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REGULAR MEETING <br />JULY 9, 2007 <br />will see the transformation that has made in the neighborhood. It was the NNRO, some <br />marvelous organizations representing giants in this community, the City of South Bend, <br />Madison Center, St. Joseph Hospital Memorial, Notre Dame, all of them came together <br />with resources and dug in their pockets and spent a lot of money to do the kind of <br />research and ultimately wound up partnering with Kite Realty in Indianapolis who has <br />come up with a magnificent plan. Mr. Roemer urged the Council to approve this <br />marvelous project, which is the design and effort of so many wonderful organizations in <br />this community. <br />Mr. Kevin Ranaghan, 1003 St. Vincent Street, South Bend, Indiana, stated that he lived <br />there for 32 years, before that he lived at 720 Peashway and back during his wilder <br />student days for a while he lived at 925 N. Notre Dame but not in the beautiful house that <br />exists there today. If phase II of this project is built, that is the extension of townhomes <br />and condominiums down Eddy Street would be visible from the back of their home. He <br />has though about this long and hard because it is going to affect the view from his home <br />forever. He has watched the neighborhood go up and down over the years that he has <br />lived there. When the first plans came forward for a little pod up at the corner of Eddy <br />and Edison and a little pod over in five corners with some townhomes in between, he was <br />worried because he thought it was going to be too small. That this wasn't going to work <br />because there just wasn't enough there. He states that the plans that the Council has <br />before them tonight are really exciting. He is really excited about them, and they offer a <br />benefit not only to the neighborhood but to the whole city. Bringing in an increase to the <br />population, business, retail, life with a huge tax pay off for the city. He thinks that this is <br />just a terrific idea. Personally he looks forward to being able to walk to a bakery, a <br />restaurant, a bookstore and to enjoy the personal benefits that this urbanism offers. He <br />has been very impressed with all of the questions and answers that he has heard tonight <br />and with things that he never thought of, but was very encourage by the statement that a <br />lot of conditions that can be put into the PUD agreement, which can then define clearly <br />what it is that the neighborhood is going to get and he encourage the Council to really <br />settle the good concerns of all the neighbors and put them into the conditions of the PUD <br />and give them something that they can move forward with. Because he agrees that if <br />they do not move forward now, he is afraid that they won't move forward at all. <br />Ms. Dorothy Ranaghan, 1003 E. St. Vincent, South Bend, Indiana, stated that she lives <br />just one and half block from the proposed development and have lived in the <br />neighborhood for more than forty years in various locations. She has studied enough <br />about new urbanism to realize that if this project does not have enough density it will not <br />work. Because you can't put in a few stores or a few offices and expect that the traffic <br />for them will come unless there is a density of population as well. So she was not <br />surprise to learn that the project took off into a bigger project, she thinks that it makes <br />sense and thinks that yes that where they live that there will be more traffic, animals to <br />join the woodchuck she has already living under her shed and other problems like that, <br />but progress really demands that they move forward with this project. She stated that she <br />has lived in the neighborhood long enough to see how the neighborhood has deteriorated <br />into crack house and bars disaster after disaster and too see what has happened to the <br />neighborhood in the last few years is most heartening and this project can only make a <br />greater improvement. Her only hope is that the battle over it doesn't destroy the <br />wonderful neighbors that they have as they sort of wind up on opposite side of the <br />project, because it truly is a wonderful neighborhood. <br />Mr. Timothy Matovina 1115 N. Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, stated that he has a <br />two points. He runs approximately three conferences a year at the University of Notre <br />Dame, six months ago he was planning one for the Spring 2009, a large conference and <br />there was only one weekend available in which there was a sufficient amount of hotel <br />rooms available at the Morris Inn to have that conference. He doesn't know what all the <br />uses of the new hotels that are proposed will be. But one use that would certainly be used <br />is for the overflow of the numerous conferences that cannot be held at the University <br />because they are competing with 40 other research institutes to get space. So there is <br />going to be a substantial population of people who are going to use those hotels who <br />wouldn't have come here otherwise because they want to have a conference near campus. <br />It seems that a lot of the conversation tonight has been about the future. Some of the <br />22 <br />