17-75 Special Exception 806 Howard Street

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Area Board of Zoning Appeals—December 6, 2017 MS.JENNIFER FORTENER: I live 1006 N. Notre Dame Ave. I don't really have anything extra to add except that I have young children too. I don't like these parking variances. They've a problem. I've seen numerous accidents at Notre Dame and Howard already. People don't see those signs. People don't stop at those signs. I don't think that this will make that situation any better or slow traffic in any way with what I witness on a daily basis looking at Howard Street and football games indicative of how the parking effects the traffic also does not calm traffic. MR.ADAM REBOLLOSO: I share a home at 919 N. Notre Dame Ave. with Rita Schmid and within 300'. 1 guess to start off you're hearing a lot about the height of the building which I understand is not in contention but just ask the question, would this go up with that height increase if the Special Exception wasn't approved? I think we probably could clear up a lot of people's confusion on that. We're happy to have interest in the redevelopment of this property. We look forward to welcoming a new neighbor and spirit to it. And being familiar with a handful of principals of the buying entity, I can say that I feel confident in their business prudence but the question is what happens in the future when in the case that they relinquish ownership of the property. The marketability of that building is going to have a very specific end target. And I don't see any way it could avoid turning into student housing for those who are interested. As far as the mixed use,to address that,there seems to be a lot of claims that this is a mixed use neighborhood. If you look back at the South Bend, the City of South Bend Comprehensive Plan, and the future land use map which provides which provides guidance according to the plan to the Area Plan Commission,the South Bend Common Council regarding rezoning petitions. It also guides developers and property owners from making investment decisions on the future use of the property. I think if that was looked at you would see that this is a medium density residential neighborhood. The Eddy Street Commons is pinpointed as a neighborhood commercial node which is small scaled retail and service area that serves the adjacent neighborhoods. Mixed uses are encouraged in the neighborhood commercial nodes which we're seeing demonstrated in Eddy Street but you get to Notre Dame Avenue and you go down far enough west and far enough south and it's all residential so I'd just like to reference that map, the land use map. Thank you for your time. MS. GIA HAIGH: I'm at 925 Notre Dame Avenue so also right behind the red brick building and we also own that strip of land with the trees. I have seven children who, if you ever drive by Howard and Notre Dame,you probably see them playing outside along with 15 to 20 other children in the neighborhood, every day, all day. I home school so when they're done with school pretty early they're out there. And also since I home school I have a good sense of what's going in the neighborhood during the day. To say that stripping parking on Howard is going to mitigate the problem is kind of crazy. I have elderly parents who often try to visit me now,with this empty, and can't park in front of my house and I have to move a car out of the driveway for them to come in or run out to the car to bring them something because they can't even find a parking spot on Notre Dame Avenue. You know you have anything going on with any house there there's only parking on one side of Notre Dame,so if there's,the thought that people are just going to park there,especially when coming down Howard this way, it's a lot closer to just park in front of my house on Notre Dame. And when there's only a few residential spots or a few spots per residence,you know I'm not going to stand out there with cones to not let people park,you know they're not going to tell people that are visiting or people that are in those offices even if they tell their workers they can't tell people that are coming to visit them,don't park on Notre Dame Avenue. Already it's, I mean it's a high traffic area, but I feel like these families that have come in have brought back a neighborhood feel. We've had so many people comment on how it's bringing this old school Notre Dame family life back to Notre Dame Avenue like it was years ago. And I can only image that with this building here and if we can't park and if we feel unsafe, if we can't,you know they put a ton into this new park that's just to the side here, if we feel unsafe walking our kids to the park, it's only going to push families, like all of us that are on that street have multiple kids, push them out of the city. Many reasons a lot of our friends are in Granger is because they wanted a safe environment for kids to be able to walk around. And now we have the same problems as if we lived in the heart of the City. Thank you. 18