08-22-11 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 22, 2011 Charles Hayes, Managing Partner of Five Corners LLC. Mr. Hayes advised that should not be confused with the tower company. Mr. Hayes stated that Fiver Corners LLC owns three of the five corners Notre Dame owns the other two, so they are looking forward to participating in the development of this neighborhood in fact; he hopes that he will be a resident of the neighborhood when the triangle development is open for single family. As a future resident and a future developer participate he is speaking in favor of this bill. The following individual spoke in opposition to the bill: Mr. Wayne Curry, 1050 Burns Avenue, South Bend, Indiana, spoke in opposition to this bill. Mr. Curry advised that he is a current resident in the triangle, and one of the people along with his neighborhood that lives in a Habitat for Humanity home, who the NNRO has tried to gentrify and kick out of the neighborhood. He stated that these guidelines are a part of the reason that there homes were not allowed to stay because they don’t match the current guidelines back in 2000, there was discussion on leaving their homes. He stated that over the years the interest in their neighborhood is actually simply because of a document that the had read that the northeast neighborhood is like the gateway into Notre Dame’s campus and having been run down according to the document it has a negative impact on the perception of the University of Notre and their goal was to clean-up the gateway to the university. As well as them wanting to come up with a campus town setting so that they can become a top 10 university in the world. He stated that while there is nothing wrong with their goals, but when you actually make the guidelines in ordinances and force people to build more expensive homes what happens is that you are pushing out the poor and average folks out of the neighborhoods and making room for the wealthier folks. Now, if they are going to pass guidelines like this then you should pass them for the entire city, not just a neighborhood. Some other things that might be unattended consequences to this, is that they say it is for new construction only, what if you have a current house and it burns down or a tornado comes and takes it, now you have to rebuild that home up again, new construction and you would have to use these guidelines. He stated that he thinks that everyone in this neighborhood has the potential of having their insurance premiums increased with these guidelines if they are passed as well. So there are some other questions that have to be thought through a little more and how it will impact those who live here if there was a catastrophe or a disaster happened to their homes. Some other things were requiring porches to be 24 to 48 “ off the ground, realizing that might look nice, but lets say if you have a handicapped person who wants to build in the neighborhood, the higher the elevation of the porch, you have to have 1 foot per every inch of rise on the elevation, so that would require a 48’ foot ramp to get into their home. So there are certain instances where these guidelines would not want to be followed. He stated that it says that these guidelines are first and foremost over any South Bend guidelines. He stated that he did not see anything in there for the handicapped. He reiterated that the potential for increased insurance premiums, handicapped accessibility, and he doesn’t believe that it is fair for others to impose building standards on property that they don’t own. If you have a subdivision and you own all the property and you want to have covenants in that subdivision there is nothing wrong with saying that if you want to build here this is what you have to do. But to go out there is a certain part of the city and say that every single empty lot has to build our way, even though we don’t own it, is highly unfair. He stated that he thinks it violates property owner’s rights. No, rebuttal from the petitioner. Councilmember Varner stated Mr. Curry brought up some very good questions, how it affects the handicapped. Also, in the event of a loss of a home, will that property be subject to the overlay. Mr. Mariani advised that in regard to the handicapped accessibility, there is a variance process that is built into this, so if there is a question of hardship from anybody there it can certainly be brought to the attention to the Board of Zoning Appeals and there can be a conservation and a remedy brought forward to deal with that. 7