17-75 Special Exception 806 Howard Street

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b. This structure is already too-large and out-of-place in the residential neighborhood and the scale dwarfs neighboring houses.When people find out where I live they inevitable remark on the Pandora building, and how out-of-place it is,and ask how it was allowed to be built in that neighborhood. It is an obvious failure in zoning,though I understand the building was permitted over strong neighborhood objection in the early 1990s in part based on the idea that a local bookstore would benefit a community of professors and students and in part to resolve litigation against the city relating to another property. But let's please not double-down on bad zoning variances to change a smaller bookstore into a much larger mixed use building even more out-of-character with the neighborhood. c. A building 45-50 feet tall will affect the skyline of the neighborhood, as the building will become visible over houses to neighbors who don't currently see the building.A collegiate gothic, mixed-use structure visible throughout the neighborhood will adversely affect property values. d. As proof that tall structures adjacent to homes adversely affect the values of the homes, consider that the South Bend Code for residential houses specifies a maximum height of 35',and even then limits the height to 2.5 stories,so that the height of the building is at the center of the property. With appropriate setbacks required by zoning,the adverse effect on neighbors is minimized. Here,we have zero setback from a neighbor, and a 45-50 structure. It will block the view of the sky from my kitchen and will block the sky and sun from the backyard and rear of the future house on our property on the corner of Howard and ND Ave. e. We've spoken to numerous people, including various friends and people with backgrounds in architecture, as a check to determine whether our concerns are unfounded.The feedback from these people—to a person—has confirmed and strengthened our view of how detrimental the proposed changes to the building and its use would be to the value of our house and our lot that will be occupied by a house some day.We would not have paid what we paid for that lot if this propsed building were built, because anyone would insist on a discount to purchase a house with a large mixed-use building looming behind it. 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 owner's petition says that the proposed use (office and residential) is generally considered to be less intensive than the current use(retail).This may be true generally, but not in our neighborhood. If the current office building was proposed to be converted to apartments,the neighborhood objection be extremely strong.We prefer office use to apartment/residential use.Student residences in the past,and Notre Dame donor vacation/rental use now, have been strongly resisted in the neighborhood by NENC, Notre Dame, and neighbors. b. As noted above,the building(zoned "Office") is already completely out-of-character for the neighborhood(no other parcels zoned "Office" much less"Office and Residential" or"Mixed Use"), and increasing its mass and changing its character to mixed use makes it even more inconsistent with the neighborhood.To say this building is consistent with the neighborhood would be cited as precedent for more buildings like this in our neighborhood.That would be exactly the wrong direction for our neighborhood. 4. "The proposed use is compatible with the recommendations of the City of South Bend Comprehensive Plan." a. The owner's petition says that proposed use is compatible with the Plan because it involves adaptive reuse of an existing structure and includes residential above office space.The building property is currently zoned office, so its use as office is consistent with that and is certainly fine.There is insufficient off-street parking(per zoning rules)to add another story of office space. I'm not sure the adaptive use 2