17-75 Special Exception 806 Howard Street

Home Browse Search

codified by ND,NENC, and South Bend for this neighborhood, and this vision does NOT include the expanded building size and mixed use proposed for 806 Howard Street. C. Our own street parking will also be adversely affected by the proposed addition of street parking for 35+ more cars in the vicinity of 806 Howard street. D. The value and safe use of our neighborhood's Keller Park, by our own as well as our neighbors' children, also will be adversely affected by the additional traffic and street parking. 3. "The proposed use will be consistent with the character of the district in which it is located and the land uses authorized therein." A. The planned expansion and use of the property at 806 Howard Street is completely out of character with its immediate neighbors,and violates the standards that have been carefully agreed upon by the Northeast Neighborhood Community and already accepted as an overlay by the ABZA. B. The addition of non-primary rental space,particularly space that will be open to undergraduate college students, would both adversely affect the value of of adjacent properties,but also directly contravenes the purposes and plans laid out by the NENC zoning overlay. C. Finally: There is already a very carefully planned mixed-use area under development on Eddy Street. Meanwhile,there has been NO neighborhood discussion or approval for a single, massively over-built, mixed- use building in the middle of a single home residential area of the neighborhood. Further, The Eddy Street Commons development also adheres to our neighborhood zoning overlays in a way that the proposed plans for 806 Howard do not. 4 "The proposed use is compatible with the recommendations of the City of South Bend Comprehensive Plan." A. The City of South Bend and the ABZA have already accepted and codified the northeast neighborhood (NENC) plan as a legal subset of the city's overall plan. The City gives preference to the NENC overlay requirement, for example, that our fences be no taller than 5 feet, even though the City itself allows for 6 foot tall fences. Therefore,the City of South Bend has already demonstrated its acknowledgement that the NENC standards are a legal subset of the City's Comprehensive Plan, and these NENC standards also apply to the property at 806 Howard Street. These standards do not allow for the proposed changes to this property, nor does the City's Comprehensive Plan provide any basis for overturning NENC's standards by default. B. Finally, we have already had a disturbing precedent in both the original building at 806 Howard Street which was developed despite great opposition in the early 1990's, as well as the more recent development at 1121 North Notre Dame Avenue property, in which the by-now-extant NENC plan was disregarded, and the NENC not given a full chance to review. It is my understanding that even the city has acknowledged that this should not have happened. It seems that in in the case of 806 Howard Street,the NENC once again has not been given a chance to meet, review or comment on the proposed variances before the ABZA meets to rule on them on December 6. Every time the neighborhood zoning is ignored and the NENC left out of the vetting process,both the community's and City's plans are further eroded. What a shame, after so many people have spent so much time and money on the vision and plans for our neighborhood,plans in which—Again-mixed use areas of high value to the community and the city have already been included on North Eddy Street. 2