01-28-19 Zoning and Annexation - Laserfiche WebLink

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr. Wyatt clarified, I'm not sure what number you're talking about. Committee Chair Davis replied, The last page that was presented to us. Let me rephrase it this way: What was their rationale for approving it? Mr. Wyatt replied, They didn't have any objection to it and they thought the preservation of the façade helps screen the outdoor storage and the outside crushing from the neighboring properties. Committee Chair Davis stated, Ok, I'll come back to that. Mike Danch, Danch, Harner & Associates with offices located at 1643 Commerce Drive, stated, I'm representing the petitioner. What we are asking to do is for aggregate storage on 3602 Sample Street. The site plan, specifically looking at the aerial photo, it is about a 100,000 square foot building that exists right now. They are going to tear most of that building down. The property runs all the way back to the railroad. It is vacant property at that portion. We worked with the staff and Community Investment asked us, as part of this approval for the special exception, instead of tearing the entire structure down,to leave a portion of the building and use that for offices for this facility.They also asked us to keep up the façade wall all along the entire north side of the property. We will be doing that, too. We will also be reinforcing that wall so when you're looking at it from Sample Street, it will still look like an industrial building sitting there. We took what Community Investment asked us to do and we will be doing that as part of the approval process. There are a lot of permitted uses under the Heavy Industrial but because of what we are doing, morphing materials, under the ordinance we have for the City of South Bend, almost any use under General Industrial requires it to come before you as a special exception. This is just for the use that is there, and it allows Council for BZA to put conditions on the property. In this particular case, we don't have any residential except right on the north side of Sample Street, there is the vacant parking lot and you have to go north of that to get to the first(1st) nearby Single-Family homes. Committee Chair Davis interjected, And what was the reason the staff denied the variance? Mr. Danch replied, It was a proposed variance for what we call foundation landscaping. What the staff was afraid of is if the Board of Zoning Appeals had approved the existing landscaping, if those shrubs died, they wouldn't have to replace them. That is not really a part of the ordinance and if you have foundation landscaping for a use, you have to replace the shrubs. So,what we said was we will take that variance out and we will abide by the ordinance. If you look at the building, there is landscaping all the way along the entire front of the building right now. The staff wanted to make sure that those mature trees up alongside of the building,if they die,they will be replaced. We agreed with the staff. There will be more trees added along the parkway, about seven (7) or eight(8)new trees,per the ordinance. The other variances approved includes screening along both sides. We did have one (1) gentleman speak at the ABZA meeting. His only concern was if we would have an access point at our east property line. We only have one (1) access point which is on the northwest corner of the site. The other question he asked was about noise. Because the operation and the crushing machine they use is portable, we would only be using it for five (5) weeks of the entire year. Because we are doing it on the slab where the existing foundation is,there won't be any vibration. And the noise level done by the pressure, they did a decibel reading at three hundred (300) feet away, it was between fifty-eight (58) and sixty-five (65) decibels. Comparatively, a mower running from three hundred(300)feet away is one hundred and ten(110). EXCELLENCE j ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f 574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 wwvw.southbendin.gov 2