The one-acre lot on English Avenue, just off I-465 on the southeast side of Indianapolis, was a wooded oasis next to Lick Creek.

Then, a little more than a year ago, the property was cleared of trees and brush seemingly overnight, said Harold and Mardina McPhillips, who live on a 2 1/2-acre property down the street. Just as suddenly, a parking lot sprung up there.

“It just popped up one day,” Mardina McPhillips said.

There was no sign telling people what kind of business the parking lot was for, or if it was a business at all. McPhillips, who works nights, said she often sees trucks coming in and out of the “mystery” lot on her way home in the wee morning hours.

City records show the parking lot was built illegally. An IndyStar investigation revealed those trucks aren’t supposed to be there. The site, just a few hundred feet away from the nearest house and down the street from an apartment complex, is not zoned for the parking or storage of heavy commercial vehicles.

The city first inspected the site last year after receiving a citizen’s complaint through the Mayor’s Action Center and later issued a $430 fine. Months passed, but the violations were never addressed, and the fine was never paid, city records show.

In June, the city filed a lawsuit accusing the property owner of illegally storing commercial vehicles at the site and violating rules requiring such parking lots to be paved and fenced.

Truck lots cited for zoning violations

The English Avenue lot is one example of a growing nuisance plaguing some Indianapolis residents. Similar truck facilities, many appearing to have been built haphazardly and improperly zoned, are popping up in a number of largely blue-collar neighborhoods, particularly on the south and southeast sides.

Several have been cited for various zoning violations, including storing junk cars and trailers, and building without permits.

But those citations are of little help to disgruntled residents.

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In some cases, the violations remain unchecked for months, frustrating neighborhood groups who see these lots as a growing problem in their communities. Many are huge, unsanitary eyesores that residents fear are driving down property values, causing already neglected streets to crumble under the weight of heavy vehicles, polluting nearby creeks and destroying wildlife habitats.

Some also worry that unsecured truck parking lots could be a magnet for other illicit activities, although no crimes have been reported in the sites examined by IndyStar.

“It’s almost like a cancer,” said Gary Blackwell, a member of the Warren Township Development Association who has lived in the area for 40 years. “It needs to be stopped before it keeps spreading.”

Lingering violations that prompt city officials to take owners to court are the exception rather than the rule. Kurt Christian, spokesman for the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, said that in majority of zoning disputes ― more than 80% ― property owners resolve the problems voluntarily. Only about 10% to 15% turn into lawsuits, like the one the city filed over the English Avenue site.

“All zoning violation cases have a process of notification, citations, and court action for those that don’t voluntarily comply,” Christian said, adding that property owners can also seek a rezoning or ask for permission to build sites that would otherwise violate ordinances. “That process adds time, but it also includes an opportunity for the public to voice their concerns or remonstrate at the Board of Zoning Appeals’ and other associated meetings.”

English Avenue lot owner ‘tries to do things right’

Biak Za Lian, the owner of the English Avenue lot, said he bought the land in 2020 to build a parking lot for his small trucking company that includes 13 drivers. He said he initially thought parking trucks there to be legal because the site is zoned as a commercial property, and he didn’t think it would be a problem with neighbors.

He was half right. Truck parking is allowed in some commercial and industrial sites, but the English Avenue property is zoned for office spaces. Lian, a Burmese immigrant who learned English after coming to the United States in 2007, said he’s new to the trucking business and is still learning the ropes.

“I try,” he said, “to do things right.”

Cathy Burton, president of the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations, said the trend among many of these truck parking lots is to build first — and ask for permission later. She said this clogs up a system that already moves too slowly to force bad actors to follow the rules.

“Even if they are cited for an illegal zoning activity, if they choose not to comply, then it takes months and months and months, sometimes years, to go through court so that they can be ordered to stop,” Burton said.

Meanwhile, she added, “concerns that the neighbors have are kind of hanging out there.”

‘A vicious cycle’

Logistics is a major industry in Indiana because of its location and easy access to a network of major interstates. The industry boomed during the pandemic as the demand for trucks to deliver goods rose during the pandemic.

This created a dilemma for some truckers who traverse Indianapolis. Smaller, independent trucking companies can’t afford parking fees at large, industrial facilities and need cheaper parking spots in the city, said Joe Calderon, an Indianapolis attorney who handles land use and zoning cases.

