10-12-09 Common Council Meeting Agenda & Packet

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Area Board of Zoning Appeals -September 2, 2009 ~~~lt ~1~_ o~-bo STEPHEhi DRAGOVICH The petition of Stephen Dragovich seeking a Special Exception to allow a group residence for up to five (5) unrelated people in a "MFl" District, on properly located at 616 N: St. Peter Street, Portage Township. Zoned "MF 1 ". MR. KIMMEL PASSED OUT MAPS TO THE BOARD MEMBERS AT THIS TIME MR. JEFF KIMMEL: 218 W: Washington Street, Suite 600, South Bend, Indiana. I'm an attorney and I am speaking on behalf of Stephen Dragovich who's here with me today and he filed the petition himself. What we're seeking here in this petition is for a Special Use variance that would allow Stephen to rent the home that he owns at 616 N. St. Peter Street. Steve has lived in that house for eight years. This is a house that has been in Steve's family for three generations. His grandparents lived there. His mother was raised there. His father was a Notre Dame student many, many; years ago and rented part of the house where he met Steve's mother and Steve purchased the property from his father about eight years ago. Steve's father has passed away and this used to be a family neighborhood and it was zoned that way. But what I've passed out here is some maps of the area and the one house that we have highlighted in the red there in the sea of yellow is Steve's house. And the fact is, a general visual of what the neighborhood is like today. Steve lives there, doesn't rent to anyone. Currently all the houses you see in yellow are being used as rental properties. The upper left hand corner, the property just across South Bend Avenue, that was a group home that opened up just a couple of years ago I believe owned by the Madison Center. To right and just to the south of that is a large apartment building. Just south of that is a vacant lot directly across the street from 616 N. St. Peter. Below that is a home but it is used for student rental. I don't know, the zoning may be single family, but it's grandfathered in as a boarding house and it's owned by Kramer Properties and it's used for student rentals as is the house directly south of that. The third house to the south across the street from Steve is also a rental property owned by a different individual. Going over on the map on the same side of the street where Steve lives all the way to the north, MF1, a large apartment. South of that a rental property. South of that next door to the north of Steve, student rental. Below that for the next three houses, all student rentals. The house on the very south of the street has been abandoned for several years and the house to the right of that is no longer standing, that's been demolished and there is a large construction project under way and we don't know the exact nature of it but it's certainly not for a single family use. Down along the south of Sorin Street those are just. the properties that Steve marked that he knows for absolute certainty that are student rentals that we think there are probably more of those as well. So I know this came out of or come to you with an unfavorable recommendation but I don't think the staff realized what the demographics were here when they made that recommendation. And I hope they would change that upon consideration of what we're dealing with here. I think the main reason for the unfavorable recommendation up to this point goes back and it's sited here as a 2003 a Northeast Neighborhood council or plan to revert this back to single family residences. That is idealistic but it's unrealistic. These properties are being used as rentals and it's never coming back as single family. Steve's been there for eight years and since he's been there two apartments have opened. There's a new construction project coming up behind him for more multi family, multi use, multi resident purposes. A group home has opened up. He doesn't enjoy living there anymore and for the Board to deny him the right to do what everybody else around him is doing, would be to ensnare him and entrap him there and that would be grossly unfair given the fact that he's not someone who's come in from out of town and looked for this property. This 38