Neighbors push back on Notre Dame plan to add parking lots on Palmer Street

SOUTH BEND — Plans for the University of Notre Dame to put parking lots on land on the eastern part of campus are facing resistance from a family that has century-old roots to the area and the school.

University officials won a favorable ruling Tuesday from the county plan commission to rezone four quarter-acre lots on Palmer Street, in between two existing Notre Dame parking lots.

Robert and Theresa Smith and Theresa's aunt, Adeline Marozsan, who all own homes on Palmer Street, say the parking lots will ruin their homesteads.

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"We've owned these residential properties for 100 years," Robert Smith said at the plan commission meeting. "Since Knute Rockne led the Four Horsemen. Since before Notre Dame Stadium existed."

The Smiths contend Palmer Street is too narrow to handle traffic from parking lots. And Marozsan, who is 92, takes daily walks the stretch of Bulla Road to get her mail.

Palmer Street is a small, dead-end road that runs south of Bulla Road. It has become virtually landlocked by university-owned property as the campus expanded eastward over the decades. There are five privately-owned properties on Palmer Street. The university's parking lot expansion plan does not require the acquisition of the homes.

University officials told the plan commission there are future plans to add research buildings near McCourtney Hall, the first dedicated research facility in the East Campus Research Complex on campus, near Leahy Drive. The parking lot expansion, they said, is the first step in that process.

The Marozsan family has lived in the area for at least 50 years, and the ownership of the Smith family and their predecessors dates back to the 1920s. Robert Smith also has two degrees from Notre Dame.

But they say their lives in the neighborhood would be changed with the university's plan to put in 141 parking spaces on the four rezoned tracts and another one already zoned for it.

"Addie once asked a Holy Cross priest, 'Can't they leave us alone until we die? Is that too much to ask?'" Robert Smith told the plan commission. "Apparently so, and they have made it your problem."

Mike Danch, of Danch, Harner & Associates Inc., representing Notre Dame, said the parking lots would have evergreen landscaping to reduce the impact on the residential properties.

Teresa Smith told the commission her family has supported the university by working in a variety of roles.

"We've been groundskeepers, and maids, secretaries, dining hall, telephone operators, altar boys, a PhD, a Navy captain, and our son, a Notre Dame football player," she said. "We're proud of our contributions to Notre Dame and the nation. There's a saying that 'there's blood in the bricks at Notre Dame.' They must mean the blood and sweat of my family."

The commission voted 8-1 for the favorable recommendation, with commission member Ben Webb casting the lone no vote.

The issue now goes to the county council for final consideration.

Email South Bend Tribune reporter Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame parking lot plan for Palmer Street draws neighbors' ire