INDIANAPOLIS — Fountain Square is growing and, for the most part, people would probably tell you that's news they are happy to hear. What they don't want to hear is the constant construction they say is keeping them up at night and waking them up in the morning.
"It's everything from heavy concrete mixers to jack hammers, drills, back hoes, saws bulldozers, they've been cutting trees, any activity you can imagine," Barbara Janiak said.
If Janiak hears one more bulldozer, she might scream. She said her once quiet Fountain Square neighborhood is now home to unwanted noise as construction crews build new homes up and down her street.
"Growth has become perpetual construction activities for greater than the past few years to be honest, and lately it's just reached an escalation point in terms of noise and the heavy construction vehicles coming up the streets and alley ways at all hours of the day and it doesn't seem to be any end," Janiak said.
Janiak said construction crews seem to work hardest when everyone else on the block has returned home in the evening from a hard day's work. She said the loud noises usually come to a rest around 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. when the city's noise ordinance kicks in. Now every bang, boom and pop has her wanting the city to start that noise ordinance much earlier in the day.
"Frankly, there are people in the neighborhood that have to study, that maybe need to go to bed early for different reasons, people with infant children that need to go to bed early or do their homework between the hours of 5 to 7," Janiak said. "That's at the end of my long work day so I'm usually already cranky from the drive home."
City-County councilman Zach Adamson represents the Fountain Square area. He said he is happy his district is booming with new life, but he understands the growing pains can be uncomfortable. He said that although it doesn't appear the construction crews are breaking any laws or rules, there is still something neighbors can do.
"Sure, I think the idea here is that we want everyone to be good neighbors to each other and you can often get a lot more mileage out of just walking over and asking them, 'Hey, you know, this is still a residential area could you be conscious of that and not start your hammering before 9 in the morning?'" Adamson said.
