Building Casa de Eble at New Beth-el

Where did it all start? Well I think Holly and I talked back when we were dating about building a home someday. We both wanted a couple of acres of land and NO vinyl! This was way down on our priority list until 2007 or so. In the spring/summer of 2007 we began looking out on Mibor for lots of land in Franklin Township in Indianapolis (for those of you that don’t know, that would be the SE corner of Marion County). This would put us a bit closer to Columbus IN (my work) but keep us up in Indy for Holly’s work and the Catholic schools.

We found some land in the Wanamaker area that seemed ideal but had been deemed unbuildable due to platting issues around septics and sewers. To make it short, in 1997 due to the EPA suing Indianapolis there were a limited number of septic permits given to the New Beth-el developer. There was expected to be an impending entrance of sewers in the area. By 2007 the sewers had not come and several 3 acre lots were sitting growing grass. We consulted a lawyer but the outlook wasn’t so good.

In November of 2007 Greg Ballard was elected mayor of Indianapolis (!) and we decided it may be worth a shot under a pro-growth administration. We talked to the lawyer again, talked to the land owner and made a lowball bid on his 3 lots (10 acres total) with one condition, we’d cover the lawyer fees to make the land buildable but the seller couldn’t pull the rug out from under us during the process.

Little did we expect that it would take almost 2 years to close the deal! In the process we’d get 10 of 11 homeowner signatures, get extorted by the developer, agree in principle to “donate” to a City-Council member’s re-election, design our dream home, get the platting changes approved through the City Development Commission, pull septic permits and finally buy the land! We bought all 3 lots covering 10 acres but had decided relatively late in the game not to build. Instead, we’d sell the land and sit tight where we were. Starting in late 2008, the economy really took a nosedive and I wasn’t in much of a mood to build a house. We have 2 lots sold to date. Anyone out there interested in a 3 acre lot in Wanamaker Indiana?

Side note – That City-County Council member is now on trial in a federal court for accepting bribes. Hmmmmm.