADA compliant downtown right now and we need to become ADA compliant," Vicki Veach said in a later interview.
The concerns raised this week aren't new. In 2010, city officials and advocates for the disabled told The Star Press that some advances had been made -- including new sidewalk access points at street corners -- but more issues remained to be addressed. The city completed its latest ADA plan at the end of the year, just before Mayor Sharon McShurley left office.
Muckway raised another concern about the sidewalks along Walnut Street: The brick sidewalks, part of a streetscape project completed by the city more than a decade ago, slope down to street level but can be difficult for people with limited mobility.
And works board member Marty Campisi cited another issue.
"Light poles are also in the way," she said.
For Tom Green, a member of the Metropolitan Plan Commission and until recent months owner of Blue Bottle downtown, concerns about fenced patios are familiar.
"As far as I know, we do not have an ordinance," Green said. "I've never seen a specific reference to an ordinance."
When Green installed a sidewalk fence in front of Blue Bottle a few years ago, he found online references to 48 inches of clearance necessary for ADA-compliant sidewalks.
"I measured from the top of the slope and added a couple of inches," Green said, noting that the city's building commissioner at the time approved chalk outlines Green had made on the sidewalk to show where the fence would be erected.
But the sloping sidewalks add an element of uncertainty, Green said.
"One of the issues when people measure for patios is, where does the street end, because there's not a conventional curb," he said. "People concerned about clearance measure from the top of the slope because in their estimation the slope is not navigable. Shop owners measure from the street."
Kent Shuff, co-owner of Vera Mae's Bistro, said the fence around his patio was approved by the city building commissioner's office when it was installed in the summer of 2000.
When a later building commissioner took exception to the fence, Shuff said, he spoke to then-Mayor Dan Canan.
"He assured me there would be no problem, he would handle it," Shuff recalled, adding, "The problem lies in the design of the streetscape. I understand why they did it, but the curb is where the concrete meets the asphalt."
The city has taken action against some sidewalk patios in recent years, especially since a Delaware County smoking ordinance enacted last summer prompted many local bars to erect smoking sections outside. The building commissioner's office required the removal of a fence around a sidewalk patio at Savage's Ale House on High Street downtown.
Green said that while he believed the plan commission office was looking into the issue, nothing had come before the board itself.
Veach said the downtown group planned to meet with Mayor Dennis Tyler and officials from the Metropolitan Plan Commission to talk about steps that should be taken about sidewalk accessibility.
Contact business editor Keith Roysdon at 213-5828. Find him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/keithroysdon.