While some property owners have been cited for illegally building on these lots, city records also show several others failed to follow site plans that zoning officials approved in exchange for allowing them to build on sites that would otherwise violate zoning ordinances.

“It’s a vicious cycle,” said Eddie Hager, vice president of the Far Southeastern Neighborhood Association. “The city has allowed companies to destroy the environment, roads and neighborhoods.”

Calderon, who represents people and companies accused of zoning violations, acknowledges this frustration. But he said the zoning process, albeit slow, allows for due process. Just because there’s a citation, he noted, doesn’t always mean there’s a violation.

“There are clearly people that just do what they want,” he said. “And some people are innocent. They just don’t know any better, and they try to correct things.”

Post Road lot houses dozens of semi-trucks

Three miles east of the English Avenue property, on South Post Road next to the Indianapolis World Sports Park, is an even bigger parking lot that had been rezoned as an industrial site and now houses dozens of semi-trucks.

The city said it gave the owner permission to develop the property into a commercial truck parking facility, but the site is now being used to store inoperable vehicles. Earlier this year, the city issued a $430 fine, which has yet to be paid.

On a recent morning, bags of trash, cars and rusting trailers were scattered around the unpaved lot with overgrown weeds.

Jay Singh, owner of Yodha Logistics, a Sacramento, Calif.-based company that owns the South Post Road property, said he was unaware of the fine until an IndyStar reporter asked about it. He acknowledged that some drivers who pay to park their trucks in the lot may leave unregistered cars there.

“We’ll try to get them evicted as soon as possible. We do give them notices and ask them to please get it out,” he said. “Some of these guys, they just don’t understand.”

Singh said he plans to add security guards at the site in the next month.

Trucking company owner seeks rezoning for 5-acre lot

Vishavdeep Singh Cheema, who owns a small trucking company, bought a five-acre parcel of land at Troy and South Arlington Avenue more than a year ago and is seeking to rezone for parking his trucks. The property, which now has overgrown weeds and trailers, has also been cited for violations.

Cheema said he’s working to get the trailers out of the property, but doesn’t think they’re a problem.

“I don’t think it’s causing trouble to anyone around it,” Cheema said, adding there are other facilities with trucks and trailers in the neighborhood, and he’s simply trying to make a living.

Neighborhood group leaders say they have nothing against the trucking industry or drivers. They just want property owners to follow the rules.

“God bless the truck drivers, we need them,” said Ron Phillips, president of the Warren Township Development Association. “It’s the parking that’s the issue.”

Calls for better enforcement

Hager, the Far Southeastern Neighborhood Association vice president, began paying attention to problems at truck parking facilities a few years ago after noticing a development on the southern outskirts of Beech Grove, where there are at least four parking lots just inside the I-465 loop. IndyStar found three of them have been cited for violations.

Hager said specific regulations and stronger enforcement are needed to adequately address truck parking. For example, the city should have the ability to issue cease-and-desist orders forcing parking lot owners to comply with zoning regulations and fix problems immediately, Hager said.

But targeting semi-truck parking can be tricky because the city risks legal exposure for calling out a specific industry, said City-County Councilor Michael-Paul Hart, whose district includes Warren Township.

Earlier this year, the city passed an ordinance capping the size of commercial parking lots to two acres. It also prohibits truck stops from being within 500 feet of houses, hospitals, parks, schools, churches and historically significant areas.

The ordinance is a start, Hart said, but it doesn’t completely address residents’ concerns.

“The struggle is when I talked to the Office of Corporate Counsel, we could not specifically mention semi-truck parking. They were concerned that the city would be sued,” Hart said. “That’s why we look at all of commercial parking as a whole.”

The McPhillips have lived on English Avenue for 45 years. They normally hear about new developments in the neighborhood, like when a company built a nearby paintball field a few years ago. They receive notices, and public hearings are held.

None of that happened with the big parking lot just a few hundred feet from their modest, red-brick home. Mardina McPhillips said neighbors should’ve been notified.

Two months after the city sued the owner over problems at the site ― and more than a year since it first issued a notice of violation ― the eyesore remains. Trash litters the still unpaved and unfenced lot. Trucks and detached trailers sit among overgrown weeds. A large oil container rests in one corner next to a propane tank and a stack of used tires.

Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at kphillips@indystar.com.