08-17 CBD Height text amendment - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

St. Joseph County Area Plan Commission Suite 1140 County -City Bldg. RE: The Matthews Monster 21 Feb. 2017 Commissioners: I take this opportunity to address you regarding the Matthews Monster, playing by the rules, and the need to uphold the integrity of properly crafted Area Plans as the proven means to insure an optimal and orderly development of the urban environment. You have before you a measure brought by Council Members who are, in what some may term a most unseemly fashion, intent on breaking the East Race Area Plan. They do so as an ill- considered accommodation to Mr.Malthews, who is now famous for his unwillingness to respect duly executed Planning rules, and who is now determined to build an over -sized and over - priced apartment mega -block that would destroy the fabric of the East Race neighborhood. l cannot urge you too strongly to rebuff this effort to unduly enrich himself at a terrible cost to the community. I will remind all, that the existing Area Plan for the East Race, despite its curious mis- characterization as a part of the CBD, was carefully drafted in accordance with sound planning principles and with a responsibly sensitive vision for the neighborhood as a diminished -scale mix of small business and residences, as a transition zone between Downtown and its surrounding residential neighborhoods, and was done so with the involvement and approval of the East Race residents. Thus, in the Plan, the river is very deftly reinforced as the natural eastern boundary to Downtown, and is provided with an easy and more relaxed human- scaled access to its eastern bank, from which the community at large can experience this priceless asset, framed against the backdrop of the Downtown to the west. This Plan is a fine piece of work and a credit to the art of City Planning. Then along comes Mr.Matthews, with his now - characteristic Give -Me -an -Inch- and -I'll- Demand -a -Mile attitude and a grim determination to turn property less expensive because of the Plan's limitations, into a gold mine of greedy and insensitive over - development. And to add insult to the intended injury, he delegates its design to cheap and undeveloped student talent. It is hard for one to imagine a greater poke in the eye to the best interests of the community. Sadly, because he has marshaled some popular support from a demographic unable to see a picture larger than the screen of their phones or smart enough to realize they cannot afford the rents, and because the pressure of TIF expectations has fostered impatience and discontent among certain short- sighted Council Members, this Commission is being pressured to abandon its sound planning practices in favor of a Plan -of- the -Month approach, in shameless capitulation to the wants of a greedy Special Interest. To cave in the face of this unseemly pressure, would be a renunciation of the higher purposes of City Planning and its responsibilities to the community at large. On behalf of our community, I strongly urge this Commission to stand fast behind the current Area Plan and insist that its current limits are both appropriate and validly enforceable. Just say no to the influence of moneyed Special Interests that only care about their own bottom line. Our community is counting on you not to abandon their best interests. In closing, I further suggest that Mr.Oliver should recuse himself from your deliberations, to forestall any taint of conflict of interest. Sincerely, S.J.Szabo South Bend resident and Principal, The EN /SYN DESIGN Studio � R ECE IVED] FE-0 ? 1 2017 4 AREA PLAN COMMISSION